Groups A, B predictable

Champions League final last month. Without him operating at 100 per cent in their attacking ranks, Egypt could be vulnerable to a plucky Russia or Saudi Arabia, but should still fancy their chances of progressing.

Egypt v

Uruguay; Saturday, June 16, 1am [NZ time]. Should decide who gets top spot, and the easier round of 16 match – on paper anyway.

Uruguay, Egypt. especially as they are both ranked inside the world’s top 10. They should have too much firepower – and too much biggame experience – for their rivals from Africa and Asia. An African nation has made the round of 16 at each World Cup since 1986, and two of them advanced for the first time in Brazil in 2014, but Morocco don’t appear a leading contender to carry that torch this time around.

Iran are a stronger chance for an upset, playing with a dour, defensive approach that favours not conceding over scoring – though they did run rampant when faced with weak opposition early on in Asian qualifying. They only conceded five times in 18 matches – three times in eight in the final stage, with the minnows eliminated – and putting up stiff resistance will be their best chance of making some noise.

Portugal were underwhelming in winning

Euro 2016 – they advanced as one of the best third-placed teams, with three draws, then needed extra time, twice, and penalties, once, in their run to the title. Similar efforts this time around could leave them ripe for the picking – they play Iran in their final match, which could end up being a decider, depending on earlier results.

Iran v Portugal; Tuesday, June 26, 6am [NZ time]. If there’s going to be an upset in this group, it will likely involve Iran winning this one.

Portugal. Spain, Iceland’s football fairytale in the 2018 Fifa World Cup has a comic start to its finals leg after manager Heimir Hallgrimsson delayed the team’s departure for tournament host Russia when he put his bag on the wrong bus.

‘‘I was trying to help things along, but put my bag on the wrong bus,’’ Hallgrimsson said, explaining his bag ended up in the western Iceland town of Arkanes rather than at the Reykjavik airport.

An expert manager, Hallgrimsson turned the bag faux-pas into a morale-booster at the airport with a round of coffees and a coach’s joke as they waited for the bag. ‘‘This is our mistake for the trip, and at least the kit manager got a good laugh out of it,’’ he said.

The team, now in Russia, gained automatic qualification through Europe – no mean feat for the small island nation of some 350,000 people and now ranked world No 22 in football. Even Disney couldn’t have written Iceland’s World Cup story better.

Start with a country that’s buried in ice and snow for more than half the year, one with fewer people than Anaheim and a soccer league long more amateur than professional.

From that, pull together a national team managed by a parttime dentist and driven by potential no one outside the locker room could see, then watch it become the smallest nation ever to qualify for a World Cup.

There’s just one problem with that narrative: Like ‘‘Cinderella,’’ it’s a fairytale – albeit one the team has gone along with because, well, it’s made Iceland the tournament’s lovable underdog.

‘‘Let’s keep it that way,’’ Hallgrimsson, the dentist-turnedcoach, said. ‘‘I think everybody will support Iceland in Russia.’’

Maybe, but if they’ve come to cheer the World Cup’s version of Leicester City, a scrappy team of true believers who are far better collectively than individually, then they’re cheering the romance more than the reality.

Iceland didn’t get here overnight, nearly winning an invite to soccer’s biggest party four years ago, then proving that wasn’t a fluke by drawing with Portugal and beating England to reach the quarterfinals of the 2016 Euros.

‘‘We can never go back on saying ‘Oh, we’re too small to go to the World Cup’ or ‘We’re too small to get the Euros.’ Because we’ve done it,’’ said midfielder Aron Gunnarsson, the team’s captain. ‘‘And once you do it together, anything is possible in football.

‘‘You don’t get tired of the questions. It’s how it is. We know where we stand.’’

Los Angeles Times