Matt Bright is backing Serbia to cause an upset in Group D after a pre-tournament defeat led to a fans' riot!
FanZoner expects Serbia to top their group at Germany's expense
With the thought of lining up against Australia and group favourites Germany, the last thing Serbia would have wanted was a loss against New Zealand in their last warm-up game.
But to add injury to insult, not only was the performance poor, the fans turned their anger on the players leading to riots in the stand! It got so bad that Vidic had to get on the PA system and ask them to 'calm down'.
There are a few ways to prepare for a World Cup, intensive training camps, altitude tests, but a loss to New Zealand and the fans rioting isn't really the best preparation; however it could be the push Serbia needed.
Boost
The White Eagles had a promising qualifying stage, topping the group at the expense of France but have clearly lost a bit of that fire power losing to New Zealand, but if you ever needed a boost and a reason to up your game then seeing your fans rioting in the stand would be one.
I am pretty confident that Serbia will make it past the group stage. Germany are obviously their biggest threat, but then no one would have picked Serbia to win their group with the likes of France, Austria and Romania, but magically they came through it and topped the group by one point and a very impressive goal difference.
If they can recreate the form that they had in qualifying then I wouldn't bet against them upsetting the Germans and providing yet again that they should not be underestimated.
Ability
The key for the White Eagles, though, is the strong link up between the defence with two names that all Premier League fans are familiar with; Man Utd's Nemanja Vidic and Chelsea's Branoslav Ivanovic.
They play for two of the best teams in the world and against the best strikers in the world each week so I have a lot of confidence in their ability, plus with Stankovic in the middle pulling all the strings going forward, the centre line looks very strong and that gives me a lot of faith in the teams ability.
So only just over a week to go till the first game against Ghana on the June 13th, early to say this but it's a must-win really, because only five days later it's Group D's biggest game, Germany v Serbia, a game that I believe will decide the group winners, or as I call them, Serbia.
Come on you White Eagles!
