Is Death Band a Legend? Not If Your Team Is In It.


Everyone is talking about it, no one wants to be in it, and it may not even exist.

The answer to this riddle? Death Group.

You can bet that as soon as the draw is over, fans and journalists will pick the group with the strongest teams and call it the Death Group. Every four years there is a quartet where danger lurks at every turn and handshaking is the most common pastime.

And even if the groups are fairly evenly matched, the punditocracy will choose a Death Group. It seems mandatory. Sometimes there is disagreement about games that are still seven months old, allowing for weeks of heated discussion.

Perhaps the most famous Death Group – the Spanish, even more colorful groupo de la muerte – arrived at the second group stage in 1982. Argentina, Brazil and Italy were all in the same group, a group in which only one team could advance. Italy won and went on to take the entire tournament in an almost anticlimactic semi-final and final.

A possible Death Group this year? Imagine a group with the defending champions France; Netherlands, always a strong European team; African champion Senegal; and Canada, which was number one in the Concacaf qualifiers.

But even if you can’t spot the Death Group right away, someone will definitely point it out.



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