GROUP A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
GROUP B: Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, Greece
GROUP C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia
GROUP D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana
GROUP E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon
GROUP F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia
GROUP G: Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal
GROUP H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile
My initial thoughts:
- I was fully expecting the USA to get the Group of Death after drawing England early, but it’s actually not bad. Slovenia will be tougher than we think — they did knock off Russia to get here, after all — but advancing to the knockout round does seem a little more possible than it did a few weeks ago.
- Group G is the Group of Death this year. Brazil, Ivory Coast & Portugal in one group? It’s enough to make you want to see Cristiano Ronaldo cry. Again. (Note from Brian Phillips of The Run of Play: “I really want to know how Group G is going to be written up in the North Korean state media.”)
- If Argentina fails to advance from Group B, the Church of Maradona will get torched. By its followers.
- Spain and Italy are stone cold locks to advance, and France will probably get through in spite of itself.
So there it is. We have six months to talk about this before it actually happens. What do you blog readers think of this?
2 responses so far ↓
1 Jeff // Dec 4, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I wouldn’t be too happy if I were French. Uruguay’s tougher than you’d think, South Africa’s playing at home and used to the atmosphere (literally and figuratively), and Mexico appears to have stopped sucking. Won’t be easy for them, especially with Crazy Ray running the show.
2 a different Dave // Dec 5, 2009 at 4:09 am
This is a much better group for the USA than we had any right to expect. England will be a challenge, and we certainly should not underestimate Algeria or Slovenia, but getting out of this group should be doable for the USA. Now we need to get Gooch back and make sure everyone else stays healthy and gets plenty of playing time at their clubs. If we can’t get out of this group something is wrong.