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?