Look for group F too be a suprise group, Brazil, reigning champs, Japan semi-finalists last time around, Croatia always has a tough side(lack scoring sometimes) and Austrailia is on a high right now.. this could be the surprise group.

I don't know about Group G, but South Korea is strong, and so are the Swiss. France has a lot to prove though and should prevail, or will the curse of Africa come back and bite them again...

Aside from Group E where I think the Czech and the U.S. will be batteling for the final spot. Who ever wins their head to head will probably advance.

Suprised by that, well the gypsy lived in Toronto for years and football was a religion for most of my neighbours, Portugese from Brazil, Italians(closed the city for three days in 1980 when they won the world cup) and a huge South American population. Then I worked with a couple of English guys for a few years (one of them lived and died with Bolton poor sod) and filled in all the pieces I had missed.

I spent the last World Cup in hospital recuperating from a post surgical infection, Was up at wee hours so actually saw the games live on C.B.C. broadcast from Japan... I love the atmosphere of the World Cup and the pace of football when it's played well. One of the few sports where you cas sometimes see a play develop from one end of the field to the other, without there being any pre planning.

I'm certain that, because of our tough draw, the Americans will not be as interested in watching.

Are you kidding? Italy v USA is going to be one of the must see matches of the group stages.

Of course, I'll be trying to see every match, but that's another story.

It may surprise you, Chris, that the play of U.S. back in Aught-Two convinced me to care. Keep in mind: it's difficult to get stoked about a competition when the games were played at 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. But it happened for me.

And I did flip through the channels on my day off today to see the live draw. Talk about a spectacle!

At least they do it in front of everybody so as to quash all tinfoil hat theories.

But sure the games will be good, but you have to agree that the U.S. is the weakest of those four seeds, no?

For a gander at what US thinks on the World Cup, Deadspin, Gawker's answer to sports, has it aptly covered.

It is a very strong group Matthew but, this is the current FIFA World Ranking so you ought to be able to qualify, 2 teams will go through from each group...

I suspect a lot of Americans haven't realised that their team is actually quite good!


Rank Team +/-Rank
1 Brazil 0
2 Czech Republic 1
3 Netherlands -1
4 Argentina 0
5 France 0
6 Spain 2
7 Mexico -1
8 USA -1
9 England 0
10 Portugal -1

Have you noticed that the Dutch-cum-Serbo-Croat coach-mix so visibly influences how football is played around the world? Dutch and Serb or Croat coaches lead 25% (very fourth national selection) of the 32 FC finalists to the great event next summer in Germany.

Further to Marco van Basten who coaches the Dutch national selection (with aspiration to bring the Cup to The Hague) three other oh his fellow-countrymen succeeded to qualify their teams for the final. Guus Hiddink (the semi-god in Korea and probably top world coach at the moment) will try his magic with Australia. Miserably misunderstood at home, Leo Beenhakker brings tiny Trinidad & Tobago to their first ever FC final. Finally Dick Advokaat (who fared so poorly in Portugal with the Dutch, was invited to try his luck with Korea and eventually repeat the achievement of Guus Hiddink.

On the other side the Serb Ratomir Djukovic managed a quite a feat with Ghana, the Iran coach Branko Ivankovic keeps his cards close to the chest as is the habit around Teheran, Zlatko Kranjcar brings Croatia, aspiring to be a regular participant at the finals of both UEFA and FIFA and Ilija Petkovic had no headaches to qualify Serbia and Montenegro to Germany. In my view the Dutch and the Slavs are supposed to stand for two different concepts of the game and it will be interesting to see which fares better in the global game... Footbal-wise the Balkans and the Low Lands are altogather less than 0,5% of the world population!

It'll be interesting to see how Serbia & Montenegro do against the Dutch in Group C...

Great analysis! Pity that Bulgaria is performing so bad :( Maybe we have to hire also serbian coach and kick out Stoichkov!?!

There are not many times that I wish I had a TV; but this is one of them. I remember watching the games in '02 in the club room of the absorption center where we lived at the time. It would have been nice to see an Israeli team, of course, but you can't have everything...

Will there be any streaming TV of this or is it just too hot?

It's really looking exciting this time, Ruvy, aka England may actually manage to avoid embarrassment and humiliation.

It's actually a little odd that arguably the two best footballing nations, my former home of England and my new one of Spain, have always underperformed at the four yearly feast of football we call the World Cup.

Maybe there's some cool bars you could risk (sic, buddy) visiting in town? Or time to spring for one of those new-fangled High Res HD digital TV babies as analogue is fast disappearing..?

There has to be streaming video somewhere. I'll look into it for ya since Israel is part of the World Curling Federation.

Thanks for looking into the streaming video, Mr. Sussman.

Chris, I have no problem with going to a bar to watch the games - exceot for having to order the drinks I don't want, for the cigarette smoke and for the drunken tourist that I just know will plant his ass right near me - or in front of me - and complain that he can't watch baseball!! Of course if you came to join me, then it might be worth it - we could kick out the drunken tourist together.

As for the fancy TV, that costs money, first of all, and second of all, there is not that much on Israeli TV to watch that I should pay NIS 600 a year in TV licnsing fees to support the Israel Broadcasting Corp. Finally, if we don't have a TV, my kids READ and learn how to work a computer instead of vegetating in front of the TV set absorbing garbage.