By Joe Pantorno, Staff Writer
On Friday, December 4th, an estimated 200 million pairs of eyes and ears glued themselves to Cape Town, South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup draw, where the thirty-two teams that qualified for this prestigious event discovered who they will play during the first group stage beginning on June 11th, 2009.
With actress and South African native Charlize Theron partaking in the festivities in her country, FIFA Secretary General and draw master Jerome Valcke got down the part the world was waiting for.
The thirty-two countries that qualified for the World Cup were split up into four pots, each containing eight teams. The teams would be randomly selected with one team from each pot being placed in each group labeled A through H. In the first pot, the host country (South Africa) and the top seven ranked countries as of October 2009 were placed into pot one.
Pot two consisted of countries from Oceania, Asia, and North America where pot three was made up of teams from South America and Africa. Pot four had teams form Europe. Each pot had their dangerous teams that could take the cup in 2010, which posed a great possibility for intriguing match-ups in the group stage. The top two teams of each group advance to the knockout stage. Here is how the draw panned out:
- Group A- South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
- Group B- Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic, Greece
- Group C- England, United States, 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
With every World Cup there are always the easy groups and the dreaded “groups of death,” and this chapter of the world’s soccer saga does not disappoint. It is clear that a group of death can be seen in group G. Brazil, with stars Kaka, Luis Fabiano, and a rejuvenated Ronaldinho will be taking on the likes of Didier Drogba and Solomon Kalou of the Ivory Coast and Christiano Ronaldo of Portugal. It’s safe to say that 84th ranked North Korea will not be making it out of this group, but one big team will be exiting early making these fixtures within the group very entertaining to watch. Group D can also be classified as a group of death with Michael Ballack and Mirolsav Klose of Germany taking on Ghana with Michael Essien and Australia featuring Tim Cahill.
On the home front here in the USA, the Yanks are looking to make it out of the group stage for the first time since 2002. Team USA’s wishes may come true with an easy group and their main threat being England. The Three Lions are stacked with stars from the Barclay’s Premiership like Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney and Chelsea defender John Terry. The other participants in group C are Algeria and Slovenia, two fairly weak sides that the stars and stripes should have no problem beating.
The defending champions also have an easy group. With an aging squad and less than perfect defense, Italy can coast their way through Group F and find the right combination between their strikers and midfielders in their clashes between Paraguay, New Zealand, and Slovakia to take pressure off their defense and world class goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon.
Though we are in the month of December and celebrating the holidays, millions of people around the world are looking forward to the heat of South Africa and a holiday that comes once every four years. This holiday though, sees the greatest soccer players in the world descend upon South Africa to compete for the most coveted prize in sports: the World Cup.