NOW I've got World Cup Fever!?

Maybe it's because we missed out on the Euro's (thank's to Schteve!) or maybe because I had had a few pints by the time the draw was made but I am genuinely excited about the World Cup.

The draw ceremony seemed to go without a hitch last night and it threw up some wonderful surprises!
Rumour has it that Charlize Theron cracked a joke during the rehearsal and pulled 'Ireland' from the hat! 
As per tradition the 'group of death' raised its head once again but thankfully our boys won't be in it! It was so great to see that Ronaldo and his Portugeezer mates will have to fight their way past North Korea, Brazil and the Ivory Coast in order to ruin our campaign this time. It's a big ask.

Other groups that were interesting were Group D including Germany, Australia and Ghana: Group E including Holland, Denmark and Cameroon (a mini group of death) and Argentina won't have it easy against Nigeria and former European champs Greece.

So I'm now thinking, surely this is it, this time round England can do it. The first stage of the knockout stage will see England face either Germany or Australia depending on where we finish in the group and where they do - my guess is we win the group and so do Germany so we'll face Australia (or Ghana if they do well). Good news too for all those in 9-5 jobs is that England's first match is on Friday 12th June at 19:30 vs USA. So we'll all be three sheets to the wind in the local by the time they kick off! The third and hopefully irrelevant group game is at 15:00 on a Wednesday so you'll have to sweet talk your boss for that one. Usually, the knockout matches are in the evenings making it easy for everyone to watch.

It was great to see that New Zealand have a decent chance of getting out of the group into the knockouts with Paraguay (not been the same since they lost their top goal scorer goal keeper) and Slovakia (not exactly juggernaughts). Italy will surely walk the group.

France have got away with murder to get into the draw and it looks like the first few weeks will be fairly easy for them too - similar to the current holders who won't really be tested until the later rounds.

Here's the full draw for those of you who missed it (from the BBC website)

Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D
South Africa	Argentina	ENGLAND	Germany
Mexico	Nigeria	United States	Australia
Uruguay	South Korea	Algeria	Serbia
France	Greece	Slovenia	Ghana
Group E	Group F	Group G	Group H
Netherlands	Italy	Brazil	Spain
Denmark	Paraguay	North Korea	Switzerland
Japan	New Zealand	Ivory Coast	Honduras
Cameroon	Slovakia	Portugal	Chile