Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
With the nightmare of qualification behind them, France are the class act in this group, with the two teams from the Americas being fairly evenly matched. The RSA will do better than expected and spoil either Mexico or Uruguay?s plans by taking points from them. France will probably win the group joined by Uruguay.
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, Greece
Despite their coach, Argentina will probably win the group. They will be joined by Nigeria who will have a bit of the neutrals ?home crowd? advantage and do better than their current FIFA ranking suggests, whereas Greece will do worse.
Group C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia
A draw and two wins should see both USA and England progress, the group winner based on GD.
Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana
An interesting group, this one. Germany will progress as winners. Second place will be decided on the last game between Australia and Serbia, who by then will have both lost to Germany and taken points & goals against Ghana. Close one to call this, should be Serbia, but Australia exceeded expectation at the last World Cup.
Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon
The Netherlands and Cameroon meet each other in the last round match probably to decide group winners and runners up. Denmark may get a draw or cause a scare but it wont be enough. Japan will get mullered.
Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia
Notoriously slow starters at World Cups, I doubt even Italy will do anything other than three straight wins. It doesn?t really matter who gets second place because they will be the lowest ranked team in the second round, will probably be Paraguay.
Weakest group
Group G: Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal
Brazil should win the group with the runners up being the ones who beat NK by the most goals. Cote d?Ivoire will have the African crowd neutrals? ?home support? and will play NK in the last game when they will have a definite target. So, I?ll go with Didier & the Tourre brothers. North Korea will get a royal mullering.
Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile
Spain will progress as winners, with the second place between Chile and Switzerland. The match between these two will pretty much decide second place, which will probably be Chile. Honduras will have a nice holiday and get beaten by interesting European opponents in an exotic location. Nice change for them.
* * *
The first round group stage is always my favorite part of the World Cup, the further it progresses the more it ends up being the usual suspects.