Just watched the draw for the group stage starting next year and i'm uber-excited already. I'll go though only the teams relevant to us.

Italy have a fairly easy group in my opinion. They drew NZ, Paragay, and Slovakia. Paragay could be tricky, but the rest should blow over.

England have it harder, only because they're shit. They drew the USofA, Algeria and Slovenia. Would be fun seeing USA vs England.

Holland have Denmark (derby), Japan, Cameroon. Cameroon could be dangerous and Denmark could be tempted to break legs. Holland are class, but they're record isn't so good.

Estonia and Belgium obviously didn't qualify. l00z0rz!

*completely ignores this thread

btw: my brother will be in south-africa then and is going to watch a game, dunno if he knows which game already though.
I think the atmosphere in the stadium must be great.

so long as they ban trumpets or whatever the hell they had during the confederations cup.

USA qualified and Belgium didn't?

Denmark and Japan should be no problem. Cameroon is the team I expect to be in leg-breaking mode. If I were Van Marwijk, I'd keep our crystal cannon Robben out of the squad for that match. As usual, we've got a great team as long as everybody is fit. We'll prolly loose against ourselves again somewhere in the semi- or quarterfinals though.
I think the USA might be a dangerous outsider for the title by the way.

I think we have an easy group for the group stage, don't think England will have any problems at all, it's after that we're screwed!

I don't even watch the international games of the Belgian team anymore. Maybe things will pick up a bit now that Advocaat is there...I doubt it though.

Problem is that we've bought into this whole "combination football" and "technique" thing. We have some ok technical players, but not as good as the international top and not even good enough to dispose of lesser teams like Lithuania or Cyprus. So, we should just drop all the bullshit about trying to play good football and return to our roots: solid organisation, fighting spirit, physical prowess and counter football. We attended 5 consecutive world cups with that attitude. A team like Italy doesn't pretend it's anything it isn't and plays ultradefensive when it needs to. So, I say we as Belgium just play hard defense and pump high balls into the sixteen - we can put Van Buyten in the front center position for all I care.

@ Satis: well, yeah, but the USA was playing behemoths like Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Trinidad and Tobage in its qualifiers. Many European teams are pretty shafted by the fact that the majority of strong football nations is European, and because every continent plays seperate qualifiers some weak-ass exotic teams make it to the world cup at the expense of European nations (like North Korea, wtf). Having said that, Belgium is so shit they probably would have managed to get spanked by North Korea.

@ Arathorn: I disagree...I think Holland will struggle. Denmark won its qualifiying group ahead of Portugal and Sweden and Japan is a very bizarre team that can play very well or very bad depending on the day. Cameroon is always tough (and they play in Africa, too). Could b e tricky for you Dutchies.

Italy's group is a joke. NZ?!

Mexico I think did very well, and they ritualistically seem to make it into the final stages. Some people are saying watch out for the USA. Meh, i'll just watch when the time comes. Italy have already won a world cup within my lifetime, so i'm happy enough with that. Anything extra is bonus, but in the mean time, i will be sure to support them like a madman like the previous WC.

FRATELLI, D'ITALIA... L'ITALIA SEDESTA... (and so on and so forth).

Yeah, Mexico is a very decent team, probably better than the US and many European countries. Still...the rest of CONCACAF is a joke. Trinidad, seriously? Honduras?!