Chris’s World Cup 2010 Group Play Roundup, or Why You Should Be Glad You’re Not a Soccer Team From Korea Right Now

Yes, that's who wrote this year's official World Cup song and who opened the ceremonies today.

Shakira, The Black Eyed Peas and a few other music artists sang and danced on worldwide TV earlier today and South Africa declared World Cup 2010 officially open. It was not quite the check-out-our-explosions-and-interpretive-dancers kind of event the Olympics put on, though; mostly just hip shake. More importantly, it means tomorrow morning there will be soccer on–fateful, momentous soccer. Can the Brazilians live up to their pedigree? Can the Spaniards live up to the hype? Can the Americans avoid The Epic Fail? All good questions, and we’re about to start getting answers.

Some Points About, um, Points

I touched on this a little bit in my World Cup Preview post earlier this week, but Group Play is a whole different animal compared to the 16-team Knockout Round coming later. It’s a little more like regular-season hockey, only simpler. The 32 teams are split up into eight groups of four, and each team plays its other three groupmates once. You get three points for a win, one for a tie and a lot of “PANIC!” articles in your newspapers back home for a loss. (In other words, zero points.) Three games isn’t a lot of time to separate oneself, obviously, so in case of a tie the tiebreaker will be total goals scored by the team. In other words, not only do you want to win, you want to be the Steve Spurrier-era Florida Gators every time you go out there and absolutely score at will.

So you wanna watch?

It turns out that SGF Soccer is hosting watch parties at Farmers Gastropub throughout the World Cup, as Farmers is open at breakfast (the typical match time in our time zone) and will be showing the games with sound throughout the tourney with no interference. Click here to get more details, including times, featured games and how to get there.

In this round of the tournament you’re going to find out quickly who really belongs and who just sort of made it here, but there could be some surprises this year thanks to numerous injuries to star players. We’ll see how it all plays out. Until then, here are my soon-to-be-wrong predictions: 

GROUP A – SOUTH AFRICA, MEXICO, URUGUAY, FRANCE

Never underestimate the host country in this tournament. National pride has lifted many a home team to play over its head and achieve success in the World Cup, and South Africa is vying to be the latest. They drew a mean group to do it in, though, with very good opponenets in Mexico, two-time champ Uruguay and ’06 finalist France. They’ll ride superior speed and home-team thrust to a (slight) upset over Mexico and a draw against Uruguay before France slaps them around with the white glove of talent in the last game. It will be the best France looks in this tournament, if only for one game, especially if it continues with its coocoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs idea of keeping star Thierry Henry on the bench at the start of games.

ADVANCING: South Africa, Uruguay

PLEASE EXCUSE MY PIMP HAND: None of these four looks like a runaway success, but like I said: Don’t underestimate home field advantage for South Africa.

“PANIC!”: France. They backed into this tournament on the merits of a, um, dubious goal against Ireland, and many of the stars of this team’s glory years are losing a step, hence the placement of Henry on the bench to come in as a substitute. Memo to France: Sub him early. If not, who is going to palm the ball back inbounds for you?

GROUP B – ARGENTINA, NIGERIA, KOREA, GREECE

Woe, thou art Korea. Drawing the near-miss powerhouse that is Argentina and the underrated toughie that is Greece could make the ’02 World Cup hosts look pretty bad. It could also make no difference at all, depending on whether or not Argentina actually gets its act together–a big “if” when Diego Maradona is at the helm. Conversely, if Argentina collapses in chaos they or Nigeria (more likely the latter) could sneak by.

ADVANCING: Argentina, Greece

PLEASE EXCUSE MY PIMP HAND: Argentina may have a coach just far enough off his rocker to run over someone’s foot and then call him an a**hole for putting his foot there, but the talent depth is undeniable when you have the likes of striker Lionel Messi (last year’s World Player of the Year) and Carlos Tevez. Talent wins out… for now.

“PANIC!”: Korea. I wish I had a different answer, but I can’t come up with a good scenario in this group.

GROUP C – ENGLAND, UNITED STATES, ALGERIA, SLOVENIA

Oh, this is gonna be fun. One of the sublime joys of international sports is that they are a cheap excuse for the two competing nations to dig up memories of everything they have ever had to do with one another. The United States and England have had a run-in or two of some consequence, and they meet Saturday in a game that should be more a matter of pride than anything for the Brits but could be of huge consequence to the U.S. Luckily for the Colonists (we’re kicking it old-school with the nomenclature for this one), England likes to employ a player formation with only one goal-scoring specialist (aka striker), and that striker happens to be notorious hothead Wayne Rooney. If the Revolutionaries get in Rooney’s dome enough, he could get sloppy, ejected or both. It’s not a guaranteed method of success, but it’s not a bad strategy. That, and employ young burner Jozy Altidore‘s speed as much as possible and hope that defender Oguchi Onyewu is really back to 100 percent. They’re gonna need him.

Basically, if The Men of Washington win against England, they advance; if not it’s a crapshoot. The U.S. has a notorious history of playing to the level of its opponent, and the last thing it wants to do is struggle against Algeria in the last game because Slovenia will give it all it can handle in the middle game.

ADVANCING: England, United States

PLEASE EXCUSE MY PIMP HAND: England. They beat the United States in a brutally physical game and then beat Algeria handily. By the time they get to Slovenia they’re out of gas, but it won’t matter.

“PANIC!”: Algeria. 

GROUP D – GERMANY, AUSTRALIA, SERBIA, GHANA

The Germans were the most jaw-dropping team to watch when they hosted World Cup ’02, but this year’s team is down a pretty important man in midfielder and former captain Michael Ballack. The rest of the roster is solid, but the depth in this group is deceptive. Australia is a tough team that stumbled badly in its last tuneup match. Serbia and Ghana won’t go quietly, perhaps least of all Ghana, which has been the most successful of the African nations in recent years and was a force to be reckoned with in World Cup ’06.

ADVANCING: Ghana, Germany

PLEASE EXCUSE MY PIMP HAND: None. I think this has the makings of a tough fight.

“PANIC!”: Australia, barely. They’re better than they’ll show in this tourney.

GROUP E – THE NETHERLANDS, DENMARK, JAPAN, CAMEROON

Remember what I said in the tournament preview about the Dutch? High-flying, push hard, exciting. They’re the favorites in this group, but facing the Danes and Cameroon won’t make life easy. Japan is out for redemption after a dismal showing in World Cup ’06. 

ADVANCING: The Netherlands, Cameroon

PLEASE EXCUSE MY PIMP HAND: The Netherlands. Their biggest threat, I think, is the Danes in the opener.

“PANIC!”: Japan. The Dutch and Denmark are too good, and Cameroon is riding the “we’re playing in Africa!” wave. It’s another early exit.

GROUP F – ITALY, PARAGUAY, NEW ZEALAND, SLOVAKIA

Defending champ Italy automatically qualifies for a spot in this year’s tournament, but nothing is guaranteed when your core group of players is starting to show its age a little. Slovakia in particular could be a problem. There are questions surrounding Paraguay up front after its top goal scorer, Salvador Cabanas, was shot in the head while on the toilet in a nightclub in January. He’s alive, but he’s not on the team.

ADVANCING: Italy, Slovakia

PLEASE EXCUSE MY PIMP HAND: Italy. They’re still much too strong to have to worry this early in the tournament, especially with world-class goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon in net.

“PANIC!”: New Zealand. The coaching is there, the talent is not.

GROUP G – BRAZIL, KOREA DPR, IVORY COAST, PORTUGAL

Kim John-Il: Working on his soccer hair. It's all about the fade.

Woe, thou art The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea. First of all, your name suggests democracy but you are, in fact, run by Kim Jong-Il, the Pied Piper of the Looney Bin, meaning there is nothing democratic about you except the ability to raise your hand in protest as long as you’re willing to never get to use it again. Second, your soccer team draws by far the meanest collection of opponents in all of Group Play. Brazil are in a transition phase in talent and in coaching, with no Ronaldinho and a more defense-oriented style, but are still an elite team representing an obsessed nation. Portugal will lean a lot on megawatt star Cristiano Ronaldo–owner of the best faux-hawk in soccer, by the way–for success, especially now that fellow forward Nani is out for the tournament with a collarbone injury. Ivory Coast is similarly wounded with the loss of star striker Didier Drogba, one of the best in the game. None of this actually gets Korea DPR into contention, but it could shake up the results among the others.

ADVANCING: Brazil, Portugal

PLEASE EXCUSE MY PIMP HAND: Brazil, sort of. They’re not as dynamic as they have been in years past, but they get the job done against weakened opponents.

“PANIC!”: Korea DPR. Thanks for playing, guys. Your wacko dictator will be most unhappy with you, though. 

GROUP H – SPAIN, SWITZERLAND, HONDURAS, CHILE

Spain can be such an enigma sometimes. This team won every one of its 10 qualifying matches, but it laid an egg against United States in last year’s Confederations Cup semifinal. I mean stunk. The year before that they took down Germany in an awesome European Cup final. Would the real Spain please step forward?! The answer: No. They have always been nearly impossible to predict, loaded with drool-inducing talent but never putting all the pieces together. This year, they’re without their golden boy Fernando Torres, which to followers of his league-play work with Liverpool will seem like a crushing blow (remember what I said in the last piece: league play = crap), but which followers of the national team will know is of no consequence because he becomes Boo Radley at this time anyway. Then there’s the ambitious and hard-working Chileans who will push the Spanish for the top spot in the group throughout.

With all that said, Spain is gonna romp through this round.

ADVANCING: Spain, Chile

PLEASE EXCUSE MY PIMP HAND: Spain. They’re starting to get it. Going 10-10 in qualifying is the start. Having a healthy Xavi is another important step.

“PANIC!”: Honduras, though it’s easily interchangeable with Switzerland.

Watch for live blogs of tomorrow’s opening game between South Africa and Mexico starting at 9 a.m. and again for the USA-England tilt at 1 p.m. Saturday.