We are gonna crush you all.

Platini is a legend and will always be. However his tenure as President of UEFA is laughable. He has a pathalogical hatred of everything English and even though the Premier League brings more money to the table than any other national league he treats it like crap.

Lots of great teams in there, groups B and E seem interesting.
I'm glad Portugal managed to grab a spot after a shaky start.
Good luck to all the teams who made it to South Africa.
And 'Wizard' Pepe, fuck you and your voodoo. Get a fucking job will ya ?

I'm currently predicting (rather hopefully) an England vs Spain final.
I think we all know who will win THAT contest.

Yes. Spain.
The group with Brazil, Ivory Coast, and Portugal is pretty grim. The Ivory Coast boasts a boatload of great players, if they get it together then they can easily grab one of the qualifying spots. North Korea of course will be steamrolled by all three.
The group with Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, and Cameroon is also more open that first glance suggests. The Netherlands are clear favs for top spots, but 2nd is completely open. Japan are fairly good, Cameroon is decent.
France, if they don't show better play than they did in the last Euro Cup, is going to get it tough against Mexico and Uruguay. Normally France is the winner of that group, but all opponents are capable of stealing points, and playing the hosts is always fraught with an extra risk. Remember South Korea in 2002.
Group B should be easy enough for Argentina despite their poor qualifying form. I think they'll enjoy playing in South Africa, as south american teams generally enjoy playing the world cups that go outside of europe. Nigeria is the weakest team in that group and will struggle, Korea and Greece battle it out for 2nd spot.
England will have no troubles in Group C, Algeria will have no chance, and USA and Slovenia joust for 2nd. Slovenia are clear favourites though.
Germany and Serbia will easily qualify from Group D. The only question is who takes first spot. Germany are favs, but the serbs are rock solid.
Group F is interesting with three good teams. Guess which one is not the good team. Both Slovakia and Paraguay are capable of making the reigning world champions sweat.
Group D is the official group of death. Especially for Korea DPR.
Group H, well, Switzerland will get an opportunity to learn spanish at least. Spain will win all three matches and qualify with ease.

It all depends on if New Zealand decides to send out the rugby team or not. If they decide to play football, then they don't stand a chance indeed.

Yay! USA actually have a chance this year!
But seriously, I feel a bit bad for North Korea. I mean this is only their second world cup qualification ( thats what i read) and they practically have no chance to even win any games. As for France, as much as I love their team i agree that their manager has no place still being with the team. They should have replaced him after the very poor Euro 08 showing.
Personally, I think this is the USA's year to shine. I wouldn't be surprised if they advanced to the semi-finals.

I sometimes watch some of their teams playing on TV and I have to say that they improved a lot. Besides England, they got into a fairly easy group, so we never know.
Hey, it's not done yet. ;)
It's going to be difficult for them but we are talking about world cup here, so everything is possible. We have seen outsiders do very well in the past, haven't we ?
That's what most people say. He took weird decisions in my opinion, but we made it to the final in 2006 (how did we lose that match dammit !), and even though euro 08 was a fiasco, I think it's too early (or too late now) to blame him.

Curious how none of the posters here so far is from the United states. Soccer just isn't their cup of tea.
And I love me some predictions and how they usually miss their marks by far. Sometimes just one player in a team, one lucky goal, one nasty play decides the whole match and the predictions go to hell. Like when France played against Senegal and that game was only the first in a string of surprises.
I'm really hoping for a few surprises this year, it makes the WC so much more fun when the underdogs show their claws.

Soccer is quite popular here. Not as popular as the big three sports (baseball, football, basketball), but close to the popularity of hockey, tennis, and golf.
If I had to rank sports based on general interest, I would guess:
1. Football
2. Baseball
3. Basketball
4. Hockey, Tennis, Golf
7. Soccer
Take a look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer_in_the_United_States

Hehe... soccer fans. What hilarity.

Uhm... seventh? What would be under soccer in popularity then? Racing, maybe?
You have to see how freaking wild people get about soccer in other countries. I'm not even saying my own, because even if we like it, we're not known for adoring it like the brazilians or argentinians are. But really, soccer tops popularity in many countries around the world. It's good to see that it's gaining a foothold in the US though I really wonder if it'll go a few notches up that list someday.

I'm aware of the popularity of soccer in other nations. Because the US is such a massive consumer of sports, a sport can still be #5 and generate huge viewership and national pride.

G

Slovakia is in group F (along with Italy, Paraguay and New Zealand, so most likely we will get pwned), but I couldn't care less about WC and football (or soccer, depends how you call it in your country) in general.