Simon Kuper and Stefan Syzmanski titled the American version of their new book Soccernomics (review is here), but their title for the release in the UK is Why England Lose. In the book, Kuper and Syzmanski identified the US as a rising power in soccer and England as a permanent disappointment to their rabid fans.

First, let me be the millionth person to say what an amazing draw for the USA. It's about as good as we could've hoped, and for the first time actually we're a favorite to advance. What exactly are the odds of us advancing after this lucky draw? Well, it depends on who you ask. It seems like everybody has a national team rating system these days, so let's take a look at how each of them rate our chances.

Quick trip down memory lane.It was December 2005. The World Cup Draw? Did anyone in America really even care?Me? I was pissed. Pissed that the U.S. had drawn about as tough a group as possible. Pissed that there wasn't too much, outside creepy message boards, to air my frustrations.So, what did I do?

Time for more thoughts on the World Cup draw from yesterday. Most seem to still be happy with the US draw in Group C with England. Hell even the folks across the pond in England love this draw for themselves of course. I just wonder how long it will be before we see Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan in Revolutionary War uniforms hyping this opening match with the Red Coats.

For whatever the reason, soccer tends to lend itself to conspiracies more than any other sport. Yes, for years we've heard that NBA commish David Stern rigged the 1985 draft lottery so the Knicks would land Patrick Ewing or how writers like Bill Simmons trumpet alleged "fixes" with spotty referring to set up more television palpable matchups.

The balls have barely been pulled out of the glass bowls... but we're already delivering some immediate reaction from today's star-studded draw in Cape Town for the 2010 World Cup. Sepp Blatter and football fans alike should be very pleased: there are going to be some mouth-watering encounters at next summer's tournament – England v USA, Brazil v Ivory Coast and Germany v Ghana to name a few.

Stefan Szymanski, Director of the MBA program at Cass Business School in London and co-author of the new book Soccernomics, said on SAfm that the 2010 World Cup may turn out to be a 'shocking waste of South Africa's resources' and not the economic 'bonanza that government and Fifa would have us believe'.

Well the US is going to Group C for next year's World Cup in South Africa and the draw is very favorable.

I'll be back later today with more thoughts on this but first here are all the groups, feel free to discuss.

Group A
-South Africa
-Mexico
-Uruguay
-France

Group B
-Argentina
-Nigeria
-South Korea
-Greece

Group C
-England
-USA
-Algeria
-Slovenia

Group D
-Germany
-Australia
-Serbia
-Ghana

Group E
-Netherlands
-Denmark
-Japan
-Cameroon

Group F
-Italy
-Paraguay
-New Zealand
-Slovakia

Group G
-Brazil
-North Korea
-Ivory Coast
-Portugal
Group H
-Spain
-Switzerland
-Honduras
-Chile

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The Dutch and Danes should move on to the knockout rounds. But don't count out Cameroon especially on African soil.
Advance - Netherlands and Cameroon

Soweto, near Johannesburg, is a heartland of South African soccer and has produced many of South Africa's best players.
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Soccer News Soweto

The World Cup draw shocked some folks with the US's group. (Getty Images)

As the dust has started to settle the last two weeks, the build up will get ever more intense between now and June when the world's biggest sporting event kicks off in Soccer City, Johannesburg. While much analyzing of all the groups and match-ups will take place to the point where it may drive all of us insane the next few months and much will change between now and then, we can all at least give our first reactions to the draw itself.

Swiss international Ludovic Magnin has returned home to play for FC Zurich in an effort to improve his chances of playing at the 2010 World Cup.
International squad members Alex Frei, Johan Vonlanthen and Hakan Yakin also returned in recent months to play for Swiss clubs.
This is mainly due to national team boss Ottmar Hitzfeld's desire to see his players game valuable playing time on the club circuit as the World Cup approaches.

Everyone is doing it so why not. I even went as far as putting all the pots together and drawing out each country one-by-one, though with paper and not little plastic balls. Since this is pure guess work its probably far from what will actually happen tomorrow afternoon.

So here we go.

You just knew it had to happen - The United States drew England in the group stage. More to come. Who is the group of death? Who got the best draw? Group A South Africa Mexico Uruguay France Group B...

To say the U.S. got a tough draw at the 2006 World Cup would be an understatement. Paired with European heavyweights Italy and the Czech Republic and African upstart Ghana, the Americans struggled in Germany and finished a disappointing fourth place in their group.

But it was a different story this time around for the U.

The biggest sporting event on the planet, the soccer World Cup, will be held in South Africa next June. Today, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the international governing body of soccer (which some parts of the world still call football) staged, er, held its draw to decide the makeup of the eight groups.

The groups for the South Africa 2010 World Cup have been drawn and it looks to be a fantastic world cup, in the group stages we'll have fixtures like England-USA, Germany-Ghana, Netherlands-Cameroon, Brazil-Portugal, and one of my favorites, Spain against Chile.
Check out the groups below and let us know what you think of them by commenting below.

Group A - South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
France with yet another lucky bounce as they look like the clearest favorite to advance to the knockout rounds. Mexico and Uruguay should battle it out for second place.
Advance - France and Mexico

Brazil and Portugal in the same group with the Ivory Coast. Now this is a group that is going to produce a fair amount of goal scoring. Question. If Brazil fielded a squad of players from throughout the Asian leagues could this team defeat North Korea? I have a feeling the North Koreans will be a tad overmatched.

Australia 2009 is not as good as team as the one which took the field in Germany.
The group is much stronger this time: Germany and Brazil are not dis-similar, Croatia are nowhere near as strong as this young Serbian side, and of course Ghana are a much stronger proposition than Japan.
All that and a much more battle hardened Aussie team, one which has achieved wonderfully well to qualify, but has not convinced it's supporters it has the goal power to do well in South Africa.

Well we know how the Final Draw turned out – terrible for South Africa but here are the groups for the 2010 World Cup, in case anyone doesn't know yet. And the Official Match Schedule.

France and Uruguay are two former World Cup winners and Mexico is known as a very strong team, but South Africa will have to rely on the wide experience of coach Carlos Alberto Parreira and the passion and skill of Bafana Bafana if we want to avoid the humiliation of becoming the first host team in World Cup history to get knocked out in the first round.

Ever since Friday's World Cup Draw placed the U.S. and England in the same group I've had one thought racing through my mind. Will the Americans baste the Cornish game hens of those limeys and trample their arses up and down the pitch? Or will the English reforge the bonds of the British Empire and massacre the Yanks like it's 1770?

As we head into the festive season, English fans are wrapping the present they give themselves before every World Cup – the gift of unbridled confidence in their national football team. And yet, as they have for the past 40+ years, those English fans are likely to stick their thumb in the Christmas pudding and pull out something far less enjoyable than the plum.

Charlize Theron pulls Irelands name out of the hat!

Prankster Charlize Theron shares a gag with David Beckham and Jerome Valcke during rehearsals for the 2010 World Cup draw in Cape Town recently (sorry Ireland!).

Here is a useful Excel spreadsheet for you to use to enter results for the World Cup matches. As you enter the results, the group standings are automatically updated. You can also toggle between showing the placeholders for the knockout games (eg A1 vs B2), or the actual team names. I was playing around with it, and if, for example, the group standings end as they are currently defined, and the 'home' team wins in each of the knockout games, then the final will be between South Africa and England!

It was a bit of a gloomy day when we went to visit the new Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban shortly after it was officially opened, but we still got some great views from the top of the 106m high arch (taller than the Statue of Liberty!).

The 'Sky Car' can accommodate 25 people as it travels up the northern leg of the arch to the observation platform at the top.

While we don't know the exact pots in Friday's World Cup draw in South Africa we do have a pretty good guess of where FIFA could go with them. Based on the ESPN video I posted here yesterday below are the four pots.

POT 1-Brazil, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Italy, Germany, South Africa

POT 2- Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, Slovenia, Greece, Slovakia, Serbia, Switzerland

POT 3- Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria

POT 4- USA, Mexico, Honduras, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand

ESPN is figuring the South American sides will be paired with the African sides and the CONCACAF sides will go with the Asian ones.

The seeding formula and pots have been released by FIFA. They've decided to use only the October 2009 FIFA ranking and nothing else to determine the seven seeded teams. I'm a bit disappointed, if only because the work of people like Edgar and myself has been for nothing this cycle.
The big news is that the change means that the Netherlands will be seeded instead of France.

FIFA announced today that, for Friday's World Cup draw. Previous pot predictions had France in the top pot over the Netherlands. Had FIFA gone with rankings after October France would have been in the top pot over England.

The US has been seeded in Pot 2 along with the rest of the CONCACAF teams and Asian teams.

by FRANCO PANIZO

Brad Guzan got one of his rare starts for Aston Villa on Tuesday, playing in place of Brad Friedel in the Carling Cup quarterfinals, and he did not disappoint.

Having led Villa to the quarters with a heroic penalty shoot-out performance vs.

The draw for the 2010 World Cup might be two days away, but FIFA got the process started this morning when they announced the four, eight team pots that will determine the results of Friday's draw.

Each World Cup group will consist of one team from each pot. Here's a full list of the teams in each pot:

Pot 1 (Seeded Teams): South Africa, Germany, Brazil, Italy, Spain, England, Holland, Argentina

Pot 2 (Asia, Oceania, North/Central America): Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Mexico, Honduras

Pot 3 (Africa and South America): Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay

Pot 4 (Europe): France, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Greece, Slovakia, Denmark, Serbia

The pots leaves the U.

The FIFA 2010 World Cup will release its draw for the finals on Friday, December 4, 2009. The draw is eight groups of four teams in each group. Live coverage of the draw (video) will be available on our other site, Free Live Sports TV, at the link below.

FIFA 2010 World Cup Finals Draw LIVE Friday, December 4, 2009 17:00 GMT, 12:00 EST

The draw for the 2010 World Cup begins today, but where can you find it on television to see the drama unfold and find out which group your team will be playing in?

• If you live in the United States, you can watch the draw live on ESPN2 beginning at Noon ET.

And the groups are in.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Charlize Theron reacts to South Africa being drawn into Group A. (Getty Images)

The draw is over and now the time has begun for the endless talk and analysis of each group for the next six months. Yes the World Cup is miles away from today's draw but we know now a lot of what could go on next summer in South Africa.

Actor Charlize Theron and FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke begin the draw.

Today the draw was made for the World Cup groups in Cape Town South Africa. Nations waited anxiously to see how fate treated their respective teams. At JBM we are a Champions League weblog first and foremost but we will be covering the World Cup and any important news leading up to it.

The Argentines have too much skill and belief-in-self. The South American power will advance to the knockout rounds. Nigeria and Greece, well also South Korea? 2nd place will be an interesting fight.
Advance - Argentina and Nigeria

The mainstream and the blogosphere are currently all engrossed with the England/USA match. Welcome to the tournament Algeria and Slovenia; too bad you all won't advance to the knockout rounds.
Advance - England and USA

Upset special! Australia and Ghana are two teams that I have keenly followed through the qualification process. Serbia, not so much. And Germany is well Germany. Guess what?
Advance - Ghana and Australia

Title defenders Italy rewarded with perhaps the worst football side in the tournament (New Zealand). Slovakia and Paraguay will be looking for global respect and it should go down to the final game.
Advance - Italy and Paraguay