It is official, the fever for this summer's FIFA World Cup 2010 has finally ignited with much excitement. Early this morning, the group draw was staged in Cape Town, South Africa, at 19:00 (UTC+2) on 4 December 2009 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. The ceremony was presented by South African actress Charlize Theron, assisted by FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke.
After a heart-pounding 30 minutes of so drawing session, here we have the results for the draw. If your favourite team fell in any of these group, it will be exciting to see how they will outcome the rest during the group stage. If you are still unsure which team to be your bidding one, don't worry, you still have roughly 6 months to go.
GROUP A
Group A will see host South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay and France fighting for top two places to Round 2.
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REACTIONSI don't feel that this is the most difficult group; that is just speculation. Nobody knows how each team will be six months from now. All of our opponents are difficult, but none of them are out of our reach. The difficulty should motivate us even more to play a great World Cup.
Uruguay coach Oscar TabarezAll the groups seem balanced to me. It's never easy to play against the host country, but we’ll give it all we can. It will be our last match in the group (against South Africa) and we always know that players can raise their game in front of a great home crowd. We know Mexico well enough and Uruguay as well, because we played them recently in friendlies.
France coach Raymond DomenechIt’s a very exciting first game for us to take on the hosts. For us this is a great opportunity to show what we can do on the big stage. Uruguay and France are both very tough teams too, but we will do what we can to get ourselves out of the group. The styles in this group are very different and it will be a special blend of football.
Mexican coach Javier AguirreGROUP B
Group B will see Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea and Greece fighting for top two places to Round 2.
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GROUP C
Group C will see England, USA, Algeria and Slovenia fighting for top two places to Round 2.
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REACTIONSUSA are a good team. But Algeria and Slovenia are also tricky teams. Every opponent at a World Cup is going to be difficult. We’re playing the last two group games at sea level, so that’s going to be a different challenge as well. But I won’t be offering excuses. Every team will need to meet awkward opponents, play in difficult conditions and win matches to win the World Cup.
England coach Fabio CapelloIt’s a very interesting group. We all know the English players, but we will need to do a little more research on Slovenia and Algeria. Bob Bradley (USA coach) is a very organized coach and we will need to focus our attention on our first game against England at this point. We have some injuries that we’ll need to overcome and we’ll need to come together as a team.
USA playmaker Landon DonovanGROUP D
Group D will see Germany, Australia, Serbia and Ghana fighting for top two places to Round 2.
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REACTIONSI'm not really happy with the group we've landed in. It’s a very strong section. Germany is one of the best teams in Europe and of course the favourite to take first place.
Ghana coach Milovan RajevacIt's an interesting group. We have to accept the challenge. It's important to win the first game against Australia. After that we will have to play with confidence against Ghana and Serbia.
Germany coach Joachim LoewGROUP E
Group E will see Netherlands, Denmark, Japan and Cameroon fighting for top two places to Round 2.
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GROUP F
Group F will see Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand and Slovakia fighting for top two places to Round 2.
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REACTIONSThe moment you consider a group easy, every match becomes difficult. Paraguay led the South American qualifying group for a long time and Slovakia is a team that's growing up very quickly with some very strong players in some strong leagues.
Italy coach Marcello LippiGROUP G
Group G will see Brazil, Korea DPR, Cote d'Ivoire and Portugal fighting for top two places to Round 2.
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REACTIONSThis group will be very close. It is probably the most difficult of all the sections. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have challenges from the start. On the contrary, we will start more focused on this World Cup as a result of it.
Brazilian star KakaGROUP H
Group H will see spain, Switzerland, Honduras and Chile fighting for top two places to Round 2.
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Note: All informations and print screen is taken from Fifa.com
