by Ryan D. Jaeger
The 32 qualifiers for next year's FIFA World Cup soccer tournament due
to take place in South Africa were placed in 8 groups consisting of four nations
each on Friday evening.
The star studded ceremony was hosted by actress Charlize Theron and saw the
English team placed in a relatively easy group.
The UK will face the United States, Algeria and Slovenia in next year's
event.
The top two teams in each group move on to a second round, and English fans
are hopeful that their team will at least be left in the tournament until they
meet tougher opponents such as Germany.
After the draw, David Beckham, who hopes to be picked for the squad said: "It
is a very interesting group. They are all hard games and it's very exciting to
be a part of it."
Former Manager for England, Terry Venables commented that "it is as good a
draw as we could have expected."
"You could have handpicked that so we've got to be very satisfied," he said.
Bookies immediately placed the UK team as second favourites after their easy
draw.
The full draw was announced as follows:
Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea Greece
Group C: England, United States, 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
