THE DRAW IN ZURICH HAS TAKEN PLACE

In my post dated October 14th, 2008, titled “POSSIBLE GROUPS FOR MALAWI” in Group 2 I had Egypt, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Malawi. It seems I was 75% correct. Replace Egypt with Ivory Coast (”in Ivory Coast it is illegal to call the Ivory Coast the Ivory Coast, it is called the Côte d’Ivoire”) and you have the official GROUP E. The rest of the groups are as follows:

Group A
Togo
Cameroon
Morocco
Gabon

Group B
Mozambique
Nigeria
Kenya
Tunisia

Group C
Rwanda
Algeria
Egypt
Zambia

Group D
Ghana
Benin
Sudan
Mali

There is no such thing as “an easy group”. Didn’t Egypt lose to minnows Malawi? Isn’t Zambia better off than Malawi? Egypt don’t need to under-rate Zambia. Yes they have beaten them before but that was then and this is now.

My prediction is that two or three teams from POT A are not going to make it to the World Cup. Will it be bad for African Football? I hope not.

Senegal were “new” at the World Cup but went further than most African teams that have been there almost every World Cup. Most players that play in “big” African National Teams on a club level play over-seas so it is easier to know how they play and that’s why they don’t go that far in the World Cup. Just my opinion.