2010 World Cup Draw and the Group of Death

December 6th, 2009

The 2010 World Cup draw was two days ago and I watched it for the first time live on Swiss TV; I am a big soccer fan and it was exciting to see the world gasp waiting for the final draw in Cape Town.

world cup draw 2010 groups michele roohani

There is as usual a group of death:

Group G
Brazil
North Korea
Ivory Coast
Portugal

where 3 of the 4 teams are known to have formidable soccer players.

These are my picks for the first round and yes I am brave enough to put my name on it!

world cup 2010 draw and michele roohani picks

The five time champion, Brazil, faces Portugal, Ivory Coast and North Korea in this very strong group G.

One of my most popular blog posts has been  “Gerd Muller, where are you?” and I labored over these images of my favorite childhood soccer players like Muller himself:

gerd muller michele roohani world cup 2010 draw

and the prince, Beckenbauer, then and now:

franz beckenbauer michele roohani 2010 world cup

“I don’t understand/like baseball and I tolerate American football only when my alma mater, USC, is playing but soccer stays close to my heart…There is a hierarchy of course like in any sport: we have princes and kings, Brazilian Gods and black pearls and panthers,  even a black spider (the Russian Yashin)!

There is  hand of God (Maradona) and real God (Pele):”

pele 2010 world cup michele roohani

Jairzinho,

jairzinho micheleroohani 1020 world cup

George Best,

george best micheleroohani 2010 world cup

the Charlton brothers,

the charlton brothers world cup 2010 michele roohani

Eusebio,

eusebio world cup 2010 soccer mcihele roohani

and last but not least, Michel Platini,

michel platini world cup 2010 micheleroohani

who would certainly give a red card to Thierry Henry after his handball disqualified the stunned Irish team at the qualifier match for the World cup  which would be from June 11th through July 11th in South Africa.

Thierry Henry handball world cup 2010 mcihele roohani

To see my favorite post, “Gerd Muller, where are you?”, go here.

To see the full schedule on FIFA’s site go here.

Posted by micheleroohani
Filed in sport
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9 Responses to “2010 World Cup Draw and the Group of Death”

  1. Hernan Says:
    December 6th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    Michele I enjoy reading your blogs. In terms of your soccer prediction I disagree. I think it will be Spain and Chile. I am biased towards chile since I was born there

  2. philippe caralp Says:
    December 7th, 2009 at 8:09 am

    L’équipe de France de football ne méritait pas, au vu des matchs qu’elle a faits, d’aller en Afrique du Sud pour la Coupe du Monde. Il faut espérer qu’elle ne fera pas long feu.

  3. florin Says:
    February 6th, 2010 at 4:21 am

    in group D Serbia will win the group, is far more better then ghana. I know this because they played in group with Romania in qualification and they are very good. A lot of players are on the top teams of Europe.

  4. Maryam Says:
    June 7th, 2010 at 1:49 am

    What about Johan Cruyff? He was one of the best. I loved him.

  5. marie Says:
    June 7th, 2010 at 5:05 pm

    We don’t live with the past… but still when I look at the games, the actions, the beautiful play, yes this was really playing, this was joy.

    What 2010 will bring ? fingers and toes crossed that the game will win against money and interest.

    Thanks for the great find with the calendar as well

  6. omid sHAHNAZ Says:
    June 7th, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    I say orange, it´s time for Holland to take it home with glory! Although one should wish for an African nation to win the world cup to show the world what they are capable of, despite all their shortcomings!

  7. Farhad Says:
    June 15th, 2010 at 12:39 am

    Congratulation Dordaneh for the great blog. It is my first official comment ;)
    I agree with the picks but I would have added Maradona (like him or not, he was a genius footballer!)
    I differ with you a bit on the predictions. Here is mine:
    Group A: France, Mexico
    Group B: Argentina, South Korea
    Group C: England, USA
    Group D: Germany, Serbia
    Group E: The Netherlands, Japan
    Group F: Italy, Paraguay
    Group G: Brazil, Portugal
    Group H: Spain, Switzerland

    Keep up the good work.
    Farhad

  8. Pablo Says:
    June 28th, 2010 at 2:33 am

    You only missed 2 out of your picks. Well done!

  9. MarK Says:
    June 29th, 2010 at 1:36 am

    Your calculations, Pablo, are incorrect – Farhad’s picks had not 2 but 4 wrong teams (France, Serbia, Italy and Switzerland – all four of them did not make the second stage of the tournament). Considering that Farhad submitted the picks after the first 11 matches (including most of those that were considered major surprises) had already been played, this is not a particularly great result. In my opinion, Michele who made her picks before the tournament started did extremely well – she got only 5 wrong (South Africa, Nigeria, Cameroon, Italy, Switzerland). At that time i would definitely not have been able to have done that well.