Time for a little reflection.

There has been time for a little reflection and I’ve got a few further thoughts on the draw – not to be unkind to any country, but if you could pick three countries to play in the first round, this is pretty close. USA are clearly the other quality team in the group and were arguably the best team in their pot.

However it could have been far worse. Germany got Australia, Ghana and Serbia, arguably the most even group, I could see any two of these teams making it through to the last 8. Brazil got drawn against Ivory coast and Portugal, a group that’s only marginally easier. Whoever comes out of those groups will have earned their place in the next round.

Traditionally England start tournaments poorly, even in 1966 when they won the tournament they started with a poor draw to Uruguay. This is unfortunate as first game is clearly the toughest, win that and the team has lots of momentum going forward. However the expectation, especially in England is that they will win the group.

One of the biggest questions for Capello is how many players will be involved in the Champions League final on May 22, only three weeks before England’s first game. It’s a nice problem to have and may force the coaches to keep the training period shorter for some players.

If everything goes to plan (and history says it won’t) and they move on to the knockout phase comfortably I don’t see a lot of true world level depth beyond the starting 11. If they can stay healthy (and avoid injury to Rooney and Gerard), sort out the goalkeeping issues and finally get Owen Hargreaves and Rio Ferdinand back to full fitness then the team has a little more depth and stability.

Some teams clearly understand better than others that there are two parts to the big tournaments. Getting though the group stage is the first step and requires a very different team mentality when compared to the knock out stages. This is where historically the Germans excel, they do enough to comfortably get to the final 16 (or 8 at Euro championships) and then play their best football.

This is exactly how Italy won it four years ago, they did enough in the group stages (drew US and beat Ghana and a bad Czech side), but never looked totally convincing and saved their best for the later stages. The key to winning it’s really may be as simple as that.

I look at the field (and the bookies) and it’s interesting that there is no big, red hot favorite. This may be the most open World cup in a long time. At this point there are 6 or 7 sides capable of winning this, and I believe England is part of this group. The more I look at this tournament, the more open it is.