Oh for three in my guesses, and I can't say I mind at all.

Playing England to open will be tough, no doubt. But once the chance to play South Africa went by the boards, any of the other seven teams would present a significant challenge. It's a better draw than getting Brazil or Germany, but not by much. But given England's tendency to land in the Group of Death (or at least the Group of Agonizing Pain), karma looked to be running against the US.

But then Algeria and Slovenia wound up in the group, and things improved considerably. Both have short World Cup resumes and were among the lower FIFA ranked teams in their respective pots. Like I said yesterday, neither team is exactly a pushover, but playing them makes going through to the round of 16 more likely than if we'd drawn, say, Cote D'Ivoire and Portugal.

Speaking of those teams, I'd mentioned both as teams in a potential Group of Death (well, I'd picked Greece but mentioned Portugal as a close runner-up), along with Brazil. And guess which three teams wound up in the same group? Ladies and gentlemen, your Group of Death. Just with North Korea as your fourth rather than us. Thank God.

Now we just have six months to figure out how to pull a repeat of 1950 on the English.