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And finally after four long years, the FIFA World Cup will once again be held, this time in sunny South Africa. This year World Cup will be the first to be held in Africa and I'm sure that every team will be raring to go once the first ball is kicked at the first game of the World Cup in 11th June 2010 at Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium where the Final will also be held.

I will be doing an analysis of each team and predict where they will be come the end of the tournament, I'll start by analyzing each team on a group by group basis.

Group A is the Host country group and it is comprised of South Africa, Mexico, France and Uruguay. All eyes will be on South Africa in this tournament as they are the lowest ranked team in the world standings playing in the tournament; an interesting thing to note is that no host team has ever failed to win a match so far in the history of the World Cup. Under an experienced coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira, the South Africans should be able to nick a point or two in this group, but by the end of the group stages, they will be packing their bags. Next, we have Mexico, an impressive qualification after ditching former coach, Sven Goran Eriksson. The Mexicans should be winning their opening match comfortably and should go into the second round, but that's the furthest they will go to in this year's tournament.

Next up, we have France who went through to the World Cup Finals courtesy of Thierry Henry's handball. The French side has argurably one of the most talented side in the tournament with stars like Frank Ribery, Nicolas Anelka and Samir Nasri, but with Coach Raymond Domenech unable to gel the side as a unit and bring out the best in them, a quarter final spot looks the best they can achieve. Uruguay, the first ever winner of the FIFA World Cup in 1930 in Montevideo looks wobbly at the moment, needing a play-off against Costa Rica and a highly dubious goal which saw them through will certainly not make them look favorites to progress into the second round.

In Group B, we have Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea and Greece. Argentina looks the best bet to progress to the second round as leaders of this group; however, the eccentric Diego Maradona need to gel his team well together and ensure that Lionel Messi is hitting top form in South Africa just like he does for Barcelona. If Maradona and Messi can get their act together, then Argentina may well have a chance of reaching the semi finals of the tournament.

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