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The sense of anticipation was increased with the draw for the World Cup Finals being completed. We now know who's in which pool, who can meet in the knockout rounds, etc.

Australia has drawn Germany, Ghana and Serbia in Group D. It's a pretty tough group, probably tougher than we had in 2006. Germany is Germany - a seeded team with an excellent record at the Finals. Nevertheless, we lost to Brazil in our group match last time and still made the round of 16. Ghana is the form team in Africa, qualifying comfortably. Serbia's record is much the same; they finished top of their European group - a group that included France.

The order of the matches is important too. In 2006, we played arguably the weakest team first and got off to a good start with a win. This time we play the strongest team (Germany) first. A loss is not a disaster, but it is a psychological blow. We then play Ghana and finish with Serbia. The second game could prove key. If we lose to Germany we'll be wanting to beat Ghana and that will be tough. We'll also probably need a result from our last game, but with Serbia a strong opponent that will be tough too, but doable. All up, a tougher ask, but not impossible.

In other groups, England has a relatively easy group in Group C. This could prove very interesting as the winner of this group, probably England, will play the second-placed team from Group D (hopefully us).

New Zealand drew Italy, Slovakia and Paraguay in Group F. They'd be reasonably happy with that. Not the easiest group perhaps, but it could have been a lot worse.

Group G - Brazil, Portugal, Cote d'Ivoire and Korea DPR - seems to be the consensus pick as the most difficult group. For mine, Group A - South Africa, France, Mexico and Uruguay also looks very tough.

Enough talk. Let's play some football. Can't wait.