Easy?

I keep hearing comments to the tune of England getting an easy ride, admittedly this is mostly from Ozzies, not quite understanding that if they hadn’t gotten Germany they still would’ve got a Spain, Brazil, Holland or Italy…

It’s true England’s draw was pretty nice – but overwhelmingly ‘easy’? Let’s look at the figures

England have the US, rank: 14^th, top team from the second pot, along with Algeria (28^th) and Slovenia (33^rd)

I think a lot of this is down to there being little respect for the US, with little fear of them due to the fact that we’ve beaten them fairly easily multiple times in recent history, and it’s only the yanks - but nevertheless they are 14^th – people would probably be more wary of Ivory Coast, who are two places below the yanks, with Drogba in their ranks – now regardless of whether you think Ivory Coast are a better side, the facts remain that the US are highly ranked, and we can really only go on that – I’ve seen some managers say that Spain and the Netherlands have it easiest - we’re all biased here, and the only piece of information we can use here is *rank*, even if it is unrepresentative, it can’t fairly be based on our opinions on individual teams

If you look at England’s average rank of opponent it’s a healthy 25, with their lowest tam being 33^rd

By far the easiest draw was Italy, facing an average rank of 47, and not a single side within the top 30 – they face Slovakia, who are one place below our opponent Slovenia, Slovakia won the group but there’s little between the two, whipping boys New Zealand, and Paraguay, the second-worst team out of the Africa/South America pot

Argentina face Nigeria, South Korea and Greece – a middling African side, one of the weakest Asian teams, and Greece, who remain 12^th in the world somehow – average rank of 28.6, on an opinionated note I see little difference between the Argies and England here – both face some sides that could cause trouble but are unlikely to, I think people consider South Korea to be a good side after their exploits in 2002, but they lag behind Japan and Australia and are little threat really, hence why they are 52^nd in the world

The Dutch meanwhile face Denmark, a middling European side, Japan, and Cameroon – they face arguably the toughest side from Africa, but the other two are of minor concern, giving an average opponent rank of 26.6, I think they have it slightly tougher than England, but nothing devastating

Spain are the only side to face a tougher average opponent than England at 24.3 – with Chile a particular concern, few would view the Swiss as a major threat, but they are ranked 18^th, while lowly Honduras make up the numbers – tough, but again not much worse than England

If you look at it, England face a higher ranked side than Spain, France, Germany, and Italy

They also have no team below 33^rd – the strongest ‘weak’ team of any group

As I said, England picked the hardest team from pot two – certainly in a toss-up between the best European side and worst pot 2 side, and the top pot 2 team and worst European side, I’d take the latter, but it’s hardly our fault the top ranked side in there isn’t rated – had we got North Korea or New Zealand then we could view that as a free-ride, but we got a fairly reasonable draw – and no-one else comes close to the ease of Italy’s group

Averages aren’t always a fair way to measure this – but with Italy it’s fairly clear they have an easy ride, up against perennial first-round drop-outs Paraguay, the weakest European side and frigging New Zealand (and I’m not discounting averages to favour England, on that alone they have the second-hardest group)

In a couple of groups average doesn’t really seem fair – in Group A France are effectively the seeds, facing two top 20 sides in Uruguay and Mexico, and S.Africa – who skew the average, and as hosts should be feared, despite their rank

In Group D, Germany get an average of 26, but with Serbia and Australia in 20^th and 21^st respectively the group is competitive, although Germany should be big favourites - meanwhile Ghana are rated because of 2006, but still linger in 37^th, technically the weakest team from the Africa pot

And then of course, there’s Group G – the average is badly skewed by North Korea in 84^th but Brazil are facing a top ten side in Portugal, and the Ivory Coast in 16^th, three good sides after two spots

We got a good draw, but it wasn’t exceptionally favourable, I see only Brazil having a very tough group, and only Italy really getting lucky