Group A

Looking at the first group, the opening game of the tournament will be South Africa, the hosts, against Mexico, followed by France against Uruguay

South Africa

A tournament needs a good performance from the hosts to get local fans excited, but how well can South Africa do? they have a World Cup winning coach in Carlos Alberta Perreira, a team where 9 players ply their trade outside of the country, do they seriously have any chance of impressing. Their opening game against Mexico should answer this, recent form suggests they'll not put up much of a fight but coming friendlies at home to some larger European sides may aide them to improve this. Hopefully home support can push them to qualify for the next stage, though i doubt this. Star player is Everton's Steven Pienaar but let's not forget Quinton Fortune was a star player for them 4 years ago.

Interesting fact, South Africa has the 2nd oldest film industry in the world, presumably Clint Eastwood is first.

National dish, Biltong, basically the same as an epileptic cow, it's beef jerky.

Mexico

Ever present in the finals since they were banned in 1990 (blood fake scandal), they have finished second in their group each time in the last 4 finals before being eliminated in the second round. Managed by former player Javier Aguirre, with 10 of the squad based in Europe, the rest earn their living in their home country and stand out players like Barcelona's Rafa Marquez and Arsenal's Carlos Vela (plus Manchester United's new signing Javier Hernandez, a chance for fans to see him in action) suggests this team will be hard to beat but will come unstuck against the bigger sides

Interesting fact, if you love Starbucks coffee.....you won't find one in Mexico (obviously not their cup of tea), they only have 1 Ben & Jerrys as well!

National dish, tacos, Americans hate the Mexican people, but they love their food, more tacos are eaten in the States than anywhere else in the world

Uruguay

Managed by their Italia 90 manager Oscar Tabarez and qualifying in a play off at the expense of Costa Rica, it's hard to see them really making an impact, Atletico Madrid's Diego Forlan leads the attack for a team hoping to cause an upset, but then underdogs have nothing to lose and everything to gain, expect a star performer to emerge from this team

Interesting fact, the average life expectancy at birth is 75.2 years, the longest in South Africa, Uruaguay also has a zero tolerance policy on drug manufacturing, maybe the two go together Colombia!

National dish, empanada gallega, a fish pie.....maybe drugs would help just a little

France

Cheated to get here, not many people outside of France like them and though expected to top the group, recent form shows that against top sides, they really struggle and an early elimination round departure is expected, possibly to Argentina or Nigeria in the second round. Though the team has plenty of talent and individual stars, they seem to of lost their way under Raymond Domenech recently, after being in charge the past 6 years, the team has slowly lost the golden generation that won in France 98 and the European championship in 2000, it'll be interesting to see how they cope under the global attention this time around.

Interesting fact, during the Napoleonic wars, a French ship was wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool in the north of England, there was one survivor, the ships pet monkey but the people of Hartlepool had never seen a Frenchmen and presumed it was a spy and hung it (to be fair, it was in a military uniform but with covered in all that hair, they probably thought it was a French lady)

National dish, frogs legs, snails, garlic.....anything you can find in the garden any other country would throw away really (maybe they eat snails as they don't like fast food)