the draw is kinda important

Look I know that even with a "favorable" draw, the US still wouldn't be a safe bet to go through to the knockout stage.

But it couldn't hurt.

It would be great not to have all hopes of advancing dashed away this afternoon during ESPN's 3 hour selection show. I'm pretty sure that they could draw the teams in 3 minutes and still have 1 minute leftover to complain about those noisemakers the Bafana Bafana love so much.

Here's my draw:

USA
Italy
Portugal
Chile

Not so great. Not so bad.

Look you never know. It didn't look so great in 2002 when the draw included one of the hosts (who always go through), a tournament favorite, and another European side.

I think they key will be drawing either Italy or South Africa (duh) from Pot A.