Couple of my colleagues have took their vacation during that time. I personally couldn't care less about it

I'm packing my bag right now. In a couple of hours I leave for Stockholm, and tomorrow I'm off to Germany!

I sure do!
At least for Sweden-Trinidad/Tobago... I'm not entirely sure we managed to get tickets for the other matches this weekend. But if we didn't, that means more time to drink beer and eat German sausages.

Sounds great! I envy you..
I hope we both win our first two games so the England v Sweden game is not critical.

I'll disagree here:
Brazil: Only there attacking full-backs are really old, but their defenders aren't the best.

England: Rooney is not yet fit, and Owen is not completely back on form. However, by the third game Owen should be sharp and is a world class striker. Rooney should be able to come back soon after if we get through.

France: Saw them play against China. They have good players, but Zidane is past his best and they don't play as a good team.

Moggi actually
Other problem is that Totti still ins't in perfect shape after the ugly injury he had and other 3 important players very recently injured...

It will be interesting to see how badly Australia goes down in the first round

there is a nice applet here http://www.worldcupchart.com/applet.htm

Mine (attached) has england 2-1 portugal in the final

Thanks for that Neil!

If Brazil come first in their group and we come first we could face them in the semi-final. If we come second we would face them in the final, but have to play stronger times before we faced them (Germany, Argentina, Italy)..

That's assuming we get that far, which is still an unknown!

Since we seem to start off slow and get better as we go on I think it would be better to play Brazil in the final. Still, we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves here, there is a long way to go till the final for all the teams.

Living in canada i don't know who to vote for. Probably england and france with brazil as a third... not because they are favorites but because brazil has some hot chicks and seems like a cool place.

How come no mention of the czechs.. supposedly they are ranked number 2.

The Czechs became a serious power in football again in 1996 (after a long time of being average) when they finished second in Euro '96 which was a big surprise. Since then they've always had a good team and they always did well in qualifying. In Euro '04 they were one of the top favourites alongside Portugal. They got to the semi finals and lost 0:1 to Greece who then beat Portugal 1:0 in the final (Greece didn't make it to the World Cup).

In my opinion Czechs are again one of the top favourites, together with Portugal and Brazil and maybe Argentina. Some other teams that could do well are Germany, England, Italy, Spain, France and Netherlands. Less likely to get very far but still with a good chance are Ukraine (qualified first in Europe), Croatia (nooooooo), Mexico, Ivory Coast (i.e. France #2), Sweden and that's probably about it (unless I forgot a country I really shouldn't forget).

Also USA is ranked #5 in the world, but the formula they use to calculate standings is not very accurate because USA plays very few official games with European and South American teams, so that's not their real position. They'll be lucky to get out of the group stage.

Oh, and you should never forget about Iran!