Well here is the how the 32 teams rank, first by pts, then goal differential and then by goals scored:
Country Pts GD GF
1 Spain 9 7 8
2 Germany 9 6 8
3 Brazil 9 6 7
4 Portugal 9 4 5
5 Argentina 7 7 8
6 Italy 7 4 5
7 Switzerland 7 4 4
8 England 7 3 5
9 Netherlands 7 2 3
10 Ecuador 6 2 5
11 Ukraine 6 1 5
12 Ghana 6 1 4
13 France 5 2 3
14 Sweden 5 1 3
15 Mexico 4 1 4
16 Australia 4 0 5
17 Korea Republic 4 -1 3
18 Paraguay 3 0 2
19 Côte d’Ivoire 3 -1 5
20 Czech Republic 3 -1 3
21 Poland 3 -2 2
22 Croatia 2 -1 2
23 Angola 2 -1 1
24 Tunisia 1 -3 3
25-26 Iran 1 -4 2
25-26 USA 1 -4 2
27 Trinidad and Tobago 1 -4 0
28-29 Japan 1 -5 2
28-29 Saudi Arabia 1 -5 2
30 Togo 0 -5 1
31 Costa Rica 0 -6 3
32 Serbia and Montenegro 0 -8 2
Comments:
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In my opinion the true Group of Death was in fact Group E and not Group C. I may be mistaken, but it was the only group where no team could be guaranteed a spot by tying their final game. The Czech Republic being out is some evidence at how tough te group is, although I think the CR really didn’t play well after the USA game.
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Spain looks impressive, but we have been down this road before. Will they disappoint yet again?
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USA? Disappointing to be sure. OVer hyped to the extreme. But the fact is that they were always favored not to make it out of this group and I think the level of horribleness has beensomewhat exagerrated. having said that, they showed that the US, while I think has decent technical ability and some decent athletes, lacks the true creativity and attacking mentality that the great teams have.
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I was very surprised at the touble France had with what should have been a a fairly simple group to qualify from.