you can;t just pick a team, coz they're ur fav, i mean look at college basketball, the seeding doesn't count, i mean if that was the case than what about world champs france in 02. i mean america would have done allright but they are in a very difficult group prob the toughest. america just lost 4-1 to germany. 4 goals come on now, i'd rather take korea against them, a lot has happened in 4 yrs but looks like this time around the English boys will do some damage this time around, i know it didn't go as planned in europe but and however like greece showed it on their homeground that the hometeam is the fav, ofcourse so germany is one of the contenders for sure, the brazilians however have the team to envy on, even ronaldo looks like he'll come off the bench, behind robinho. you can;t compare leagues or pit the respective teams as better, only time will tell. anyways here;s looking forward to a wonderful world cup, 2006. it was worth the wait.