Some new faces

So the World Cup teams are all but settled

Who will be the seeds? Well assuming the hosts will be seeded once again (South Africa are 1st in group A already) then there are only 7 real seeds:

Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England

The only real risk is England (as usual) - the threat is from France, and quite frankly after their antics against Ireland I would be sick to my stomach if they got a top spot as well, so they probably will - it depends if our latest defeat to Brazil and their questionable win over Ireland matter enough - I'm sure someone can work it out, but we'll find out on Friday

Teams that also entered 2006:

Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Argentina, England, Australia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Paraguay, Portugal, Switzerland, Japan, Korea, US, Serbia (-Montenegro), France  (19)

New teams:

South Africa (2002), N. Korea (1966), Denmark (2002), Chile (1998), Slovakia (first time), Honduras (1982), New Zealand (1982), Slovenia (2002), Nigeria (2002), Cameroon (2002), Algeria (1986), Greece (1994), Uruguay (2002) (13)

Only one team making their début in 2010 then, compared to eight in Germany - meaning that roughly 80 teams have now made it to a world cup finals, out of over 200 members in FIFA (although a few don't exist any more - hence 'rough') - this is in fact the first time that so few newbies have entered since believe it or not, England was the only débutante back in 1950 (and even then Slovakia is considered a joint successor of Czechoslovakia by FIFA - so there's essentially no new teams)

Teams that failed to qualify for a consecutive appearance:

Angola, Ecuador, Tunisia, Togo, Croatia, Czech Rep, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, Costa Rica, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad and Tobago

4th December here we come...