Most interesting story lines....

[mfw13]

This is going to be a very interesting World Cup....

Here are some of the story lines I'll be following:

1) How well will Korea and Japan do this year?
2) Which African team, if any, will manage to make it out of the group stage?
3) Who will be the odd man out in Group B? England, Sweden, and Paraguay all made it to the second round in 2002....one of them won't this year.
4) Who will come out ahead in the battle for 2nd place in groups A and F? Both group feature three very evenly matched teams (Poland, Costa Rica, and Ecuador in group A and Croatia, Japan, and Australia in Group F), and if Poland and Croatia go through, it will damage the arguments of those who believe that UEFA has too many places.
5) Who will come out ahead in the battle between the second tier UEFA teams and Africa, Asia, and N.American teams. Some of the interesting matches will be:

Poland-Costa Rica
Poland-Ecuador
Sweden-Paraguay
England-Paraguay
Serbia-Ivory Coast
Czech-Ghana
Croatia-Japan
Croatia-Australia
Switzerland-Korea
Ukraine-Tunisia

[MinPuentes]

I think Ghana has the best chance to make it to stage 2 and Paraguay will be odd. I'm most interested in the Mexico - Iran game, as the loser of that game will be all but done.