Tough World Cup draw as Russia avoid England

Russia managed to avoid being paired again with England inthe 2010 Word Cup draw. Instead, they’ve drawn Germany, another giant of European football, who are likely to provide far tougher opposition than either England, Croatia or Israel.

Former German World Cup winning coach and captain Franz Beckenbauer certainly isn’t all that worried by the Russian threat:

“We have no reason at all to be unhappy about this group. There are more difficult groups and there are easier groups. We’re in the middle somewhere,” he told Premiere television. “Russia will be the most difficult, but they only made it into the Euro finals because of the incompetence of England. I think Russia should be beatable. Without being arrogant, you’d have to say we’re the clear favourite in this group.”

Looking on the bright side, though, the other teams in Russia’s World Cup qualifying group aren’t particularly intimidating, and Russia should be able to comfortably secure second place, and a play-off match against another second place finisher for a place in the World Cup itself.

Here’s the draw for Group 4 in full:

Germany
Russia
Finland
Wales
Azerbaijan
Liechtenstein

England, by the way, have been drawn in a post-Soviet paradise of a group. As well as being drawn against Croatia and Andorra (again), they’ve daunting away trips to Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan to look forward to.

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