Every team needs a bit of luck to do well at a World Cup and England certainly got lucky with their first round draw. I can't see us having any problem negotiating a group that contains the USA, Slovenia and Algeria. England, and to a lesser extent the Americans, are clear favourites to progress.
The US have a lot of players plying their trade in top European leagues, including the Premier League, and they're gaining international experience all the time, so they'll think they have a really good chance of going through with England.
The possible downside to England's draw is that the winners and runners up go on to play teams from Group D. You look at Group D with Germany, Serbia, Ghana and Australia (who will obviously finish bottom) - and it is a pretty tough line up!
You'd like to think that we won't have to face the Germans straight after the group stage, which means finishing top of our group is important, providing Germany finish top of their group. So England will have one eye on that group throughout the first round.
My tip to win the World Cup at the moment, however, is Brazil. They've got more options throughout their squad (except perhaps up front) than any other nation. The only problem for them could be if their striker Luis Fabiano gets injured, because they haven't got an obvious forward to effectively replace him. They've got a few others who can score goals, but none stand out as a linchpin in the manner of Luis Fabiano.
Brazil were responsible for my favourite ever World Cup moment, when Carlos Alberto rounded off one of the greatest ever moves to wrap up a 4-1 thrashing of Italy in the 1970 final. I'm slightly biased because it was a full back - my old position - bombing on to score, but it was typical Brazilian brilliance.
If we had a goal like that scored in South Africa, we'd have at least 20 TV camera angles, but back in 1970 there was only one camera following the play. The ball was passed down the opposite side of the pitch to Carlos Alberto and because there is only one camera angle, you can't see his pitch-length run until Jairzinho plays the ball across the penalty area to Pele.
When Pele plays the pass you think he's hit it to nobody and then Carlos Alberto appears, the ball hits a bobble, bounces up and he hits it almost on the volley, rifling it past the helpless Italy goalkeeper. I love everything about that goal, although I did rip the Italian defending to pieces on a DVD I did with Adrian Chiles!
