At midnight (AEST) on Friday night the 2010 FIFA World Cup will begin when the host nation, South Africa, takes on Mexico at Johannesburg’s Soccer City stadium. For the 32 teams that have qualified this will be the culmination of years of planning and qualification matches, while for South Africa the chance to show off its country, and its continent, to the world will have finally arrived.

But what of our two respective nations, England and Australia, both teams have qualified and both countries will as ever have dramatically different expectations.

England:
At 35 (30 of which have been living in England) I am a veteran of the media hype that surrounds any England World Cup campaign.

‘England Expects’ is a commonly seen headline, as the newspapers throw off their shackles by splashing St George flags on the front and back pages in a show of unbridled patriotism. Beer and TV sales go through the roof as the country rides the World Cup roller-coaster until the inevitable penalty shoot-out.

Perhaps for the first time in my life, England have breezed through qualifying scoring plenty of goals and looking like a well organised team.

Manager Fabio Capello has at his disposal a generation of talented players who are all at their peak together. Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Ashley Cole, Gareth Barry and Joe Cole, are all regular top performers in the Premier League, and potentially they are at their last World Cup, so their hunger and desire to win will never been greater.

England’s star man and whose hopes are ultimately rested on is Wayne Rooney. The Manchester United striker has yet to really have a successful tournament for England, he was injured in the Quarter-Finals of Euro 2004 as England were eliminated by Portugal and before the last World Cup he faced a race to fit after picking up a foot injury. He went goalless in 2006 and was sent-off as England was again eliminated by Portugal in the Quarter-Final.

If Rooney and co fire then you’d expect England will have a good tournament.

Capello’s biggest decision is to decide who his first-choice goalkeeper will be. David James has been given the number 1 jersey, but he is far from certain to start in between the sticks with both Robert Green and Joe Hart both having impressive seasons.

Recent poor warm-up displays against Mexico and Japan, plus the loss of Rio Ferdinand to injury have slightly dampened things, but this England squad has plenty of potential and talent, so this time perhaps things will be different.

Prediction: Semi-final defeat to Brazil, but England are due some World Cup luck so you never know.

Australia:
For the first time in its history Australia have qualified for consecutive World Cup finals and in doing so have finally brought themselves out of the international wilderness.

Having to qualify through the Asian Confederation for the first time, manager Pim Verbeek negotiated his team through two tricky groups in top spot both times with relative ease.

Verbeek’s squad is largely made up of veterans from the 2006 World Cup and these players again are expected to form the backbone of the team which plays his trusted defensive 4-2-3-1 formation.

Mark Schwarzer, captain Lucas Neil, Brett Emerton, Mark Bresciano, and Harry Kewell will all be key players, but without doubt the star of the team is Tim Cahill. The Everton midfielder has seamlessly taken his Premier League goalscoring form onto the international stage, and his ability to score goals could well be the difference between a successfully Australia or not.

Recent unconvincing victories over New Zealand and Denmark, then a 3-1 defeat at the hands of the USA, has raised more questions and concerns about Verbeek’s tactics and squad selection. The main question marks being the managers apparent lack of a plan B and the ability of an ageing defence to cope with pacy forwards.

Can Australia do as well as they did in 2006? The nation certainly hopes so, and so does the FFA who have pumped millions of dollars into the game at domestic level. If Australia are to be successfully then Pim Verbeek and his team must up their game and not rely soley on Tim Cahill to perform.

Prediction: Knocked out at the Group stage.

Team I hope does well?
Greece.
I’ve always liked Greece, I had some cracking lads holidays there in the 1990s, my parents holiday there every year, and since moving to Melbourne I’ve met some really nice people though South Melbourne FC, but my main reason I hope Greece does well is because of all the negative press they have received this year. The poor Greeks, you’d think the world is about to collapse just because of their mismanaging of its economy, they certainly could do with a good news story and hopefully the World Cup can provide that for them.

My Dark horse?
Ivory Coast.
The first World Cup in Africa needs an African nation to perform well and the Ivory Coast certainly have the best team on paper. Despite what looks like a tough group in Brazil, Portugal and North Korea, they have a very good chance of finishing 2nd especially with a spine of a team that is as good as any. If Didier Drogba stays fit, and Emmanuel Eboue, Yaya Toure, Salomon Kalou and Kolo Toure all perform they might go far.

My Predication:
Brazil to win their 6th World title.

Andrew McTernan – Row ‘S’ Army