Interesting. If Colombia finishes second in group H, then all South American teams will be stacked on the left side. The right side will have seven European teams.

It's hard to call one side stronger than the other though. While the left side has more of the big football nations, hardly any of them have played convincing football in this tournament. On the right side you have lesser European teams and Spain, but most of them play as real teams with disciplined defense and have players who can score; those teams have already proved that they shouldn't be underestimated by getting wins or draws against the teams on the left side.

Eh, Senegal was obviously the cream of Africa, even if that doesn't mean much. Colombia was also a no-brainer, and yeah, Japan was surprising. That said, it was always obvious Poland was gonna Poland, at least to me, so I get that 5-point bonus too (except I don't, because Senegal and Colombia won't both go through).

Guess who is the exception :D

There's a catch to that. In both 2002 and 2006 Poland played against a team that had nothing to play for anymore. Not this time.