England's group nightmare

BBC Sport's John Motson says England have been drawn in by far the most difficult group.

The draw for the group stages of the World Cup did not favour England.

The more I think about it the worse it gets - Argentina, Nigeria and Sweden are all very tricky opponents.

Thankfully the top two teams go through automatically and that does make England's task a little easier.

There is always a so-called 'group of death' and there is absolutely no doubt England are in it.

Argentina galloped away to win the South American qualifying group by furlongs and England could not have been drawn against more difficult opponents.

I spoke to Sven-Goran Eriksson last week and he said that if England were drawn against a South American team he would look to play a friendly against a team from that continent before the World Cup.

Eriksson's team face a massive test

I would now expect England to play against either Brazil or Uruguay sometime before next summer.

Of course it gives David Beckham a chance to line up against the Argentines once more - and pit his wits against club colleague Juan Sebastian Veron.

England have a poor record against Sweden and have not beaten them since 1968.

Even though they were missing some key players in their recent friendly with England, the Swedes were very efficient and disciplined.

They finished third in the World Cup in 1994 and in Henrik Larsson they possess a very clinical finisher.

Larsson scores a lot of goals in Scotland and will want to prove his worth on the biggest stage.

Nigeria are another dangerous team.

They stretched Italy all the way in their knock-out match in the USA in 1994 and finished top of their group in France three years ago.

All in all England have been drawn in a nightmare group and we will find out just how good - and lucky - a coach Sven-Goran Eriksson is when the World Cup begins next May.