World Cup Rankings: 5-8

5. France -- Beatdown Honduras, beatdown Switzerland, lackluster draw with Ecuador, beat Nigeria, gave Germany a tough match.  Young and dangerous, not the peak of the Zidane/Henry years but better than the average French side from my youth.  The ease with which they vanquished their group struck me as for real.  Nigeria played them even for 70 minutes or so, but France wore them down and thumped them convincingly.  As for the Germany match, neither team held the ball consistently and Germany's goal was just one of those Germany goals, not much you can do about it.  I thought France played well, looked dangerous, looked good going forward.

6. Mexico -- Mexico has made the round of 16 in 7 of the last 8 Cups.  That's impressive.  Now they just have to figure how to win once they get there.  Mexico is a conundrum: they play well against the Latin American giants but they are often neutralized by USA and European-style teams.  I thought they played well against Brazil and the Netherlands and were better then Bosnia and Cameroon.  Mexico deserved to be in this mix, this is not a fluke.  But building on it and getting deeper into the tournament is their mission.

7. Brazil -- This squad kinda sucked, actually.  Once you get past the thumping of Croatia (how would you like to play Brazil in Brazil on the opening day of the biggest event on the planet?  Yeah, you might lose 3-1 too), and the beatdown of Cameroon (#30 on my list), Brazil failed to impress against Mexico or Chile and (I thought) got kinda lucky against Colombia.  Take the lackluster performances and remove Neymar and Thiago Silva and they got exposed by Germany as weak in the front, out of shape in the mid, and clueless in the back.  Man, they went out ugly--and they still have to play Netherlands!  (If I were Scolari I'd empty out that bench, start 'em all, shake it up as much as possible, keep the stars from getting double-drilled and give the newbies a chance to shine out)

8. Algeria -- Looking back on it, Algeria was one of my favorite teams to watch in this Cup and one of the most interesting.  They played well against Belgium but lost it in a bad flurry, whomped South Korea, scratched a draw from Russia, played Germany as hard for 90 minutes as anyone in this tournament.  They played stifling D at times, attacking offense at times, and swaggered into the round of 16 with nothing to lose.  I hope this Algeria team holds it together and comes back strong in 4 years.