South Africa midfielder Steven Pienaar is happy with the host nation's World Cup draw and believes they can make progress in the tournament.

Bafana Bafana have been drawn against 1998 world champions France, Mexico and Uruguay.

Everton player Pienaar told Sky Sports News: "For us to go to the second round, that is the expectation of the people. I think we can get out of the group.

"Mexico and Uruguay play quite similar to us, only France will be a bit of a challenge for us.

"The crowd will boost the players and we will be confident with them behind us. We hope they will be behind us."

United States talisman Landon Donovan was upbeat after being drawn in Group C with England, Algeria and Slovenia.

Donovan, the USA's all-time leading goalscorer, has a potential head-to-head meeting with Los Angeles Galaxy team-mate David Beckham when the two countries open their Group C campaigns in Rustenberg.

"It could have been worse," Donovan said after watching the draw from New York.

"It's going to be fun. Depending on where I play, playing against [Frank] Lampard, [Steven] Gerrard in a midfield against those guys is going to be pretty fun.

"I can't think of a better match-up personally."

Germany coach Joachim Low expects his side's Group D to be one of the tightest next summer, predicting a battle to the very end.

The 2006 hosts were placed in Group D together with Australia, Serbia and Ghana and Low is not taking any of the three opponents lightly.

"We have lots of respect for Serbia and I have seen some of their games from the qualifiers on DVD and saw how they left France clearly behind them," he said.

"And Ghana are not an outsider either. Along with Algeria and the Ivory Coast, they are one of the strongest teams.

"They did well in Germany (in 2006) and I think they knocked Brazil out and they have Michael Essien, who Michael Ballack knows well. He is a top-level player."