A First Look at the World Cup Draw

November 17th, 2009 | by: Rob | Comments(4)

Good piece by Henry Winter in todays Telegraph, about how dangerous a First Round Draw England could get despite the fact that we will almost certainly be seeded (won’t be officially announced untill all the teams are through and FIFA has worked out the best way to get the big teams through the fairest way for everyone to play against each other.

The idea is that potentially, we could come up with a group of Russia, Australia and the Ivory Coast. Or Portugal.

So, below is a quick look at the expected seeding according to his post, and our best and worst case scenarios.

Copied verbatim from that Telegraph article:

Expected World Cup seedings

Pot 1 (seeds): Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, Spain, hosts South Africa and France/Republic of Ireland.*

Pot 2 (rest of Uefa): Denmark, Greece/Ukraine, Holland,Portugal/Bosnia, Russia/Slovenia, Serbia, Slovakia, Switzerland.

Pot 3 (AFC + Concacaf): Australia, New Zealand, Honduras, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mexico, United States
.
Pot 4 (CAF + rest of Conmebol): Algeria/Egypt, Cameroon, Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Paraguay, Nigeria, Uruguay/Costa Rica†

*If Ireland win, Portugal would probably step up and the Irish would go into Pot 2.

† If Costa Rica win, they may go into Pot 3, with New Zealand in Pot 4.

So, England probably will be seeded, which means we avoid Brazil, Spain, Italy, Germany and erm South Africa.

So we’ll get one team from each of the other pots. Pot 2 does look a bit scary. Assuming Russia and Portugal make it through, i fancy neither in the first round. Both have done for us in too recent memory, and both have good sides, despite the fact that Portugal appear to be struggling a bit at the moment. Really don’t want Holland either, and Serbia might go a bit further in this tournament as they have a few good players.

Switzerland would possibly be the best case scenario. I think we could deal with Greece, or despite that qualifying result, Ukraine, pretty well as well.

In Pot 3, I think New Zealand are the weak ones we can hope for. They’ve made their first World Cup since the 80s, and have a Championship striker up top.

Australia tend to do alright at tournaments, and would be fired up to beat England at anything. South Korea and Japan too, usually have a tricky energy at tournaments, Mexico eventually qualified alright and have a few good players, and the USA have beaten Spain.

Not gonna pretend I know loads about all the countries in Pot 4, but I do think that the Ivory Coast might make a break through for African Sides this summer. If they can keep them fit they have Drogba to get them goals, and the two Touré’s, Yaya and Kolo to shore them up behind. They’re a bit unlucky that they are going to get a pretty tough group though, but I hope its not England’s.