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With qualification completed, the draw to determine the groupings of the teams for next year’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil will take place on Friday evening in Bahia.
The tournament itself begins on June 12 and will go on until July 13.
It will be the first time that the World Cup is being held in Brazil since the year 1950. On that occasion, the hosts were beaten by Uruguay in the final.
So before that, here’s everything you need to know as you prepare:
Where is the draw happening?
The draw takes place on Friday, December 6, starting at 09:30 pm IST in the evening.
The event will take place in the coastal resort town of Costa do Sauipe in the province of Bahia, some 56 miles from the host city of Salvador.
Sportskeeda will have complete end-to-end coverage of the draw. Tune in for regular updates.
Pots for the World Cup draw
Pot 1 (top eight seeds): Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Belgium, Colombia, Germany, Switzerland, Uruguay.
Pot 2: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Algeria, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chile, Ecuador.
Pot 3: Japan, Iran, South Korea, Australia, United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras.
Pot 4: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, England, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, France.
Amongst the list of former players that will be present to draw the lots will be England’s Sir Geoff Hurst, France’s Zinedine Zidane, Brazil’s Cafu and Italy’s Fabio Cannavaro.
The 32 teams who have qualified for the finals will be drawn into eight groups of four – with the top two in each group progressing to the knockout stages.
There can be no more than two European teams in any one group and only one from South America.
Who are the seeds?
The eight seeded teams – Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Belgium, Uruguay and Switzerland – are all in Pot 1.
Brazil, as hosts, will naturally take up a spot in Group A, and the other seven seeds will be placed across groups B-H.
If you’re wondering who the seeded teams are, it’s very simple – the top seven highest-ranked teams in the FIFA world rankings along with Brazil as hosts make up the seeded teams.
Who else is there?
The other 24 teams to have qualified are:
Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria; Australia, Iran, Japan, South Korea; Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, England, France, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia; Costa Rica, Honduras, United States, Mexico; Ecuador, Chile.
Now here’s the tricky part, where there is a slight deviation from past draws. Each of these teams has been placed in a separate pot depending on the region from which they hail.
The unseeded South American countries and the teams that have qualified from Africa will go into Pot 2.
The teams from Asia, North America and Central America all go into Pot 3 and the 9 unseeded teams from Europe are placed in Pot 4.
However, FIFA have mentioned that one of the unseeded European teams from Pot 4 will be moved to Pot 2 after the pre-draw on Thursday.
What is Pot X?
Another new introduction is the presence of a ‘Pot X’.
This Pot X is going to contain the four seeded teams from South America – Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay. These four countries are going to be temporarily held in this pot.
Now, you remember the one European team that we talked about getting shifted to Pot 2 after the pre-draw? So, the officials will wait to see which of these four South American teams is drawn with that European team – consequently, the other three countries will automatically go back into the main draw once that is done.
For example, let’s say England are the European team to get shifted into Pot 2, and say they draw Argentina in their group, then immediately Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay will be taken out of that Pot X and put back in their Pot 1.
What happens if the draw goes wrong?
Well, this has happened in the past.
And with some of the additional changes brought in this year, who knows? We might get a repeat.
The draw for the 1982 World Cup in Spain saw some major gaffes. Of the four South American teams that qualified, Chile and Peru were to be kept apart from bigwigs Argentina and Brazil, but in an act of oversight, but the bungling officials failed to take out their balls from the draw.
Scotland were wrongly put in Argentina’s group after Belgium were put into Brazil’s group by mistake, forcing the draw to be partially done again. England striker Kevin Keegan was seen laughing the whole way through the incident.
Also, the metal cage which was used to hold the balls got jammed, breaking one of the balls in the process.
Who could draw whom and which big teams can be drawn together?
A lot of this actually hinges on which of the European teams is moved from Pot 4 to Pot 2. As stated in the example above, if England are indeed that European team, then they will face one of the South American heavyweights – Argentina, Brazil, Colombia or Uruguay – in the group stage.
Also, what that would do is fetch them another European team to contend with from Pot 4, where you have the likes of Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and France – and one of those teams could easily be drawn against England. Imagine a group of England, USA, Argentina and France/Netherlands/Portugal/Italy!
The same goes for France, Portugal and the Dutch, if they were to be the team drawn into Pot 4.
All in all, the European team which is drafted into Pot 2, faces a slightly trickier proposition.
If they remain in Pot 4 then they could face any of the top seeds.
