World Cup Draw Awaits

December 3, 2009

The 32 teams are in the hat and now just the draw awaits. The draw is going to determine who the winner of the World Cup is which is why everyone is so eagerly anticipating it. It will be interesting to see how soccer betting reacts to it.

The big pre-draw announcement was who the eight seeds were going to be. England and Netherlands got the nod ahead of France and Portugal. This means that wherever these two sides land up is going to be a difficult group. That is of course, unless one of them draws South Africa in which case it won’t be as bad.

South Africa are a seed by virtue of being a host. There is every chance that had they not received the automatic spot for being the host, they wouldn’t have even qualified for the tournament.

Pot B consists of the four Asian sides, the three CONCACAF sides and New Zealand. Four years ago Australia had the benefit of playing against Japan, something which they won’t receive this time round. Obviously New Zealand are the easy beats here and everyone will be hoping to draw them.

Pot C is the other five African sides and other three South American sides. Brazil and Argentina can not be drawn against one of their fellow South American teams. Likewise, South Africa can not play against another African sides. It is hard to say who are the better or worst sides here – they are all pretty decent.

Pot D is made up of eight European sides so obviously everyone receives another team from Europe regardless of where the seed comes from.

Brazil seems to always receive an easy draw. Could they get something as basic as New Zealand, Algeria and Greece? That just doesn’t seem right.

Often the Dutch receive tough groups. Could they get something as taxing as Mexico, Ghana and Portugal. That is surely a Group of Death.

As for England, they would want to avoid Australia given the huge sporting rivalry they two have. They might receive Cameroon which would setup a repeat of their memorable 1990 clash and in Pot D the likelihood is they will receive a team that begins with S.

What is impossible to say at this stage is how the tournament will look like in terms of who will meet who in the knockout rounds. Still any team can meet any other team in the final and thats because the group winners and runners up move to other sides of the draw.

David Wiseman writes for this blog. He also writes about greyhound betting.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.