The World Cup draw takes place on Friday (BBC Two from 16:30-17:45 GMT). I think I have finally understood the (typically FIFA) complicated draw process. Basically in order to keep South American teams apart and have a maximum of 2 Euro teams in each group, Pot 2 (Africa and non seeded South America) currently has 7 teams and Pot 4 (non-seeded Europe) has 9. One of the European teams will be drawn into Pot 2 and will play one of the South American seeds (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay or Colombia). This could happen to England. The draw would then continue with the African teams in Pot 2 meeting South American seeded teams. in other words the 2 South American non-seeded teams will play European seeds. So a possible "group of death" for England could be - Brazil, Ivory Coast and Holland Alternatively they could get Switzerland, Algeria and Honduras. Here are the Pots: 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-Hercegovina, Croatia, England, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, France I think we all need to remember that for a team of England's current ability there will be no easy games.
On balance, going into Pot 2 makes life harder, but you can devise easy or hard draws in both scenarios, so we'll just have to see.
