WWC draw procedures

[littleD]

Taken from a post on rss....

Seeded teams: United States (A1), China, Norway, Germany

USA is in Group A, position 1 already. China, Norway and Germany will be drawn into the other 3 groups from left to right and be given the top position in each group - B1, C1 and D1. Simple? Good.

Pot 2: Ghana, Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil

So they stuck the Africans and South Americans into the same pot, which could be a blessing or a curse depending on which one is in your group. They'll be drawn as normal into the four groups from left to right and then given a position in the group - 2, 3 or 4. This is for scheduling purposes so that the fixtures are a little more random.

Pot 3: France, Russia, Sweden

The non-seeded European teams. There's a trick here though - FIFA doesn't want two groups with two European teams and one group without any. So the first team drawn here will automatically go into Group A (USA) and the second team drawn will go into whichever group China's in. The final team will be drawn into either Germany or Norway's group from left to right - so if Germany is in C and Norway's in D, it goes into Germany's group. Each one draws a position as well.

Pot 4: Canada, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic, Australia

Now things get interesting, with Canada and the Asian/Oceanic teams

entering. First team drawn will go into the Germany/Norway group which did not have a second European team drawn into it. Then we go left to right again, filling out the final four spots. However, there's two more rules. If Canada are drawn second, they will go into Group B and not Group A to avoid being paired with the United States. They also need to do something similar to make sure that no group has two Asian teams.

[Chet]

Odds are better than 50% that Canada ends up in China's group. Were in the same pot as the three Asian teams. None of them can end up with China, so that means it's either Canada or Australia. And since Canada can't be in the same group as U.S.A:), it makes our chances of getting China higher than Australia's.

[Chet]

Oops. As beachesl correctly points out on one of the other threads, Australia can't be in the U.S.A's group either. So it's 50/50. Either Canada or Australia ends up in China's group.

It's pretty convoluted. I can't believe they're only announcing the draw procedure on the day before the draw.

[beachesl]

Even apart from permutations of Japan vs. Mexico, I think that the administration is so tight that they have to be shooting from the hip the whole time.