Now that the United States and the rest of the world is done with their World Cup Qualifying regional finals (with just a small handful of playoff matches to go), it is time to look forward to December’s World Cup Draw. Here is how it works….
There are 32 nations that have made it to this stage and all will be split into eight groups. The groups are determined by four “pots” of teams that get drawn out of a fishbowl. One team from each pot will be placed in one of the eight groups. Here are how the pots are split:
- Pot 1. The top 7 seeds of the FIFA Rankings + the host nation (in this case Brazil)
- Pots 2, 3, and 4 are then categorized by geography and have nothing to do with the FIFA Rankings.
The FIFA Rankings that will determine the top 7 “seeded teams” looks like this:
So The USA will be placed our geographic pot and our group will consist of the “seeded team”, USA, an African nation, and a European nation.
Personally I am absolutely terrified of this draw. There is incredibly little chance the Americans will draw a group as “light” as we did in 2010 with England, Slovenia, and Algeria. Rather, we are more than likely to draw something like Brazil, Italy, and the Ivory Coast. Ok so maybe that is a worst case scenario but with nations such as Italy, France, and 2010 finalist Holland NOT in Pot 1, it is very possible to end up with 2 traditional superpowers in our group.
See for yourself by checking out this handy World Cup Draw simulator. It is equally fun as it is terrifying.
For example I just ran a simulation and drew the USA with Brazil, Ghana, and France.
Shit.
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