Pots for the World Cup

The source for this was the Spanish rag Marca, so take it with a grain of salt.

Pot 1: South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England, France*
Pot 2: Netherlands, Portugal/Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia/Slovenia, Switzerland Greece/Ukraine, Serbia, Denmark, Slovakia
Pot 3: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Egypt/Algeria, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay/Costa Rica
Pot 4: Japan, S-Korea, N-Korea, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Mexico, Honduras.

* If Ireland beats France, I assume Ireland will go into Pot 2 and the Netherlands will move into Pot 1

I was told today - We could get Holland Ivory Coast & USA all in our group!

Seem to remember Ivory Coast getting a real difficult group last time?

Ivory Coast are in pot 3, so you would expect them to get a reasonably tough group. On paper, 2 sides should be better than them and so they shouldnt qualify.

Ivory Coast have good players though and are well capable of upsetting one of those two teams, whoever they turn out to be.

The pots on this thread are speculated I believe? From the Marca Red said. Are there any official pots around?

The guess by Marca isn't that speculative.

Pot 1 are the top seeds, Pot 2 is all the teams from Europe that aren't among the top seeds, pot 3 seems to be Africa and South America and Pot 4 seems to be Asia, North +Central America and Down Under.

I have also seen predictions where Pot 3 and Pot 4 are reversed but since you get one from each pot it doesn't really matter what pot is which.


These rankings were from November 20/2009

They add something called Performance Points to the FIFA Ranking Points to get a total.
(totals are in bold for the top seeds)

South Africa are seeded as host and traditionally the host country gets the easy group and the easiest knockout game so the host country can at least get to the Quarter finals which ensures the crowds remain large.

Country - Total - Performance points - FIFA Ranking Points

1 Brazil 59.7 29.3 30.3
2 Germany 59.3 30.3 29.0
3 Italy 56.7 27.3 29.3
4 Spain 56.0 25.3 30.7
5 England 51.3 26.3 25.0
6 Argentina 49.7 21.0 28.7
7 France 48.7 23.3 25.3
--------------------------------
8 Portugal 47.3 22.3 25.0
9 Netherlands 43.0 14.7 28.3
10 Mexico 37.7 19.3 18.3
11 USA 34.7 13.7 21.0
12 Switzerland 31.7 15.3 16.3
13 Paraguay 30.3 11.7 18.7
14 Ghana 24.7 13.3 11.3
15 Korea Republic 23.7 15.7 8.0
16 Cameroon 23.7 3.0 20.7
17 Japan 23.3 13.3 10.0
18 Australia 23.3 11.3 12.0
19 Greece 21.3 0.0 21.3
20 Côte d'Ivoire 20.3 6.0 14.3
21 Serbia 20.3 5.3 15.0
22 Denmark 19.7 7.7 12.0
23 Nigeria 19.7 2.7 17.0
24 Uruguay 18.3 2.7 15.7
25 Chile 13.0 0.0 13.0
26 Honduras 7.7 0.0 7.7
27 Slovakia 7.0 0.0 7.0
28 Slovenia 6.7 2.7 4.0
29 South Africa 6.3 3.0 3.3
30 Algeria 6.3 0.0 6.3
31 New Zealand 2.3 0.0 2.3
32 Korea DPR 1.0 0.0 1.0


The group suggested by Ticktok is possible, but that has to be the worst scenario that England could end up with.

lol i don't think any predictions will be right... can't wait for the draw though!

Redcanuck wrote:

South Africa are seeded as host and traditionally the host country gets the easy group and the easiest knockout game so the host country can at least get to the Quarter finals which ensures the crowds remain large.

If they want to fix the world cup to ensure the crowds remain large, then they should fix it to give England an easy run.