Oddities of the World Cup draw pots

And so we come to the World Cup draw, today in Cape Town at 5.45pm, UK time.

With France; without the Republic of Ireland. No Costa Rica, either, and no Croatia or Russia - the only countries in the top 20 FIFA rankings not to make it.

The eight groups will be drawn from four pots, but it is important to note that there is only ONE seeded pot. The other three pots are made up on a geographical basis.

The seeded pot however contains one "joker", and that is the host nation South Africa, who are actually the lowest rated country in FIFA's rankings, yet join the other top seven countries from October's rankings, simply because they are the hosts.

It means that fifth-ranked (in November) Portugal are not in the top seed list, and neither are seventh-ranked France (though that would have been a travesty given the way they qualified!). England have benefited from FIFA using the October rankings. The November rankings would have seen them miss out on a seeding.

Groups will be drawn from the four pots, but - as ever - it will not be completely straightforward as no other South American team can be drawn with Brazil or Argentina, and no other African team can be drawn with South Africa.

The pots are (with November rankings in brackets):

1: Spain(1), Brazil (2), Holland(3), Italy(4), Germany(6), Argentina(8), England(9), South Africa(86).
2: USA(14), Mexico(15), Australia(21), Honduras(38), Japan(43), South Korea(52), New Zealand(77), North Korea(84).
3: Cameroon(11), Ivory Coast(16), Chile(17), Uruguay(19), Nigeria(22), Algeria(28), Paraguay(30), Ghana(37).
4: Portugal(5), France(7), Greece(12), Switzerland(18), Serbia(20), Denmark(26), Slovenia(33), Slovakia(34).

The way FIFA fill their pots means we could end up with a 'Group of Death' containing: Spain, USA, Cameroon and Portugal (combined ranking of 31), and a 'Comatose Group' containing: South Africa, North Korea, Ghana and Slovakia (combined ranking of 241).

Do FIFA just pray things will work out all right? You watch something odd happen.

England will be praying the worst doesn't happen to them.