The pots for the World Cup draw on Friday were announced today! In the end, there weren’t any big surprises. In fact, the only difference from my previous post that I made predicting the pots is that Netherlands are a seeded team and France is not. Otherwise, it was exactly the same as I expected (not taking into account the specific pot number from 2-4 because it’s irrelevant).
So since this afternoon was a slow one at work I made my official unofficial mock draw. What I didn’t know last time (in addition to the official final pots) is that FIFA won’t allow the African and South American teams in Pot 1 to draw another team from their region. That changes things a bit and ensures each group will have as much regional variety as possible.
Official Pots
Pot 1: South Africa, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Spain, England, Netherlands, Argentina
Pot 2: South Korea, Japan, Australia, North Korea, Mexico, USA, Honduras, New Zealand
Pot 3: Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Ghana, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Algeria
Pot 4: Portugal, France, Switzerland, Slovenia, Greece, Denmark, Serbia, Slovakia
My Mock Draw
Group A: (Cumulative World Ranking = 136)
South Africa (they are automatically assigned the first spot as hosts)
Mexico
Chile
Switzerland
Group B: (Cumulative World Ranking = 90)
England
South Korea
Nigeria
France
Group C: (Cumulative World Ranking = 108)
Netherlands
New Zealand
Ivory Coast
Greece
Group D: (Cumulative World Ranking = 139)
Spain
North Korea
Algeria
Denmark
Group E: (Cumulative World Ranking = 71)
Argentina
Australia
Ghana
Portugal
Group F: (Cumulative World Ranking = 84)
Brazil
Honduras
Cameroon
Slovenia
Group G: (Cumulative World Ranking = 100)
Italy
Japan
Uruguay
Slovakia
Group H: (Cumulative World Ranking = 70)
Germany
USA
Paraguay
Serbia
(this could be the group of death - yikes!)
(what's even more weird is that the first time I also drew USA, Paraguay, and Serbia together - and in group H - what are the chances of that???)
Round of 16, based on my mock draw
Chile A1
France B2
Mexico A2
England B1
Netherlands C1
Denmark D2
Ivory Coast C2
Spain D1
Argentina E1
Cameroon F2
Portugal E2
Brazil F1
Italy G1
Paraguay H2 (just edging the USA by a point)
Japan G2
Germany H1
Quarterfinals
Chile
England
Netherlands
Spain
Argentina
Brazil
Italy
Germany
…and I’ll stop there since picking the winners after this stage is even more pointless then this entire mock draw post! Anyone else care to make a mock draw (cough, Matt, cough)?