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The final draw for the 2014 FIFA World Cup will take place on 6 December 2013 at the Costa do SauÃpe Resort, Mata de São João in Bahia, at 13:00 local time (UTC−3). The ceremony will determine the group in which the 32 participating teams will begin the final tournament. The teams have been divided in advance by FIFA into four pots based on seedings and geographic regions.
Pot 1 (Seeds)
Brazil (hosts)
Argentina
Colombia
Uruguay
Belgium
Germany
Spain
Switzerland
It's so strange to have Belgium and Switzerland in the seeded pot, and England, France, Italy and Netherlands out of it...
England and France don't deserve to be seeded based on recent results. The Netherlands would have been seeded if they hadn't played a friendly in Indonesia (since they actually lost points in the ranking despite beating Indonesia), which was just an amateurish move by the Dutch FA. Italy messed up the last few games in the qualifiers when they knew they needed the points in order to be seeded. So it's really not that strange that these teams aren't seeded, it just seems unjustified considering the teams that took their place.
It's hard for me to rate Belgium and Switzerland because they have hardly played competitive games against quality opposition. I was let down by Colombia in our recent game against them but I'm expecting them to do much better at the WC. Brazil, Argentina, Spain and Germany are the obvious contenders for the title. I would be shocked if the winner wasn't one of these four.
I'm not all that upset about us not being seeds. I would actually like to draw one of Brazil/Argentina/Spain/Germany because it almost guarantees highly entertaining games and at least we won't have to face them in the next round (if we get there). Belgium would also be nice for the neighbour "rivalry". We're not favoured to win the WC anyway so I would just be glad to have some truly memorable and exciting games while we're there. There's no honour in beating Switzerland, Honduras or Iran. This would be my favourite group:
I'm guessing there will be three groups that will have three teams that are expected to progress out of the group stage. The way the pots are laid out, there wll be a few groups with three strong teams and a weak team. It should be interesting...
I think that would be better for all aspects, including qualification but that would make people unhappy if Brazil, Spain, Germany and Italy all got the same group. The pots make it easier for the big teams which is what FIFA want.
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Hopefully we'll luck out and get Colombia or Switzerland out of the seeded pot
