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Previewing the FIFA World Cup draw

29th November, 2013
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29th November, 2013
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I’m sure for most the FIFA World Cup draw is nothing more than an administrative formality, but for me it’s so much more.

Every four years I enthusiastically stay up until whatever deathly hour is required for the magic moment when a tournament encompassing a World of qualifiers is concentrated into the pitting of four nations against each other for the chance at international glory.

When the draw is made this year in the early morning of the seventh of December, I’ll be up again.

The draw creates controversy; think Iran against the United States in 1998.

The draw re-united old foes; Argentina and England were drawn together in 2002.

The draw creates David and Goliath stories; Trinidad and Tobago got a shot at England in 2006.

And of course, as Socceroos fans we also get to see our own fate.

Group of death? Bitter rival? Easy passage to the knock-out rounds? Anything is possible.

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FIFA have not yet confirmed the pot system yet, other than the eight top-seeded teams and the fact that the other sides will be divided geographically.

Already there are some surprises, as FIFA is using its own World Rankings.

Any football fan will tell you the FIFA rankings are reliable only in their consistent unreliability, and that means a number of less heralded sides being seeded will traditionally stronger teams miss out.

Alongside hosts Brazil, a number of familiar faces fill the seeded pot.

No-one will expect an easy game against defending champion Spain or traditional powerhouses Germany and Argentina.

More mysterious is the presence of Belgium, Switzerland, Colombia and Uruguay among the top eight nations in the world ahead of the Netherlands, Italy, England and France.

Belgium are a real dark horse for the tournament, but the Swiss and Colombians won’t be giving most national team managers nightmares, while Uruguay struggled to qualify only sneaking through ahead of Jordan in a play-off.

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Looking at the remaining breakdown, four of the seeds and European and four are South American.

It’s therefore likely that eight of the remaining nine European qualifiers will be put into a single pot, with the lowest ranked European team (France) dropped out next to the two unseeded South American nations and five African qualifiers.

The remaining pot will combine four Asian and four North American qualifiers.

Assuming this system is correct (and we are talking about FIFA, so don’t rule out a crazy three or five pot system to divide teams into four groups of eight) the pots will be as follows:

SEEDS: Brazil*, Spain, Germany, Argentina*, Colombia*, Belgium, Uruguay*, Switzerland

EURO: Netherlands, Italy, England, Portugal, Greece, Bosnia andamp; Herzegovina, Croatia, Russia

POT 3: France#, Chile*, Ecuador*, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Algeria, Nigeria, Cameroon

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POT 4: USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Japan, Iran, South Korea, Australia

*expect FIFA to keep the South American seeds away from unseeded South American sides Chile and Ecuador
#similarly, France will be forced into a group with Brazil, Argentina, Colombia or Uruguay to prevent three European sides being drawn together

There’s plenty of scope for excitement in the draw. A group of death could contain Brazil, Italy and France.

Germany could be in with England.

There’d be heat if Belgium pairs with Netherlands or Spain with Portugal.

For Australia, any of Italy, England, Croatia and Greece would split loyalties within our most sizeable populations.

Looking closer at how Australia might fare, I’ll present four theoretical draws:

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Group of Death: Brazil, Italy, France, Australia
Drawing a South American seed opens Australia up to getting France rather than one of the weaker African sides in our group, and given the recent 6-0 hiding they gave us that’s a far more unpleasant prospect than a dangerous Chile side from pot three.

Make the seed Brazil on home soil, and throw in any of Italy, Netherlands or England then avoiding humiliation would be the best realistic outcome Socceroos fans could expect.

Group of Life: Switzerland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Australia
Given the dangerous sides in both the seeded pot and European pot, Australia would be very happy to end up with modest Switzerland and debutant Bosnia and Herzegovina.

That’s not to say that they are bad sides, but certainly Australia could expect at least a draw against either especially in a neutral South American venue.

Cameroon are the only side in the draw ranked lower than Australia so we’d have to be relatively pleased to be drawn with them.

Realistic Group: Spain, Russia, Ivory Coast, Australia
This group is an example of the approximate standard we are most likely to have to come up against. As with 2006 and 2010, we should expect to face a genuine powerhouse side and personally I’d love for us to play defending champions Spain.

We’ve previously drawn with Croatia and beaten Serbia as unseeded European opponents, and saving for bad luck due to the unusual seeding system this time around Russia presents as a good side that we could still beat if we’re at our own best.

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The final opponent is the most unpredictable, and as with Ghana last time it’ll be very hard to predict how we’d perform against Ivory Coast.

This group would see three reasonably even sides competing for a runners-up spot behind Spain, with Australia the slight underdog of the three.

Rivalry Group: Uruguay, England, Ghana, Australia
Admit it – you’d love a shot at England.

They’re our biggest rivals in most sports we play, but football is the one sport they consider their own and worry more about Germany or Argentina than us.

It’d be the ultimate shedding of our colonial heritage to top them at the game they love more than all others.

Unfortunately, most of our other main rivals are in the same pot as England (Italy, Croatia or Greece are nearly as exciting as potential opponents) or us (Japan are very much our footballing rivals and we still owe the USA one after their coach wrote us off in the lead-up to the 2006 draw).

We could still get excited about playing our traditional qualification rival Uruguay, though.

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Also, a chance to redeem ourselves against Ghana after *that* penalty and red card decision four years ago would be an exciting prospect.

Who do you want us to play against?

Does it matter, given the current state of the team?

How much effect does the draw have on how Ange Postecoglou treats the tournament and selects his squad?

There’s only a week left to speculate, before the true diehards waste another night watching old man pull balls out of pots in front of the world.

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