Cape Town — The South African coastal city of Cape Town becomes the centre of the footballing world this week as preparations for 2010 FIFA World Cup draw hit overdrive.
The International Convention Centre will be the scene for the glitz, glamour and razzmatazz associated with FIFA events, as a who's who of the footballing and celebrity world descends on what South Africans call "the Mother City".
But all of that should be a side-show to the main event, the placing of the 32 competing nations into eight groups for the World Cup finals, which will finally make the match schedule complete and enable supporters who intend to travel to South Africa to plan their tour.
The exact mechanics of the draw will be made clear only after a meeting of the FIFA Executive Committee on Robben Island on Wednesday, when the seedings will be announced, as well as the names that go into the four pots.
What is clear at this stage is that hosts South Africa will be seeded in Pot 1 and have been allocated the A1 position in Group A.
That means they will be playing in the opening match of the tournament at Soccer City in Soweto on June 11, then at Loftus Stadium in Pretoria on June 17 and at the Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein on June 22. Against whom remains to be seen.
It is likely that FIFA will not deviate too far from the criteria used in the draw for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
That saw Pot 1 include the hosts and the top seven seeds, ascertained from the latest FIFA Rankings (in this case October 2009), as well as team performances in the past two FIFA World Cup tournaments. If they use the same criteria this time round, Pot 1 will include Brazil, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Italy, Germany and South Africa.
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These teams will then be drawn into the eight groups (with Bafana Bafana already in Group A) and will therefore not be able to meet each other in the first round. The top two sides in each pool advance to the second round.
Pot 2 is likely to contain the remaining eight European sides, namely Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, Slovenia, Greece, Slovakia, Serbia and Switzerland. There are some heavyweights in there that will provide a stern test for the top seeds.
Pot 3 could contain the entrants from Asia, Oceania, and North and Central America, namely the United States, Mexico, Honduras, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
Pot 4 may contain the five African sides which qualified, plus the remaining teams from South America, giving us Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Nigeria and Algeria.
It is important to note at this stage that, apart from European sides, no two teams from the same confederation can be drawn together, meaning South Africa, for example, can only be drawn with Chile, Paraguay or Uruguay from Pot 4, while Brazil can only be pooled with an African side.
There have been plenty of "mock draws" posted on the internet that make for interesting reading, but until FIFA confirm the final criteria, it is all conjecture. One thing is for certain, though: with a field as strong as this, there are unlikely to be any easy groups in this finals tournament.
