Note: The pots given
below are a best estimate based on information available at time of
publication. FIFA have yet to announce the seeding
procedure and thus a mixture of geographical draw precedent,
current FIFA rankings and past World Cup performance points, and
upcoming ranking changes, have been used to complete the
below.
With all thirty-two World Cup 2010 teams decided,
it's time to think about who will face whom when the big day of the
draw comes in South Africa on December 4th.
However, it's not quite as elementary as it may seem at first. It
is simply not the case that the team swill be thrown into four pots
by order of descending ranking. For one thing, South Africa, the
hosts, and reigning champions Italy are defaulted into the top
seeding pot, although the Italians would be there anyway. These
seeding pots are decided by a mixture of FIFA ranking and past
finals performances of 2002 and 2006.
Secondly, due to FIFA rules, teams from the same confederation are,
whenever possible, kept apart. This means that there will not be
two South American or Asian teams in the same group. Due to the
sheer volume of European teams - 15 - there will be some groups
with more than one country from UEFA, but there is very likely to
be a hard cap of two.
This was the case for the 2006 draw, whose procedures we largely
mirror below as we look ahead to the draw. For the reason of
continental hard caps as given above, Pot 2 is likely to comprise
UEFA-only teams, with AFC, OFC and CONCACAF in Pot 3 and the
non-seeded CONMEBOL teams joining Africa's CAF in the fourth
pot.
In other words, only Pot 1 is truly an 'achievement' to reach
(South Africa's host status aside), and the rest are largely
geographic, with ranking taken as a secondary concern.
The mainstream media and the devoted statisticians are nearly
unanimous in accepting that this is likely to be the outcome. But
as noted at the beginning of this article, at present the pots
below only present a best estimate and are not to be taken as a
definitive guide. (After all, there's a reason that FIFA don't
announce the seeding system until after the qualifiers are
complete.)
Here are the four pots as assumed at present:
Pot 1
Pot 2 (UEFA
Pot)
South Africa
(CAF - as hosts) 
Netherlands
(UEFA) 
Germany
(UEFA) 
Portugal
(UEFA)
Brazil
(CONMEBOL) 
Switzerland
(UEFA) 
Italy
(UEFA) 
Greece (UEFA)
Spain
(UEFA) 
Serbia
(UEFA) 
England
(UEFA) 
Denmark
(UEFA) 
France
(UEFA)
Slovakia
(UEFA)
Argentina
(CONMEBOL) 
Slovenia
(UEFA)
Pot 3
Pot 4
Mexico
(CONCACAF) 
Paraguay
(CONMEBOL) 
USA (CONCACAF)
Ghana (CAF)
South Korea
(AFC) 
Cameroon (CAF)
Japan (AFC)
Cote
d'Ivoire (CAF) 
Australia (AFC)
Nigeria (CAF)
Honduras
(CONCACAF) 
Uruguay
(CONMEBOL)
New Zealand
(OFC) 
Algeria
(CAF)
North Korea
(AFC) 
Chile
(CONMEBOL)