Pots for Friday's draw: eight groups of four countries to be drawn, each group containing one country from each pot.
Pot 1 (seeds)
South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Holland, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England.
Pot 2 (Asia, Oceania and North and Central America)
Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Mexico, Honduras.
Pot 3 (Africa and South America)
Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay.
Pot 4 (remaining European teams)
France, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Greece, Serbia, Denmark, Slovakia.
- hosts South Africa will be automatically positioned as A1; the other seeded teams will be drawn into the other groups B-H, but will always be in position “1” of their group
- groups will be drawn from A to H and the positions in the group will be drawn for Pots 2 to 4
- geographical criteria will also be respected, meaning that no two teams from the same confederation will be drawn in the same group (except European teams, where a maximum of two will be in a group). For example, South Africa cannot play the African teams from Pot 3 and Argentina and Brazil cannot be drawn against the three remaining South American teams.
