FIFA has just announced the team groupings for the four pots in the World Cup draw to be held this Friday in Bahia, Brazil, the New York Times reported.
The basis for the seedings are on world rankings as of October this year. For Pot 1, or the top seeds, the countries are Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Switzerland and Uruguay.
Pot 2, as reported on the Bleacher Report, is comprised of Algeria, Cameroon, Chile, Ecuador, Ivory Coast and Nigeria. Pot 3 has Australia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Iran, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and the United States, while Pot 4 has Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, England, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Russia.
As explained in espnfc.com, the mechanics of the draw features the seeded teams in Pot 1, the teams from Africa and South America in Pot 2, the CONCACAF and Asian nation teams in Pot 3 and the last remaining pot for other nine European teams.
On Friday, one team from each pot would be drawn and placed in each of the eight World Cup groups. The draw would be supervised in a way that no more than two European nation teams in any group of four nations and the South American teams would be spread across the other groupings.
The dailymail.co.uk had placed statistical probabilities as to England being drawn in a World Cup "Group of Death". The "Group of Death" is a monicker for a grouping wherein the top teams stand to eliminate one another in their group. England, according to the report, would most probably be included in such a grouping because of the actions by UEFA President Michel Platini. This probability was bolstered by France being the lowest ranked European team and the recent meeting by six FIFA confederation heads which involved relocating nine non-seeded European nation teams would be relocated from Pot 4.