Article Written By: Manny Alcala
The draw for the group stage of the World Cup is scheduled for tomorrow December 6 at 11AM ET (8AM PT). The drawing will be held in the fancy Costa do Sauipe resort. Famous soccer superstars and World Cup winners like Zinedine Zidane and Fabio Cannavaro are ready to pick out the spheres which will have the names of the countries in order to see how the groups will look.
There is a total of 32 teams playing in the World Cup, these 32 teams are separated into four pots. The four pots are distributed as so:
Pot 1: Host nation (Brazil) and top seven seeds (determined by the October 2013 FIFA rankings).
Pot 2: CAF, UEFA, and CONMEBOL
Pot 3: AFC and CONCACAF
Pot 4: UEFA
So before seeing the actual results of the group stage tomorrow morning, I decided to do my own group stage draw. Here are the results I got:
Group A
Brazil, Greece, Korea Republic, Russia.
Group B
Colombia, Nigeria, Australia, Italy.
Group C
Germany, Ecuador, Mexico, Portugal.
Group D
Uruguay, Cote d’ Ivoire, Japan, France.
Group E
Spain, Ghana, Iran, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Group F
Argentina, Algeria, Honduras, Netherlands.
Group G
Switzerland, Cameroon, USA, Croatia.
Group H
Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, England.
After viewing these results it appears that the groups came out pretty evenly matched even though some power house teams that aren’t ranked in the top 7 could have created an extreme group of death. Brazil would appear to have a walk-through in Group A, but the games have to be won on the field. The group of death would have to be Group C which features two teams that barely made the world cup in the World Cup qualifier playoff games, but are capable of catching fire (Portugal and Mexico), add Germany and Ecuador to the group and you have yourself the toughest group to predict in this tournament. As for the USA, I believe that they could pass the group stage, but it will require some good and smart played games since teams like Croatia and Cameroon are not highly known, but do display good soccer and Switzerland has their talent also being ranked in the top 7 of FIFA.
The excitement of the World Cup is inevitable! Tomorrow we will see if any of my groups match any of the official groups of the world cup.
Whoa that’s a bold prediction there about Argentina and as for Mexico the history shows that they have made it past the group stage in the last five world cups, there is a slight chance this time in my opinion. Thanks for reading and for your comments Marco!
I highly doubt Mexico would advance if they were in that group. Quite frankly, I don’t believe Mexico will advance regardless of who is in their group lol I believe Argentina wouldn’t advance and instead have Honduras as the sleeper advancing. Can’t wait until tomorrow morning! Great article Manny! 😀