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Hosts Germany and defending champions Brazil were named among the top eight seeds for the World Cup finals as expected on Tuesday, along with England, Spain, Mexico, France, Argentina and Italy.

FIFA decided the rest of the draw, which takes place on Friday, would group teams in pots according to their geographical locations rather than their current world ranking or previous World Cup performances.

The second pot will contain Australia, the five African finalists: Ghana, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Angola and Togo, plus the two lower ranked South American teams Ecuador and Paraguay.

The third pot will comprise eight European teams: Croatia, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine.

The fourth pot will comprise four Asian teams: Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the three remaining from CONCACAF Costa Rica, Trinidad & Tobago and the United States.

A special pot will contain only Serbia & Montenegro, the lowest ranked European team, who will be placed in a group including either Brazil, Argentina or Mexico.

FIFA created the special pot so they could avoid having any groups with more than two European teams.

Jim Brown, FIFA’s Director of Competitions explained: “The seedings were based on FIFA rankings for the last three years and the last two World Cup finals.

As you can see, the usual suspects are top-seeded, with one surprising team: Mexico. So, we are looking at groups that may contain Czech Republic and Brazil (quite a death group).

Source: Reuters.co.uk