South Africa 2010 Draw

The draw for next summer's World Cup in South Africa is still more than twelve hours away but my stomach is already churning over the prospects and it's because FIFA has made a complete balls up with the seeding as usual. I don't really have too many problems with Pot 1, which includes the world's best teams plus the hosts, including England. However, with the other pots FIFA have decided to go geographical rather than seeding by quality, which means that there are landmines out there in each pot. Here's what the seeding structure looks like:

Pot 1 - South Africa, Brazil, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England, Spain, Netherlands.

Pot 2 - Japan, Australia, South Korea, North Korea, USA, Mexico, Honduras, New Zealand

Pot 3 - Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Algeria, Ghana, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile

Pot 4 - France, Denmark, Serbia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Greece, Portugal

So, yes, it's nice that England avoid the big boys in Pot 1 - apart from SA - but our group could still look like this:

England, South Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal (Yikes!)

And because the U.S. is in the crappest pot, our group could easily be this:

Brazil, USA, Nigeria, France (Goodnight and good luck!)

Anyone else out there reading the tea leaves tonight?