The 4 pots for the World Cup draw are set.  The US was placed in the weakest pot — pot 2 — along with the rest of the CONCACAF teams and the Asia/Oceania teams.  Argentina managed to secure a seed even though they barely qualifed finishing 4th in CONMEBOL.  The Netherlands edged out France for a seed and rightly so in my opinion.

The top 8 seeds will be placed in separate groups.  No teams from the same confederation can be selected into the same group, except for European teams.  Only 2 teams from Europe can be grouped together.

Here are the pots:

Pot 1 (seeds):
South Africa (A1)
Germany
Brazil
Italy
Spain
England
Argentina
Netherlands

Pot 2 (Asia, Oceania and CONCACAF):
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 (Europe):
France
Portugal
Slovenia
Switzerland
Greece
Serbia
Denmark
Slovakia

My ideal group for the US would be South Africa, Uruguay, and Slovenia. A worst case scenario will see us get drawn with a top seed like Brazil, Spain, or England along with a top European team like France, Portugal, or Denmark.  The Africa and South America pot is the wild card.  Each of those teams can be as good as a seeded team or as weak as the pot 2  teams. Hopefully we stay away from Paraguay or Ghana.

Nonetheless, once the draw is over we’ll know what US has to do to prepare for the World Cup.  It should be exciting.

Share your thoughts on the draw.

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