Fifa confirms seeded teams for next year's World cup

FIFA has announced the seeds for the 2014 World Cup
finals draw after the October world rankings were released
on Thursday.

Hosts Brazil will be joined by Spain, Germany, Argentina,
Colombia, Belgium, Uruguay and Switzerland. Uruguay’s place in the top pot of seeds is subject to winning the intercontinental playoff against Jordan, and if
they fail to qualify then Holland will move into the top
pot.

Only the top pot is seeded for the December 6 draw, with
the remaining pools based purely on a geographical basis
to ensure a spread of nations in each group. There can be
no more than one team from each confederation in each
group, with the exception of Europe which will have two
nations in four or five groups.

If Uruguay win their playoff, then the geographical draw
pots will likely be similar to that of 2006. One pot may
contain eight European nations, another should have the
four Asian countries and four from CONCACAF (or New
Zealand), with a final pot of Chile, Ecuador and the five
African qualifiers.

That would leave a separate pot for the lowest-ranked
UEFA side, who would be drawn against a non-European
team from the seeded pot – Brazil, Argentina, Colombia or
possibly Uruguay, to ensure no more than two European
teams are in one group. In 2006 this fate befell Serbia &
Montenegro, who were dumped in the Group of Death and
lost all three games to Argentina (6-0), Ivory Coast and
Netherlands – three nations who can be drawn together
again in 2014.