World Cup 2018: What you need to know about Friday's draw
World Cup 2018: What you need to know about Friday's draw
Lineker, Maradona and Cafu form a glittering cast
The
draw will take place at 3pm GMT (10:00 ET, 18:00 local) but, if you are
pressed for time, tune in about half an hour later. That's when the
actual draw should start.
Former
England striker Gary Lineker and Russian football reporter Maria
Komandnaya will host the draw and they'll be assisted by superstars from
each of the eight nations that have won the World Cup.
It
is a glittering cast: Diego Maradona (Argentina), Cafu (Brazil), Fabio
Cannavaro (Italy), Carles Puyol (Spain), Gordon Banks (England), Laurent
Blanc (France), Diego Forlan (Uruguay) and Miroslav Klose (Germany,
trophy bearer).
The draw assistant from the host country is 91-year-old former Spartak Moscow striker Russia Nikita Simonyan.
The format, the teams
The 32 countries are divided into four pots of eight.
Unlike
years past, only FIFA's world rankings determines which country goes
into which pot and, for this draw, the sport's world governing body has
based the seedings on October's world rankings.
So,
for example, the seven top-ranked teams that qualified, plus Russia,
are in pot 1 and the next highest-ranked eight are in pot 2 and so
forth, ending with the lowest ranked eight in pot four.
Germany are the reigning world champions.
Pot 1: Russia, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium, Poland, France
Pot 2: Spain, Switzerland, England, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Croatia, Peru
Pot 3: Iceland, Costa Rica, Sweden, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Iran, Denmark
Pot 4: Nigeria, Australia, Japan, Morocco, Panama, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Serbia
As
host Russia was placed in pot 1, a boost for them since Stanislav
Cherchesov's men -- based on those October rankings -- are the
lowest-ranked team in the tournament at No. 65, two places behind Saudi
Arabia.
Among others in the elite
tier are defending champions Germany, record five-time winners Brazil,
European champions Portugal and 2014 World Cup runners-up Argentina.
The
end result will be eight groups of four teams. There is one last caveat
-- no group is allowed to feature more than one team from the same
confederation, apart from members of European football's governing body
UEFA, which, with 14 teams, provided the highest number of qualifiers.
No more than two UEFA countries are allowed in a group.
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