re: The Official Football Thread
One thing I'm annoyed with in Uruguay winning, is that I'm pretty sure we won't be seeing New Zealand grouped with Australia.
The final teams from each confederation go
UEFA: 13 Total, 5 seeded, 8 unseeded.
CAF: 6 Total, 1 seeded, 5 unseeded.
CONMEBOL: 5 Total, 2 seeded, 3 unseeded.
AFC: 4 Total, all unseeded.
CONCACAF: 3 Total, all unseeded.
OFC: 1 Total, unseeded.
Now, the pots are usually one pot of seeded teams (This year's most likely being South Africa, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, England and either Portugal or France.) and the other three based geographically. Last year featured a pot that was deemed a lot more weaker than the other (featuring CAF, CONCACAF - Mexico as they were seeded, and OFC) as there were 5 debutants, and one country that made their first appearance in 32 years. So it seems that they will base the pots geographically, and so that one seems to have a bit more of a reputation. Luckily, with Uruguay qualifying, there are 2 combinations for the final pots. We can either see the remaining CONMEBOL teams grouped with those from the CAF (Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Cote D'Ivoire, Algeria) and the AFC grouped with the OFC and CONCACAF (Australia, Korea, Sth Korea, Japan, New Zealand, United States, Mexico, Honduras.) Personally I think this is more possible, as, at least IMO of what I can remember from past World Cups, the CONMEBOL and CAF regions tend to do a bit better than the other 3 in World Cups. The other option is swapping the countries in CONCACAF with those from CONMEBOL. Because of the amount of countries in each pot totaling to 8 (unless there is a special pot) it's pretty much impossible to have a pot that doesn't feature both the AFC and OFC, and it is for this reason that I don't think we won't be potted with NZ...
Personally, I can't wait 'til December 4, but I'm hoping I'm wrong with how the pots are gonna work out, because I really want a group to feature Australia, Uruguay, New Zealand and either England or Italy.