Time Out by Simon_Doyle

We all know by now that Ireland won't be there, but England will when the draw for the footy World Cup is made this evening. 

As with any draw, there's a measure of luck required to get a favourable draw, but at least England know already as one of the eight seeded team in the tournament that they will avoid the big guns of Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and hosts South Africa in the groups stages.

So how have Blatter and co set things up to ensure that the 32 teams are put into eight groups of four with a good geographical spread. After all, you just know if it was a straight forward random draw that England would be drawn in the worst possible 'Group of Death', likely consisting of Holland, Spain, and Brazil. 

Groups will consist of one team drawn from each of the four pots: 

Pot 1 (the seeds): South Africa (hosts), Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain

Pot 2: Australia, Honduras, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic, Mexico, New Zealand, United States

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

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

If you are still with my at this point then you have my thanks for sticking with it. It's actually not that difficult for once, unlike some of the draws for other major events which can seem so baffling you are convinced there's some form of sculduggery going on. 

A worst-case scenario for Fabio Capello's men could involve drawing dark horses the United States (from pot 2), Ivory Coast and my mate Drogba (from pot 3), and the cheating French (from pot 4). So my money is on this actually occuring. Now what odds do you think you can get on that scenario?

If you're really bored, why not make you own predictions based on who you think England will draw, and come this evening we'll have a look and see who was spookily right.