World Cup 2006

[kev316]

Here are the seeds:

Pot A
1, France
2, Portugal
3, Sweden
4, Czech Republic
5, Spain
6, Italy
7, England
8, Turkey

Pot B
1, Netherlands
2, Croatia
3, Belgium
4, Denmark
5, Russia
6, Ireland
7, Slovenia
8, Poland

Pot C
1, Bulgaria
2, Romania
3, Scotland
4, Serbia and Montenegro
5, Switzerland
6, Greece
7, Slovakia
8, Austria

Pot D
1, Ukraine 2, Iceland
3, Finland
4, Norway
5, Israel
6, Bosnia-Herzegovina
7, Latvia
8, Wales

Pot E
1, Hungary
2, Georgia
3, Belarus
4, Cyprus
5, Estonia
6, Northern Ireland
7, Lithuania
8, Macedonia

Pot F
1, Albania
2, Armenia
3, Moldova
4, Azerbaijan
5, Faeroe Islands
6, Malta
7, San Marino
8, Liechtenstein

Pot G
1, Andorra
2, Luxembourg
3, Kazakhstan

[glamour-gal]

By Mike Collett

FRANKFURT, Germany (Reuters) - Visions of Yokohama and Ronaldo's two goals for Brazil against Germany in the 2002 World Cup final might still be vivid in most fans' memories, but their attention will soon switch to the 2006 World Cup.

The start of the finals is still two and a half years away but they
will loom into focus on Friday when the draw for the preliminary
round of the competition takes place before 3,500 invited guests and celebrities at the city's Festhalle, shown live on television in more than 100 countries.

The draw ceremony will be overseen by FIFA deputy general secretary Jerome Champagne and will start at 1705 local time

(1605 GMT).

In all, 156 teams will be involved, even though a record total of 197 teams entered the event, one more than the previous record entering the last World Cup. Of those 41 missing teams, 28 have already been eliminated and others have already started playing qualifiers.

FIFA estimate that over 850 qualifying matches will be played,
compared to 777 for the 2002 finals.

The preliminary round of the South American competition started back in September and 21 African and seven Asian teams have already been eliminated in extra-preliminary round matches before the start of the main preliminary round games.

For the first time a country not yet a full member of FIFA is also
taking part in the competition.

The Pacific nation of New Caledonia, an associate member of the
Oceania zone, which is likely to become a full FIFA member next year, enters the Oceania qualifying competition.

Also for the first time, the reigning world champions are in the
qualifying competition with Brazil battling along with everyone else to reach the 32-team finals.

The only country already assured of a place are the hosts Germany.
West Germany won the World Cup when the tournament was last staged on German soil in 1974.

INTRIGUING EUROPE

That tournament was the first in which 100 teams competed in the qualifying round. Now more than half that number are competing in the European zone alone.

Coming less than a week after last Sunday's draw for the Euro 2004 finals in Portugal, the European draw will be one of the highlights of Friday's event and could pit together teams in the qualifying competition who will also face each other at the European finals.

The 51 European teams will be drawn into eight qualifying groups, with three groups of seven teams and five groups of six.

England, Spain, Italy and France have already been seeded and
allocated to six-team groups. The eight group winners and the two best runners-up will qualify automatically for the finals with the remaining six runners-up entering the playoffs for the last three places.

The European qualifiers will start in the autumn of 2004, although
some matches may be played at the end of this season.

AFRICA KICKOFF

The African qualifying competition, like the South American and Asian ones, has already begun with 21 African teams eliminated leaving 30 teams going into five groups of six teams each. The five winners will all qualify for the 2006 finals, four years before Africa itself stages the event in 2010.

The Asian preliminary round was notable for the inclusion of
Afghanistan for the first time in World Cup history and even though the nation has already been eliminated after losing 13-0 on aggregate to Turkmenistan it made some notable progress, only losing the second leg 2-0 in Kabul after losing the first leg 11-0 away.

Seven winners of that Asian extra-preliminary round will join 25
seeded nations in the draw and either four or five Asian teams will qualify for 2006.

That number depends on the outcome of a playoff round due to be staged between one team each from South America, the CONCACAF zone (North and Central America/Caribbean), Asia and Oceania.

The background to Friday's draw was not without controversy.

FIFA at first granted the winner of the Oceania zone direct entry to the finals but then revoked that and ordered the Oceania winners into the playoffs. FIFA also turned down a South American plan to host a 36-team finals and instead settled for 32.

The identities of 31 of those 32 teams will not be known for some
considerable time but after Friday some of them will be eyeing the finals after being handed a theoretically easy ride -- while others will be left cursing the luck of the draw.

[Dreamer7]

T4P! :)

[muffins]

Ooooooh it's going to be one hell of an interesting qualification campaign! Here are the groups:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/world_cup_2006_draw/default.stm

I'm interested in group six, with my team Wales! Our neighbours and rivals are in with us, England. Northern Ireland are in there too. All we need is Scotland in there too and it'd be like the old Home Nations competition! I'm pretty sure England and Wales haven't played each other for a good few years so it should be very interesting. I just hope both sets of fans can behave and enjoy what should be a game filled with passion and tension.

[kev316]

I cant wait to see the games. England haven't faced Wales for 20 years i believe and Mark Hughes scored the winner in the last game

[muffins]

Yup, you're right. I'd love Wales to win obviously but we'd need our best 11 like we did against the Italians last year in 2002 and it is extremely unlikely that you can have the same 11 play all of the qualification campaign. It'll be fun to see but already I've read some stupid comments from England fans. I think England will win but it's football so you can't be definite. Mind you, after Wales beat Italy I read some stupid comments from Wales fans saying that they'd thrash England. Hmmm, I doubt it lol. I can stand banter between fans, I jion in sometimes, it's a part of it but when it gets to throwing insults I stop. From my perspecive I think those 2 fixtures are the most interesting of the whole qualification groups but I'm not sure that everyone else will feel the same way.

[muffins]

Wales have lined up a friendly with Scotland as part of their preparations for the World Cup qualifying games. It will be played at the Millennium Stadium next February.

[glamour-gal]

so r u going then to this match???
i'd love to!!! :)

[muffins]

If I can get tickets me and my dad will be there, definitely.

[glamour-gal]

hey sounds cool!!
keep my fingers crossed for you to get tix!!!!

[muffins]

Hopefully I will. It should be fun. Hopefully some Scottish fans make the journey too although there are a few Scots living in Wales. I've been to every Wales home game since February 2002 when we drew with Argentina who were World Cup favourites at the time. I think Argetnina chose Wales to play a friendly with because of our stadium. It has a roof and they wanted practise on playing on a pitch under a roof because some of the stadiums at the 2002 World Cup had roofs.

[kev316]

^ lol didn't work for them though

[muffins]

LOL, no it didn't. I was extremely glad England won that match.