Rather than make a rather long post with all the draw details, outlining which teams are placed in which pots and who might meet who at which stage of their continent's 'qualification stages', we'll be covering the Qualifying Draw Live.
Between now and November 2009, there will be 861 qualifying matches to decide which 31 teams will join hosts South Africa at the 2010 World Cup Finals.
The 2010 World Cup Preliminaries have already kicked off for some nations, so there will be no draw for South America and the Oceania region.
The draw will start with Asia, followed by the countries in central and north America and the Caribbean.
All going well, the 53 European teams will start to learn their fate about an hour in to the proceedings and the evening will be rounded off with the African nations.
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In Summary
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CONMEBOL
The 10 South American teams have already started their league (home and away) last month.
The top four will qualify automatically and the fifth-placed team will go into a two-legged play-off with the fourth-placed side from CONCACAF.
OFC
The OFC Nations Cup is being used for the 2010 World Cup qualifier, with the winner (pretty much a two horse race between New Caledonia and New Zealand) playing one of the two, third-placed teams from Asia.
AFC
The First Stage started in October 2007 (Bhutan and Guam withdrew from the competition giving byes to Kuwait and Indonesia).
Those receiving byes and those winning the Second Stage now go into the draw; to play in 5 groups of 4 teams.
The winners and runners-up then go into two round-robin, home-and-away groups of 5 teams; with the two winners and runners-up automatically qualifying for the 2010 World Cup Finals.
The two, third-placed teams then play home and away; with the winner advancing to the inter-confederation playoff with the top team from Oceania.
CONCACAF
The 35 North, Central American and Caribbean teams will start their qualification games in February 2008; with the top three teams qualifying for South Africa 2010, while the fourth-placed team will go into a two-legged play-off with the fifth-place team from South America.
UEFA
With 53 teams playing for 13 places, the European draw is the big one.
Starting in August 2008, the teams from Europe will be playing each other home and away (in eight groups of six teams and one group of five).
The nine group winners will automatically qualify for the 2010 World Cup Finals, while the eight best second-placed teams will enter four, home and away play-offs for the right to join them.
CAF
In Africa, the ten lowest-ranked teams were paired into five home and away ties (Swaziland and Seychelles received a bye after São Tomé e Príncipe and Central African Republic withdrew from the competition).
48 teams will now be drawn to play in 12 groups of four teams. The twelve group winners and eight best runners-up (20 teams) then play in another round-robin, home and away competition - five groups of four teams; with the five group winners qualifying for the 2010 World Cup Finals.
Note:
South Africa will participate in the Preliminary Competition as it also serves as the qualifying competition for the Africa Cup of Nations. If they qualify for Stage Three, South Africa will play in its group; with points counting towards the Africa Cup of Nations - but not the World Cup, where they've already qualified as hosts.
Let The Draw Begin!
Labels: World Cup Draw
By TravelNotes @ 8:42 am
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