Top seeds fear dangerous floater France
Reuters - Thursday 03 December 2009, 01:00
CAPE TOWN - France will assume the role of
international pariah when the draw for the 2010 World Cup finals
in South Africa takes place on Friday.
FIFA's decision not to seed the 1998 World Cup winners has
left France as the most dangerous floater in the draw for the
32-nation tournament and the team the eight top seeds will all
most want to avoid.
France, losing finalists to Italy in the last World Cup in
2006, acquired sudden notoriety last month when they went
through a play-off against Ireland thanks to a goal following a
blatant handball by French striker Thierry Henry.
But the French could hardly have imagined they would become
even more unpopular, albeit for sporting rather than unsporting
reasons, once FIFA decided on Wednesday not to seed them.
The eight top seeds, one for each of the eight groups of
four teams, will be hosts South Africa, holders Italy, Brazil,
Argentina, England, Germany, Netherlands and Spain.
FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke told a news conference
on Wednesday the seedings were based on October's FIFA world
rankings.
None of the seeded nations would fancy such a dangerous
opponent as France in their group although Portugal, another
unseeded team and Ivory Coast, probably the best of Africa's six
representatives, are also on the list of teams they would hope
to avoid.
NO DISAPPOINTMENT
French Football Federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes
said France was not disappointed at not being seeded.
"There is no good news or bad news just like there is no
good draw or bad draw," he said.
"In 2006, everyone thought we
had an easy draw and we struggled to go through. I hope we will
not be in a 'Group of Death'."
The draw starts at 5pm GMT in Cape Town's International
Convention Centre and will be broadcast live to more than 200
countries in a 90-minute television spectacular hosted by South
African actor Charlize Theron and Valcke.
Appropriately for Africa's first World Cup, there will be a
strong African theme to the draw which will feature African
music and dancing and a number of African sports personalities.
Most of the coaches of the 32 teams will also attend
although Argentina's Diego Maradona will be forced to stay away
after being banned from football by FIFA for two months for a
foul-mouthed tirade against journalists following his team's
qualification for the finals.
Hosts South Africa already know they will be in Group A and
play their opening match at Soccer City in Johannesburg on June
11. The same stadium hosts the final on July 11.
Apart from the seeds, who will be placed in pot one, teams
will be placed in three other pots to prevent teams from the
same continent facing each other.
The second pot will comprise eight teams from Asia, North
and Central America and Oceania - Australia, Honduras, Japan,
Mexico, New Zealand, North Korea, South Korea and United States.
The third pot will be the five other African countries and
three remaining South American nations - Algeria, Cameroon,
Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The final pot is made up of the eight remaining teams from
Europe - Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia,
Slovenia and Switzerland.
The European seeds will be bound to meet one European
opponent but the draw mechanics will prevent South Africa
playing another African country and Argentina and Brazil meeting
a South American team.
On the day before the draw, FIFA's executive committee will
hold a meeting on Thursday on Robben Island, where Nelson
Mandela, later to become South Africa's post-apartheid
president, spent 18 years in jail.