FIFA's World Cup 2002 Organising Committee divided the 32
qualifying teams into eight groups for the final tournament at the World Cup
Final Draw, held on 1 December 2001 in Busan, South Korea.
Three days ahead of the draw, on 28 November 2001, the
Organising Committee announced the method by which it would be
conducted.
The Committee decided France, as reigning World
Cup champion, and South Korea and Japan, as host nations, would be seeded as
three of the top eight teams and assigned them to head Groups A, D and H,
respectively. To determine the other five seeded teams, the Committee
used a complex formula to rank all 32 teams on the basis of their performance in the last three World
Cup final tournaments and their standing in FIFA's world rankings for the last
three years. The top five teams in this
ranking (apart from the already-seeded France, which placed 5th) were Brazil,
Argentina, Italy, Germany and Spain, and they joined the other three as seeded
teams. These five teams were placed in Pot 1 for the draw.
The 11 remaining teams qualifying from UEFA--Belgium,
Croatia, Denmark, England, Republic of Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Russia,
Slovenia, Sweden and Turkey--were put in Pot 2.
The remaining three CONMEBOL teams--Ecuador, Paraguay and
Uruguay--and the other two AFC teams--China and Saudi Arabia--were placed in Pot
3. The Committee granted China's request for
assignment to one of the South Korea groups, apparently made because of prohibitive
lodging costs in Japan, and at the same time decided Saudi Arabia
would be allocated to one of the Japan groups.
The five CAF and three CONCACAF teams--Cameroon, Nigeria,
Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, Costa Rica, México and U.S.A.--were put in
Pot 4.
Two factors complicated the draw. One was FIFA's
customary principle that "teams from the same confederation
shall not be placed in the same group as far as possible," with
"[t]he only exception" being that "a maximum of 2 teams from
UEFA may be drawn into the same group, due to the higher number of teams from
Europe." The other factor--dual hosts for the first time in the
tournament's history--made the draw, always complex, worse than ever, as FIFA Executive Secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen
told the worldwide television audience. The Committee decided that "the
co-hosting situation (groups A to D in Korea, groups E to H in Japan) will be
taken into account when placing the teams into the respective groups by
ensuring that there is a balance of each confederation['s] teams in Korea and
Japan."
These two principles determined the procedures the
Committee adopted for the draw. First, the five unassigned seeded teams were selected one
by one from Pot
1 and allocated to head Groups B, C, E, F and G in order while ensuring that
one CONMEBOL team would be assigned to South Korea and one to Japan.
Second, as each unseeded team was drawn from Pots 2, 3 and 4 and assigned to a
group, its position in the group (2, 3 or 4) was also determined by
draw. Third, eight UEFA teams were drawn from Pot 2 and assigned to
Groups A to H in order. Fourth, the remaining three UEFA teams were
drawn and assigned to groups not already containing two UEFA teams by virtue
of a parallel draw from Special Pot i, which contained the four seeded non-UEFA
teams. Fifth, the five teams from Pot 3 were drawn and assigned to the
other five groups while ensuring that at least one CONMEBOL and one AFC team were
allocated to both South Korea and Japan. Sixth, the teams from Pot 4
were drawn and assigned to groups A to H in order while ensuring that at least
two CAF teams and one CONCACAF team were allocated to both South Korea and
Japan.
The draw produced the following groups:
|
Groups
in South Korea |
|
Group
A |
Group
B |
Group
C |
Group
D |
| A1 France |
B1 Spain |
C1 Brazil |
D1 South Korea |
| A2 Senegal |
B2 Slovenia |
C2 Turkey |
D2 Poland |
| A3 Uruguay |
B3 Paraguay |
C3 China |
D3 U.S.A. |
| A4 Denmark |
B4 South Africa |
C4 Costa Rica |
D4 Portugal |
|
Groups
in Japan |
|
Group
E |
Group
F |
Group
G |
Group
H |
| E1 Germany |
F1 Argentina |
G1 Italy |
H1 Japan |
| E2 Saudi Arabia |
F2 Nigeria |
G2 Ecuador |
H2 Belgium |
| E3 Republic
Ireland |
F3 England |
G3 Croatia |
H3 Russia |
| E4 Cameroon |
F4 Sweden |
G4 México |
H4 Tunisia |
Notes
England placed 8th in the Organising Committee's special
World Cup team ranking, just below México and two rungs below Spain, the lowest
seeded team, but far above the two seeded host nations South Korea, 25th, and Japan,
26th. Only because the host nations were seeded did England fail to gain
seeded status. Seeding host nations
above teams ranking much higher on the basis of performance is, of course, a highly
dubious practice, since there are other methods available to
assure host nations play at particular venues. It is a practice
that may cost England dearly in this tournament.
The assignment of England to Group F, which already contained Argentina
from seeded Pot 1 and Sweden from UEFA Pot 2, drew the only collective gasp of
the evening from the live audience. Not only would Sven-Goran Eriksson
lead England against his native Sweden on the group's opening match day, but
England would renew their often bitter World Cup rivalry with
Argentina.
Nigeria from Pot 4 completed the Group F. The media promptly
tagged it the proverbial "Group of Death," and the bookmakers' odds on England winning the World Cup immediately
plummeted from 7 or 8 to 1 to 1 to 10 to 1.
Group F is, indeed, formidable. It is, in fact, by far
the most difficult group in the tournament. Argentina, 2nd in both
FIFA's world rankings and the Organising
Committee's World Cup ranking and the bookmakers' favourite to win the
tournament, dominated the single qualifying group
for South American teams. Sweden, 16th in the world rankings and 13th in
the World Cup ranking, finished with the best qualifying record of
any European team. Nigeria, only 40th in the world rankings but 18th in
the World Cup ranking, has World Cup experience and can hardly be
dismissed as a threat.
England will have no time to settle in when play
begins. In the supercharged pressure of the World Cup finals, that may
prove an insurmountable difficulty for a team that is young and inexperienced
in key positions.
Two of the three teams in the group have proven
particularly difficult for England in recent meetings. England have not
beaten Sweden in nine matches since their
last win in 1968, at Wembley, and they have lost three of those nine,
including the group match that put them out of
the European Championship 1992 final tournament in Sweden and the opening
match in their European Championship 2000 qualifying campaign.
Nor have England beaten Argentina
in four matches since their last victory in 1980 at Wembley. Although
Argentina won only one of these four, the World Cup 1986 quarterfinal in
México City when they benefitted from Diego Mardona's "Hand of God"
goal, they also put England out of World Cup 1998 on penalty kicks following
the celebrated 2-2 extra-time draw in which David Beckham was shown the red
card.
England have little experience with Nigeria.
They met once, in a friendly at Wembley in late 1994, when England managed to
win, 1-0. But Nigeria are capable of the kind of football with which
South American teams have often troubled England.
Even more foreboding are the prospects for teams advancing
from Group F. In the tournament's second stage, the round of 16 teams, the winner of Group F
will face the second-place team from Group A, and the second-place team from
Group F will meet the winner of Group A. Among the teams in Group A, of
course, is
reigning World Cup and European champion France. Even if France are
overcome, the quarterfinal opponent will likely be Brazil.
England
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