Korea Anticipating FIFA World Cup Draw
By Kang Seung-woo
Staff Reporter
The 2010 World Cup draw will take place in Cape Town, South Africa at 2 a.m. Saturday (KST).
South Korea was grouped with Australia, Japan, North Korea, Honduras, Mexico, the United States and New Zealand in Pot 2 at the Pot allocation held Wednesday.
Pot 1 consists of the top 8 seeded teams ― Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England and host South Africa. With the exception of the hosts, the teams were ranked according to their achievements in the two previous World Cups and FIFA rankings in October. The three other pots were based on geography.
Pot 2 has the Asian and North, Central American and Caribbean nations and Pot 3 is comprised of three South American teams and the African representatives.
The last pot consists of the remaining European countries.
Each of the eight groups will be formed by one team from each pot. The pot allocations mean that there is no chance of the two Koreas ending up in the same group, it also means that the world will not see a North Korea/United States matchup at the group stage.
The South Korean team, which is aiming for its second round-of-16 berth at the World Cup, sees the host nation as the weakest.
"Among the seeded teams, South Africa is the weakest. It is no wonder that we want to meet them,'' Korean football manager Huh Jung-moo said Wednesday before leaving for South Africa to participate in the draw.
The home side, headed by Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira, is sitting 86th in the FIFA rankings and has not reached the knockout stage in its two previous appearances, in 1998 and 2002.
However, history is on South Africa's side ― every host country at each of the 18 World Cup tournaments has advanced beyond the group stage.
Other than South Africa, there is no easy target for the Taeguk Warriors.
Among the top seeded teams, the Netherlands and Spain are the only ones to have not won the trophy.
Also, African teams have proven to be especially difficult opponents for the East Asians and many are expecting the African sides to receive a boost with the event being held on the continent for the first time.
If history is any indication, Huh's side will match up better against the South American sides in Pot 3.
Korea edged Paraguay 1-0 in the Aug. 12 friendly.
Surprisinly, European heavyweights France and Portugal were not seeded and were dropped to Pot 4 and could be part of a potential group of death.
Even though Korea has played well against the two teams in the tournament ― a 1-0 win over Portugal in 2002 and a 1-1 draw with France in 2006 ― they will still be tough to beat.