Here is some more background on the draw that will start tomorow in Durban, South Africa at 10:00 a.m. EST.

An introduction and set up piece from FIFA.

You can find the draw information by federation tucked away near the bottom right hand corner of the page . As I mentioned at the end of the show last night it is seems curious that UEFA seeding is  based on the FIFA rankings from November 2007.

Concacaf however, has opted to use May 2007 which is prior to this past summer’s Gold Cup. Anyone smell  a rat? (Africa is using July 2007).

Country                       (May-Nov)
Mexico                         1-1
USA                             2-2
Costa Rica                 3-7
Honduras                   4-3
Panama                      5-5*
Trinidad & Tobago    6-10
Jamaica                      7-12
Cuba                            8-8
Haiti                             9-5*
Guatemala                10-13
Canada                      11-4
Guyana                       12-11
St Vincent & Gren.    13-9

* tied for 5th. (Should the tie breaker not have been the respective penalty kick shoot out records?)

I’ve never put any credence into the FIFA World rankings but if there are to be used for seeding purposes surely then the most current version should be used.

Reuters have a World Cup draw fact box.

UEFA seeding courtesy of RTE.