World Cup Qualifying officially ended Wednesday night when Peru knocked off New Zealand, 2-0, to seal the final open place in Russia.
All 32 qualified teams have been broken up into four pots for the group stage draw, which takes place at The Kremlin on Dec. 1. The first pot features Russia, as the host nation, and the top seven teams in the tournament based on their FIFA ranking.
The second pot features the eighth through 15th ranked teams, the third has 16th through 23rd, and the fourth pot has the rest.
As in past World Cups, teams will be drawn into eight groups of four teams each. No team outside of Europe can be drawn with another from its confederation. Europe will be allowed two teams in the same group.
Here’s every team qualified for Russia 2018 sorted into the pots for the draw:
Pot 1: Russia, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium, Poland, France
Pot 2: Spain, Peru, Switzerland, England, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Croatia
Pot 3: Denmark, Iceland, Costa Rica, Sweden, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Iran
Pot 4: Serbia, Nigeria, Australia, Japan, Morocco, Panama, South Korea, Saudi Arabia
Concacaf is the worst qualifying group except Oceania…US didn’t make the WC because they didn’t deserve it…end of story…could be a blessing in disguise, just get rid of the prostitutes at the helm, starting with Gulati…Gulati-OUT!!!
Iceland doesn’t “get to go”.
Iceland is ranked 21st in the world, and won a group that included Croatia (18), Ukraine (30) and Turkey (33). They earned their spot.
Not world beaters, but pretty comparable to CONCACAF.
other than maybe mexico, what country in concacaf could win this group in place of Iceland? if Iceland won this group then they could win our gold cup.
Iceland, a population half the size of my city, gets to go to the World Cup and USA, Nope
Congratulations, you are the 50,000,000th person to point this out. You win SBI’s most original commenter award.