With the World Cup draw taking place on Friday evening and anticipation among football fans and teams reaching fever pitch, here's a guide to the event
A look at the format for the 2014 World Cup draw to be made from 13h00 local time on Friday (1600 GMT):
Pot 1: (8 seeded teams): Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Switzerland
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Pot 2: (7 teams): Algeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Chile, Ecuador
Pot 3: (8 teams): Australia, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, United States
Pot 4 (9 teams): Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, England, France, Greece, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Russia
The Format
The draw will produce eight groups of four teams (A to H) for the first round group phase. Each group will consist of one team from each pot.
To draw a team from Pot 4 (the only one with nine teams) and place that nation in Pot 2 to ensure each pot has eight teams each.
The teams in Pot 1 will be placed automatically in position 1 for the groups in which they are drawn. According to FIFA, Brazil will automatically be placed in position 1 in Group A. The position of the other teams in the groups be classified 2, 3, 4 according to the draw.
Football legends (from L to R) Spanish Fernando Hierro, Italian Fabio Cannavaro, Brazilian Cafu, French Zinedine Zidane, give a press conference on the eve of the Brazil 2014 FIFA Football World Cup final draw, in Costa do Sauipe, state of Bahia, on December 5, 2013. The legendary players will be participating in the draw ceremony that will determine the eight groups. Pic/AFP
Step 2: Pot 2 will feature teams from three confederations (Africa, South America and Europe). FIFA wants to separate as far as possible teams from the same continent, though with 13 European sides that will not be entirely possible.
FIFA have therefore warned that during the draw, it could occur that a group will be skipped in order for example of having Chile or Ecuador from Pot 2 drawn in the same group as a seeded South American team from Pot 1.
To avoid a group with three European teams, the UEFA representative randomly drawn into Pot 2 cannot be placed in the group including the four seeded European teams from Pot 1.
At the beginning of the draw, there will be a Pot X with the four South American seeded teams. One of these teams will be drawn into the group in which the European nation from Pot 2 will enter.
This European team will join this group and the other teams from Pot 2 will complete Groups A to H. At the conclusion there will be five groups out of the eight which will include two European teams.u00a0
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