POSTED: Wednesday December 2nd 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

U.S. PLACED IN POT 2 FOR 2010 FIFA WORLD CUP FINAL DRAW WITH TEAMS FROM CONCACAF, ASIA & OCEANIA

Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and South Africa Are Announced as the Seeded Teams

CHICAGO (Dec. 2, 2009) – The U.S. Men’s National Team has
been placed in Pot 2 alongside fellow CONCACAF qualifiers Mexico
and Honduras, as well as the Asia and Oceania qualifiers for the 2010
FIFA World Cup Final Draw, FIFA announced today.



The Final Draw will be held Friday, Dec. 4, in Cape Town, South Africa,
and will air live at 12 p.m. ET on ESPN2 and live at 11 a.m. ET on
Univision. Fans can also follow along via DrawTracker, ussoccer.com‘s
extensive live coverage, and at twitter.com/ussoccer.

With no CONCACAF team placed as one of the eight seeds, the U.S.
could be placed in any of the eight groups with any of the eight seeded
teams in Pot 1. The remaining two U.S. opponents will come one each
from Pot 3, which includes African and South American teams, and Pot 4,
which includes the unseeded European teams.



Pots

Pot 1: South Africa (hosts), Argentina, Brazil, England,
Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain

Pot 2: Australia, Honduras, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic,
Mexico, New Zealand, United States

Pot 3: Algeria, Cameroon, Chile, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria,
Paraguay, Uruguay

Pot 4: Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Switzerland



In summary, the U.S. will play one team each from Pot 1, Pot 3 and Pot
4, and will have no chance of facing the four Asian qualifiers, New
Zealand and the other two CONCACAF qualifiers.



“In regards to our group, I think it was expected the three CONCACAF
teams would be grouped with the four teams from Asia and New Zealand,
so that certainly was not a surprise,” said U.S. head coach Bob
Bradley. “The one big question in terms of seeds was whether a seed
would go to the Netherlands or to France, and I think the choice of the
Netherlands being a top seed certainly caught some people a little bit
surprised.



“It will still come down to the luck of the draw. You certainly know
that you’ll get a team from each of the other three pots, and you just
wait to see how the balls come out.” (More
Quotes)



The 32 qualified teams will be divided into eight groups. No two teams
from the same confederation will be drawn into the same group, with the
exception of Europe which can have a maximum of two teams in the same
group.



As hosts, FIFA announced that South Africa will automatically be
positioned as A1, and the other teams from Pot 1 will be drawn into
Position 1 in groups B-H. For the remaining pots, the teams will be
drawn into groups A to H and Positions 2-4 during the draw.



A quote sheet transcript of a ussoccer.com
video with U.S. players’ comments
on the draw is available now at ussoccer.com.

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Keywords · 2010 FIFA World Cup Final Draw · Cape Town

Name: Jim Moorhouse
Organization: US Soccer Federation
Email:
Phone: 312 808 1300
URL: http://www.usssoccer.org

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