The world will be watching as teams placed for tournament
The wait is almost over.
That’s because the U.S., Mexico and the 30 other nations that qualified for next summer’s soccer World Cup in South Africa will learn who they’ll play and when during today’s tournament draw in Cape Town.
The ceremony, which drew a global TV audience of 300 million viewers four years ago, will be shown live on ESPN2 and Univision beginning at 9 a.m. Pacific time.
The draw will determine the makeup of the eight four-nation groups for the quadrennial tournament, which will be played from June 11 to July 11 in nine South African cities. One of the eight tournament seeds -- the host country and Argentina, Brazil, England, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Spain -- will anchor each group, which will be filled out with teams selected from three pools organized by geography.
FIFA, soccer’s governing body, announced Thursday that the winning team at the World Cup will get $31 million in prize money, with an overall prize pool of $420 million for the 32 participating nations.
Because no CONCACAF team earned a seed, the U.S. and Mexico could be placed in any of the eight groups where, in addition to a seeded team, they will be paired with one European team and a team from either Africa or South America.
The draw did not go the Americans’ way at the World Cup in Germany in 2006 when the U.S. failed to advance out of a first round group that included Ghana, the Czech Republic and eventual champion Italy. Mexico did slightly better, finishing second in its group before losing to Argentina, 2-1, in extra time in the round of 16.
