World Cup 2014 Final Draw Review

Firstly, discussion turns to the arduous qualifying campaign, then attention turns to the grueling play-offs. Once we know who the 32 teams are, the World Cup ball is released with great interest. Last but not least, the final piece of the puzzle for a World Cup and arguably the biggest talking point is the World Cup draw. On Friday FIFA held the final draw in Brazil amidst celebrities, football dignitaries and former players. The teams were put into their respective pots, as designated by the football governing body, and one by one they were drawn into the eight groups. These are the groups for next year's FIFA World Cup.

The first thing you will notice when you have a quick glance at the groups is how unbalanced they are in terms of quality. There was a huge uproar about the method that FIFA used to choose the groups' top seeds. They chose to use the largely flawed FIFA rankings as the sole method, which I have no doubt was a bad idea when for previous World Cups each team's World Cup history, results and ranking were taken into account. Whether you like it or not what is done is done and what we are left with are three or potentially four "groups of death" (groups B, D, G and maybe E) when usually there's only one. This will cause some exciting match ups early in the tournament but unfortunately this also means some big teams won't make it to the knock out phases.

If I had to choose one clear "group of death" it would have to be Group D, which contains Copa America champions Uruguay, Costa Rica, England and Italy. I really can't pick who will go through from this group and we are guaranteed to see a big team bow out in the first round. I also think Group D will give us the most interesting match ups as all teams will have to go for the win, draws won't be enough to get out of this group. The other incredibly tough group is Group B, which has the two finalists from 2010 Spain and the Netherlands, Chile and Australia. It will be great to see a re-match of the 2010 final while Chile are in the form of their lives, recently beating England 2-0 at Wembley. Australia will also put up a challenge with their never say die attitude and improved football under new coach Ange Postecoglou.

The easiest group for a top seed would have to be Group F where Argentina will be expected to win all three of their group matches comfortably. Brazil, Colombia and Belgium, groups A, C and H respectably, also look to be likely group winners. However, as we all know there are no easy matches in a World Cup and nothing can be taken for granted, see Argentina 2002 or France 2010. In fact, the "easier" groups might actually throw up the more exciting matches as they will be more open and second round spots definitely up for grabs. While groups A, C and H have a likely winner, second spot for those groups is anyone's guess. The most unpredictable group has to be Group E where I can't pick where any of the teams will finish. Switzerland have been very solid recently while Ecuador had a great qualifying campaign in the tough Sth American qualifiers. France had to qualify through the playoffs but have a top class team and Honduras have the capacity to come up with some surprising results as they did throughout qualifying.

All in all I find the commotion about the makeup of the groups a bit pointless if you're genuinely thinking about winning the tournament. The formula to become champions at the World Cup remains the same, you must win a minimum of six matches if not all seven. It doesn't matter what group you're in or who you're up against, you will have to play the top teams at some stage or another and play well. One little slip up, one moment of lost concentration and you will be sent home, it's a tough tournament to say the least.

Look out for my future blog posts where I'll be analysing each group in more detail as we continue to countdown till Brazil 2014.