ESPN2 will provide three hours of coverage of Friday’s 2010 World Cup Draw, beginning at noon ET (11 am our time). Bob Ley will host the coverage with former World Cup players John Harkes, Alexi Lalas, Efan Ekoku and Steve McManaman providing analysis from ESPN’s Bristol, Conn., studios.
Jeremy Schaap will provide live reports throughout the day from the Cape Town International Convention Center, and Rob Stone will report from New York City’s soccer bar Nevada Smiths.
ESPN’s World Cup play-by-play commentator Martin Tyler will offer insight, live from England, and ESPN2 will feature interviews with Morgan Freeman, who stars as Nelson Mandela, in the soon-to-be-released movie Invictus, David Beckham and U.S. striker Jozy Altidore, as well as Schaap’s recent interview with injured U.S. striker Charlie Davies. U.S. coach Bob Bradley will be interviewed following the draw in Cape Town.
The Draw will determine the Group make up for the World Cup. Earlier this week, the four Pots from which the draw will be made were identified. 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.
Pot 1 (Seeded teams): South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Holland, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England.
Pot 2 (Asia, Oceania, North/Central America): Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Mexico and Honduras.
Pot 3 (Africa, South America): Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria, Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay.
Pot 4 (Europe): France, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Greece, Serbia, Denmark and Slovakia.
The FIFA Organizing Committee chose to use geography to place the 24 unseeded teams in three pots for Friday’s World Cup Draw in Cape Town, South Africa. That means the USA and Concacaf rivals Mexico and Honduras were placed in the weakest pot — Pot 2 — with the four Asian finalists and Oceania champion New Zealand. ESPN has short descriptions of each of the 32 teams here.
The seeding was based on the October 2009 FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking. (The Netherlands edged France for the eighth seed, and there are some questions as to whether that is France’s ‘punishment’ for the illegal hand ball by Thierry Henry that led to the win over Ireland.
ESPN Radio will broadcast SportsCenter Presents the 2010 FIFA World Cup Draw Show, a 60-minute special (also on ESPNRadio.com) at 3 p.m. with host Doug Brown and featuring ESPN international soccer analyst Tommy Smyth, U.S. Soccer and MLS reporter Allen Hopkins and Schaap reporting from Cape Town.
Follow Us!