World Cup draw: Update (or, let's just get this over with already)

They announced the seeds today, which came as expected, although they did change the formula. The big news was that the CONCACAF teams will be grouped with the AFC (Asian) teams, rather than the CAF (African) teams. That is good news for us, because the African teams should be worse. Let's take an updated look at who we want to draw: Pot 1 (seeded teams) Argentina Brazil England France Germany Italy Mexico Spain Once again, we want Spain. Marc Connolly makes a good pitch for Germany, though. I think Brazil and Argentina are the only two you really need to avoid. Pot 2 (CAF/CONMEBOL/OFC) Angola Australia Cote d'Ivoire Ecuador Ghana Paraguay Togo Tunisia The switch will work out good for us. We could've drawn Ecuador, Paraguay, or Australia before, so that doesn't change. I believe that the Africa teams are much weaker than Asia. Angola and Togo are the weakest teams in the tournament. Hopefully we get one of them. The other three are better, but I would rather face them than South Korea or Japan. Paraguay is the number one team to avoid here, with Australia right behind. Ecuador is manageable. So in summary, we need an African team here to make things easier. Pot 3 (UEFA) Croatia Czech Republic Netherlands Poland Portugal Sweden Switzerland Ukraine Serbia & Montenegro will be in a special pot, to be drawn with Argentina, Brazil, or Mexico. They will be drawn in lieu of a team from our pot, so we can't draw them. This pot is split into two groups from our perspective. Czech Republic, Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden will make things very difficult, while Croatia, Poland, Switzerland, and the Ukraine will make it pretty easy. So it's a coin flip here. This is what will make all the difference between an easy draw and a hard draw. Final Thoughts The seeded team will be tough no matter what. We need an African team and one of the easier Euro teams. The odds of that are 5/8 and 1/2 respectively, giving us a 31.25% chance of getting both and having a really easy group. Actually, because Argentina/Brazil can't play Ecuador/Paraguay, it's probably a little better worse than that. I'm not gonna sit here and figure it out though. Let's hope for the best.