{"id":481233,"date":"2025-11-25T20:49:45","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T21:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=481233"},"modified":"2025-11-25T23:20:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T23:20:07","slug":"pot-luck-ensures-socceroos-will-avoid-heavyweights-at-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=481233","title":{"rendered":"Pot luck ensures Socceroos will avoid heavyweights at World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Popovic's men have received a major boost ahead of next week's 2026 FIFA World Cup draw, with the Socceroos<\/a> to be placed in Pot 2 for the group stage, after FIFA announced the draw procedure for next year's tournament.<\/p>\n

Despite a recent slide down the rankings to 26th in the world\ufeff, FIFA confirmed Australia will be in Pot 2 ahead of the December 6 draw in Washington DC. There was some uncertainty about where the Socceroos would end up, with Pot 3 also viewed as a possibility.<\/p>\n

It is the first time the Socceroos will enter a World Cup as the second seed in their pool as a result of the expansion of the finals from 32 to 48 teams and should give Australia an easier path to the knockout stage.<\/p>\n

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Despite being confirmed in Pot 2, Australia is far from safe when it comes to how their group may pan out.<\/p>\n

They could draw an easier group \ufeffwith the likes of Canada, South Africa and New Zealand while they could lumped into a "group of death" of sorts with Argentina, Norway and Italy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The 2026 World Cup is configured so the top four seeded countries will be kept apart until the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

Spain cannot meet Argentina and France will not face England before the World Cup final \u2014 provided they win their groups.<\/p>\n

The rule aims to maintain competitive balance in the expanded 48-team format, ensuring the top-ranked team (Spain) and number two (world champions Argentina) are in opposite halves of the bracket, with the same applying to number three (France) and number four (England).<\/p>\n

The 2026 World Cup draw takes place on December 5 in Washington, with the updated match schedule, including stadiums and kick-off times, to be released on December 6.<\/p>\n

Hosts Canada, Mexico and the US are in Pot 1 which includes Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.<\/p>\n

Pot 2 has Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria and Australia.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pot 3 will include Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.<\/p>\n

Pot 4 will be Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curacao, Haiti, New Zealand, and the winners from the European play-off A, B, C and D, and the FIFA Play-Off tournament 1 and 2.<\/p>\n

Confederation constraints will apply, with no group having more than one team from the same region except UEFA, which has 16 representatives and can place up to two teams in a group.<\/p>\n

The tournament in the US, Mexico and Canada kicks off on June 11, with the final on July 19 in New Jersey.<\/p>\n

– with Reuters\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Popovic's men have received a major boost ahead of next week's 2026 FIFA World Cup draw, with the Socceroos to be placed in Pot […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":481235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=481233"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":481238,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481233\/revisions\/481238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/481235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=481233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=481233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=481233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}