Get in touch as the World Cup draw unfolds. Do you want to see England in a Group of Death? France to go all the way after their Ireland controversy? Do you fancy the host Charlize Theron? Then text 81441 (texts cost 25p, Ts & Cs apply) or e-mail me at sport@stv.tv.
Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
Group B: Argentina, South Korea, Nigeria, Greece
Group C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia
Group D: Germany, Australia, Ghana, Serbia
Group E: Netherlands, Japan, Cameroon, Denmark
Group F: Italy, New Zealand, Paraguay, Slovakia
Group G: Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal
Group H: Spain, Honduras, Chile, Switzerland
1837: And that'll do. See you all in June. Who will you all be supporting at the World Cup in Scotland's absence? Drop us a comment below. I'm yet to decide. Maybe USA, Algeria and Slovenia.
1835: Group of Death is definitely Group G, I have concluded. I fancy Brazil and Ivory Coast to emerge victorious and not because I am bitter about Portugal rubbishing my pretty pattern of World Cup semi-finalists not making the next tournament (see 1744)
1833: Looking ahead, there's potential for Brazil or Portugal v Spain in the second round. In the quarter finals, we could be looking at Holland v Italy, England v Germany and Argentina v France. But like you, I hope it's not as predictable as that.
1832: Pencil in June 11 for the opening ceremony as South Africa play Mexico and then Uruguay beat France. SPL interest starts on June 12 as Greece play South Korea - an all Celtic matchup between Georgios Samaras and Ki Sung-Yong.
1829: June 24 for Algeria v USA you Rangers fans. Should England qualify for the second round, they will face an opponent from Group D. Should Germany and England both top their groups or both come second, they are on course for a quarter final meeting. But whoever else does qualify from Group D is bound to be tricky, with Australia, Ghana and Serbia all vying to progress.
Incidentally, England's opener with USA on June 12 is in Rustenburg, exactly where they are trying to have their training base. That could work in their favour well.
1827: So that is that. Group G is formidable: Brazil, Portugal, Ivory Coast and err... North Korea. Group D also looks tasty with Germany going to have to be on their guard to avoid an early exit. France have been given the sort of group that Raymond Domenech can definitely finish bottom of. And England get "an interesting group", says Becks.
1824: As everyone's favourite sports presenter Gerry McCulloch has just pointed out, it's Bougherra v Beasley and maybe Edu in Group C with England. A Rangers match-up.
1822: Total let off for England as Slovenia are drawn in to their group. So that's USA, Algeria and Slovenia. Come on Germany, stick to the plan and give us that quarter final penalty defeat.
1821: Raymond Domenech - France's manager - looks concerned at that group. He looks eternally confused mind you. France to go out with South Africa going through. And he'll still have a job.
1819: Group H is all Spanish speaking at the moment. As Charlize remarks: "They will all be able to speak to each other".
1817: By my calculations - and if everything goes right - England will be up against Germany in the quarter finals.
1816: Madjid Bougherra will be up against England, as Algeria are drawn into group C.
1810: "You are a fact machine," Charlize flirts to Jerome Valcke. Awkward. "Are you going to tell me another little tip?"
1809: ENGLAND DRAW USA IN GROUP C. Not an easy game at all, but it's not Australia.
1807: It has worked out not bad for England so far. Their placement in group C means they will avoid Argentina, Germany and Italy until the latter stages of the tournament. If they get that far. IF. They can't potentially play Argentina until the final. But they could get Brazil early on and that's not good news after their recent friendly.
1805: South Africa are drawn into group A as expected and a sarcastic "yayyyy" comes from Theron to applause. She has them eating out of the palm of her hand.
1804: David Beckham breaks the African sportperson trend by striding out on stage to be involved. Here we go!
1803: Various African athletes are on stage to pick out the balls. A runner, a cricketer and a rugby player. And now Matthew Booth, South Africa's defender. Booth's a big cult hero in South Africa, watch out for cries of "Boooooooooooooooooooooth!" at the tournament and don't get confused with thinking he is being booed.
1759: South Africa will be in Group A, position number one. In exchange for blowing a fortune on stadiums that won't be used after the tournament, they won't have to play Brazil, England etc on account of being seeded.
1757: Valcke is explaining the pots as Charlize plays the dumb blonde by asking questions as if she hasn't been thoroughly briefed beforehand as to what's going to happen. Clearly representing the exasperated wives and girlfriend worldwide who are having to watch this instead of Neighbours. Or something.
1755: Here we go. The draw gets the lengthy rundown from Jerome Valcke. "It's time to draw!" says Jerome. "How is that going to happen?" asks Charlize awkwardly. Well... he explains and Charlize looks on. Worried.
1753: Excited suggestive murmuring around the crowd as the man from the South African committee arrives on stage and plants two very loud smackers on Charlize’s face.
Together there are hints of Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood, oh dear. Charlize doesn't look too clever trying to put across any emotion when reading from an autocue. But we'll let her off because she's so wonderful. In fact, I can't hear what she's saying. It's just noise to me as I stare lovingly.
1751: And now the reason we've all tuned in. The Soweto Gospel Choir are on stage impressing the awaiting dignitaries with their singing and dancing. Polite applause at the end of the draw. And there’s Charlize! That’s more like it. Now we’re talking.
1750: Some Eurovision-esque rundown on the teams going on just now. But all the footage from recent World Cups is exciting.
1746: Some sensible chat for once. Nelson Mandela appears on screen to deliver a video message in his absence from the draw. "We feel privileged and humbled that South Africa has been given this singular honour of being the African host country," he says. "We must strive for excellence in our hosting of the World Cup, while ensuring that it is going to leave a lasting benefit to all our people."
BLATTER WATCH (again): He's like an express train with the cringy comments. Latest: "Football is emotion, football is passion, football is Africa, South Africa."
BLATTER WATCH: Sepp's just told host Carol Manana that she is "a love story". Earlier on today he made a thinly-veiled comment about Thierry Henry's handball when he was presenting the all-new ball that will be used at the tournament. He's like your embarrassing uncle at new year.
1744: As we wait, there was a mildly interesting stat flying about the STV office during the play-offs that as soon as it was mentioned fell flat on its face. From 1990 onwards, one of the four teams who reached the semi-finals of the World Cup then went on to not qualify for the next tournament.
France kicked it all of in 1986 before not making 1990. England followed suit in 1990 then missed 1994, Sweden ’94 then ’98, Holland ’98 then 2002 and Turkey 2002 then 2006.
Portugal looked nicely on course to keep that sequence going when they were effectively dead and buried in their qualifying group before they won three in a row and sneaked ahead of Sweden into second spot.
A formidable looking Bosnia team stood in their way in the play-offs and money may or may not have been staked on them making it a Cristiano Ronaldo-less finals. But they broke our pretty pattern. That’s the kind of luck that will win them the World Cup. You read it here first.
1737: I'm tiring of the football chat already. Get Charlize Theron on stage so we can gawp.
1735: Just to make sure the main draw works out as smoothly as possible, there have been three dress rehearsals. In every single one, England have drawn out Australia. An omen perhaps? It would be a tricky draw for Fabio Capello’s men if it works out and the Socceroos are easily one of the teams to avoid in pot four. Especially when you see names like North Korea and New Zealand.
In the very last practise draw, England also drew out France and Nigeria. A nightmare group by all proportions, but not the worst they could get. Definite teams to avoid include Ivory Coast, France, Portugal, Serbia, Ghana… and probably a few more.
If you're into a bit of England bashing, then lets hope for a group that sees them paired with France or Portugal, together with Australia or USA and the Ivory Coast.
Actress Charlize Theron showed her humorous side at one of the run-throughs. Having picked France’s ball from the pot, she announced “Ireland” to a bemused and probably terrified Fifa delegation.
BBC COVERAGE 1966 COMMENT WATCH: We're at two already. Motty's just compared Capello to Sir Alf Ramsey, saying he is the best England manager since the man who won them the '66 trophy. Earlier, we saw the match winning "They think it's all over" montage. Shall we run a sweep on the final amount? I'm going for an optimistic 14.
1730: The feeling around the England camp seems to be that they will definitely pick one of France or Portugal out of pot two. Going on England's recent luck in the big tournaments against Portugal, surely drawing them in the group stages would be a good thing? It would mean a quarter final exit at their hands would be off the cards. Ronaldo et al would simply do the job early doors and put us all out of our misery.
1727: Also on offer for those in Cape Town today was the chance to visit the stalls of those bidding to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Unfortunately for USA, their big presentation was gatecrashed by a rival bid.
Portugal are also in the running and midway through the USA’s big speech about why they should get another World Cup less than 30 years since their last one (1994), Luis Figo – an ambassador for the Portuguese bid – walked in. The media pack assembled around the USA stand decamped right in the middle of the big video and rushed off to hear what Figo had to say. Needless to say, Don Garber, who runs the MLS, wasn’t amused. "It was totally ruined," said Garber in disgust.
1722: And while we wait for the proceedings to get underway, here's those pots again:
Pot one (seeds): South Africa, England, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Holland, Argentina.
Pot two (Europe): France, Portugal, Slovakia, Greece, Switzerland, Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia.
Pot three (Africa and South America): Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chile, Algeria, Paraguay, Uruguay.
Pot four (Asia, Oceania and Americas): Japan, North Korea, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, USA, Honduras.
1720: Here's how it is all going to pan out. 32 nations will be drawn into eight groups of four teams, with the top two in each group progressing to the second round knockout stages. Teams will be drawn from four pots, one of which contains Fifa’s top eight seeds for the tournament, with the remaining three sorted by geography.
The draw will also prevent two counties from the same federation being drawn, with the exception of Uefa, where a maximum of two European teams can be drawn in the same group. That means hosts South Africa, for example, cannot be paired with any of the teams from pot three.
There’s also potential for some of the tournament’s weaker sides to progress if the draw is kind to them. An unthinkable permutation would see South Africa, Slovenia, Algeria and North Korea or New Zealand paired together, meaning two of the tournament’s weakest teams would find themselves going one better than Scotland ever have and reaching the second round.
South Africa’s Hollywood export Charlize Theron will present the draw together with Carol Manana, the country’s self-styled ‘first lady of sport’. They’ll be joined at various intervals by England’s David Beckham, South Africa player Matthew Booth and various African sporting greats.
Headache over, let's look forward to what ridiculousness is on offer.
1715: Evening all, so here we are once again. A third consecutive World Cup draw without Scotland’s name being available for selection. Let’s not allow it to put us off enjoying today’s draw however.
Everyone is in their seats already, prepared to see what magnificence Fifa and the South African organisers have up their sleeves before the real action gets underway. A rundown on how it’s all going to work out in a moment.
There’s nothing quite like your country taking part in a World Cup finals. The excitement, the euphoria, the hope and the crushing 3-0 loss to Morocco when everyone was certain second round qualification was a formality. Thing is, us in Scotland haven’t experienced any of that since 1998 and for the third tournament running, our nation’s name won’t be in the pot at this evening’s World Cup draw in Cape Town, South Africa.
Greats like McFadden, Fletcher, Gordon and Iwelumo won’t be gracing the world stage in June and July next year but - just because George Burley lost our invite during a trip to Oslo – it doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t enjoy the festivities.
The countdown – 188 days don’t you know – well and truly begins today as the names of all 32 lucky sods – here’s looking at you France – who were consistent or sneaky enough to earn their place go into various pots from Sepp Blatter’s cupboard to find out who they will be up against in the group stages.
Teams in the same pot can’t draw each other and teams from the same continent can’t be paired together – with the exception of Europe, where a maximum of two teams can end up in the same group.
Pot one (seeds): South Africa, England, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Holland, Argentina.
Pot two (Europe): France, Portugal, Slovakia, Greece, Switzerland, Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia.
Pot three (Africa and South America): Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chile, Algeria, Paraguay, Uruguay.
Pot four (Asia, Oceania and Americas): Japan, North Korea, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, USA, Honduras.
