2010 World Cup Draw Results and Live Blog

On Friday December 4, the final World Cup draw for the 2010 World Cup will be held. It's scheduled to begin at noon for those of us on the East Coast of the United States, which is 7:00 pm local time where the draw is being held, in Cape Town of host country South Africa.

Right here on this page at Associated Content I'll be providing an updated live blog of the 2010 World Cup draw results. So if you're at work, don't get a channel that shows the draw or just want to check the results after, you can visit this page for everything you need.

2010 World Cup Draw Basics

The World Cup draw is one of the biggest events for sports worldwide, and it will be captivating the masses all over the globe. All 32 teams that are in the World Cup have already been decided, and these teams have been broken up into 4 pots, or pools based on qualification and world ranking. The purpose of the World Cup draw then is to have the teams broken up into their 8 groups to see who will end up playing who in the group stage of action, when the 32 team field is whittled to 16.

Pot 1 has Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa and Spain, these are the seeded teams and the host country, the remaining pots are based primarily on region, as well as a variety of factors that will help ensure spread final groups. Pot 2 has Australia, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, North Korea, South Korea and the United States. Pot 3 has Algeria, Cameroon, Chile, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Paraguay and Uruguay. Pot 4 has Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland.

2010 World Cup Draw Results, Live Blog and Updates

1:32 PM: World Cup Draw 2010 Analysis: The United States has a very favorable draw to make it out of the group stage. England is the big name, but neither Algeria nor Slovenia is a killer. If the United States makes it out of the Group Stage, they will face a team from Group D, which is led by Germany. The Group of Death as it's known becomes Group G, which houses not just Brazil and Portugal, but also the Ivory Coast. See below for all of the World Cup 2010 Groups, as well as the live blog from earlier this afternoon about how it all went down.

1:26 PM: The 2010 World Cup Draw is now over! Here are the 8 groups:

Group A: South Africa - Mexico - Uruguay - France

Group B: Argentina - Nigeria - South Korea - Greece

Group C: England - The United States - Algeria - Slovenia

Group D: Germany - Australia - Serbia - Ghana

Group E: Netherlands - Denmark - Japan - Cameroon

Group F: Italy - Paraguay - New Zealand - Slovakia

Group G: Brazil - North Korea - Ivory Coast - Portugal

Group H: Spain - Switzerland - Honduras - Chile

1:20 PM: Up to Pot 4, the final 8 teams to be drawn! The United States wants to avoid France or Portugal getting drawn into their group.

Right off the bat France gets drawn into Group A, South Africa's group and is slotted as A4.... Greece joins Group B with Argentina and automatically becomes B4....Slovenia goes into Group C, joining the U.S., England and Algeria.... Serbia enters Group D led by Germany and becomes D3..... Denmark joins group E as E2 and will face the Netherlands in their first match....

Slovakia joins group F with defending champion Italy and gets slotted as F4.... Portugal gets placed into Brazil's group, Group G! They become G4... and finally the last of 32 teams in the 2010 World Cup Draw, Switzerland will join Group H, headed by Spain and gets positioned as H2.

1:15 PM: Moving onto Pot 3! Nigeria gets drawn and can't go into South Africa's group, so joins group B as B2, joining Argentina and South Korea.... Ivory Coast gets drawn and gets placed into group G as G3 with Brazil and North Korea.... Algeria goes into Group C as C3 with England and the USA.... Uruguay, joins South Africa and Mexico in Group A as A3....

...Ghana joins group D with Germany and Australia and is placed at D4... joining the Netherlands and Japan is Cameroon as E4... in Group F with Italy and New Zealand is now Paraguay, becoming F2... and finally by default the last team from Pot 3 is Chile, joining Group H with Spain and Honduras, getting slotted as H4.

1:10 PM: Australia gets into group D with Germany and gets slotted as D2 to open up against the Germans.... Japan joins Netherlands in Group E and gets placed as E3.... Joining the defending World Cup champions in group F is New Zealand and becomes F3. ..... North Korea lands in group G with Brazil and as G2 will open the tournament against them. By default then, the last remaining team from Pot 2, Honduras, joins Spain in group H and gets placed as H3.

1:07 PM: Moving onto Pot 2, in which the U.S. is a member. Mexico gets drawn from Pot 2 into Group A, joining South Africa. Mexico becomes A2, and they will open the 2010 World Cup against South Africa.... South Korea gets drawn into group B with Argentina and becomes B3.

The United States gets drawn into Group C with England! And the U.S. is C2, so their first match will be against England on June 12!

1:05 PM: And here we go! The 2010 World Cup Draw is here. Argentina is B1... England is C1.... Germany is D1.... the Netherlands is E1..... Italy is F1... Brazil is G1.... and finally Spain is H1.

1:05 PM: A procession of famous international athletes are being brought out to assist with the drawing process. Although, the only one among them that I know of is David Beckham, who is the last athlete brought out.

1:00 PM: The whole scene very much has a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" vibe to it, music and scenery included. The secretary is explaining us the drawing process and explains that South Africa is already A-1. The other 7 seeded teams will be the 1 seed in the remaining 7 groups.

The remaining teams will be drawn in order to "avoid continental clashes in the group". A maximum of 2 teams from Europe can be in the same group, otherwise teams from the same region will not be in the same group. The groups will be filled in order starting from A to H, and skipping over when necessary to avoid regional conflicts as explained.

Specific position in each group will of course determine the match-ups, the schedule and where each team plays. Each country is drawn from their pots lottery ball style and then each group also has a drawing to determine the position.

12:52 PM: The FIFA secretary takes the stage as the "Drawmaster" and the draw is set to begin as he takes the stage with Charlize Theron.

12:45 PM: The ESPN2 feed has cut a few times over to a bar in New York City, Nevada Smiths. This was actually my favorite bar in New York, and I lived across the street for a year. Wish I was there now!

12:30 PM: Hopefully we should be just a few minutes away from the actual draw beginning. We have heard from Nelson Mandela and some dignitaries and now i should be time to go soon.

12:00 PM: Alright, the 2010 FIFA World Cup draw is now beginning. Of course host country South Africa will be in Group A, but that's all we know so far. Stay tuned as the results start coming in.

10:45 AM: The lovely Academy Award winning South African actress Charlize Theron will be one of the hosts for the 2010 World Cup Draw. Lucky us. Check back in at noon for the live blog of the 2010 World Cup Draw results!

10:00 AM: Here are a few major story lines for the 2010 World Cup draw... Two traditional soccer powerhouses, France and Portugal, struggled with qualifying and of course the France-Ireland match had the infamous missed hand ball... The United States will be looking to build off their FIFA Confederations Cup showing and go deep into the tournament... Defending champion Italy is in the first pot, along with the host country South Africa and many of the biggest names in the sport such as Spain, Brazil and Argentina...

9:45 AM: As mentioned, the purpose of the 2010 World Cup draw is to see which teams will be playing which teams in the biggest worldwide sporting event. The event begins on June 11, and the championship match will be held a month later on July 11.

9:35 AM: Alright everybody, I've just posted my World Cup draw live blog and will be ready to update it as soon as any important information is released. In just a few hours we'll know where all of the 32 teams are seeded. World Cup draw scheduled to get going in 2 hours and 15 minutes.