Today Macedonia will get the opponents for the next qualifications, those for the FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil.
The road to the 2014 FIFA World Cup already began in Asia and North America with the preliminary qualification play-offs, but the official start is like always scheduled for the Draw. Rio de Janeiro’s Marina da Gloria will welcome the delegations from all over the world and at 15.00 local time or 20.00 CET the Draw Show will begin under the guidance of FIFA’s Secretary-General, Jerome Valcke.
Ronaldo and Paulo Henrique Ganso will be those who will help allocating the draw for the UEFA members. According to the FIFA World Ranking for July, Macedonia is in the Pot 5, the second weakest pot of all and will get four teams with better FIFA ranking. Maybe now ex national team coach Mirsad Jonuz feels sorry for his comments like “I don’t care about the FIFA rankings” because his extreme downfall on that ranking is the reason for where Macedonia currently is. All 53 UEFA members entered the qualifications and will be placed into 9 groups with 8 of them having 6 teams while 1 will have 5 teams. The 9 group winners will qualify to the World Cup, while the 8 best runners-up will advance into a two-legged play-offs from which the 4 winners will qualify. The draw starts from Pot 6 and ends with Pot 1, while the groups are filled starting with Group A and ending with Group I.
In a short poll at our Forum, members gave their votes for who they mostly want as opponents for Macedonia. The ideal group looks something like this:
Pot 1: Greece or Norway
Pot 2: Montenegro
Pot 3: Hungary or Bosnia-Herzegovina
Pot 4: Austria or Northern Ireland
Pot 5: Macedonia
Pot 6: San Marino
But, wishes are one thing and the draw is 100% luck. We surely won’t mind a big name from the Pot 1 like Spain, Italy or Germany. It is interesting that out of 52 UEFA members, Macedonia has never been drawn with 24 of them among which are Italy, Greece, Portugal, Germany, France, Slovenia, Belarus, Poland, Kazakhstan etc. Also, an interesting situation may happen if Macedonia gets an all-Balkan group with Croatia or Greece from the Pot 1, Montenegro, Serbia or Slovenia from Pot 2, Bosnia-Herzegovina from Pot 3 and Bulgaria, Romania or Albania from Pot 4. Remember that Macedonia can’t be drawn with any of the teams that are in the same Pot, in this case in Pot 5.
| Pot 1 |
Pot 2 |
Pot 3 |
 Spain |
 France |
 Switzerland |
 Netherlands |
 Montenegro |
 Israel |
 Germany |
 Russia |
 Ireland |
 England |
 Sweden |
 Belgium |
 Portugal |
 Denmark |
 Czech Republic |
 Italy |
 Slovenia |
 Bosnia-Herzegovina |
 Croatia |
 Turkey |
 Belarus |
 Norway |
 Serbia |
 Ukraine |
 Greece |
 Slovakia |
 Hungary |
| Pot 4 |
Pot 5 |
Pot 6 |
 Bulgaria |
 Armenia |
 Wales |
 Romania |
 Finland |
 Liechtenstein |
 Georgia |
 Estonia |
 Iceland |
 Lithuania |
 Cyprus |
 Kazakhstan |
 Albania |
 Latvia |
 Luxembourg |
 Scotland |
 Moldova |
 Malta |
 Northern Ireland |
 Macedonia |
 Andorra |
 Austria |
 Azerbaijan |
 San Marino |
 Poland |
 Faroe Islands |
The qualifications will begin on 7 September 2012 and will end on 15 October 2013, while the play-offs will be played in November 2013. Good luck!