Fifa World Cup draw: Cape Town, Friday 4 December. Coverage: BBC Two/online from 1715 GMT, Jonathan Pearce commentating
**Fifa has confirmed England will be one of eight seeded teams when the World Cup draw takes place on Friday.**They will thus avoid favourites Spain and Brazil, who are two of the other seeded sides, in the group stage.
Argentina, Germany, Netherlands, holders Italy and hosts South Africa make up the remaining seeded nations.
The 32 qualifiers will be assembled into eight groups on Friday in Cape Town when the draw is made for next summer’s tournament from 1745 GMT.
England are ranked only ninth in the Fifa world rankings, but their impressive qualification campaign has been rewarded.
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Portugal, ranked fifth, and France (seventh) had problems making the big tournament in South Africa and have thus missed out on the seedings.
BBC Radio 5 live’s sports news correspondent Gordon Farquhar said: “Portugal and France are the dangerous floaters in Friday’s draw.”
The eight seeds will all be in pot one, with the remaining three pots drawn on regional boundaries.
Each will face one team in pot three - a team from Asia, north or central America, or Oceania - one team from pot three - which has five African and three South American sides - and one from the exclusively European pot four.