World Cup draw: England learn their fate as every group is confirmed

The group stage draw for the 2022 FIFA World Cup has officially been completed.

With almost all of the qualifying games for the tournament in Qatar now concluded, football fans around the world were eagerly anticipating how the competing nations would be organised.

After all, there are no knockout round draws a la the Champions League or third-place shenanigans like in the Euros, so this week’s draw really did decide the roadmap for the entire competition.

Sure, it’s impossible to know who will place where in each and every group, but it allows supporters to get a reasonably good idea of how their nation might plot their route to the final.

As such, it’s easy to see why millions, if not billions, of fans were anxious to find out how the World Cup groups would be postured with proceedings taking place at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center on Friday.

At the time of the ceremony, 29 of the 32 nations had been confirmed as having qualified with the remaining countries still to play qualifying games having been placed in pot four.

So, before we unveil the full results on what proved to be an exciting afternoon in Qatar, be sure to check out the state of play in each of the pots before the balls were pulled from the bowls.

Pot one: Qatar, Brazil, Belgium, France, Argentina, England, Spain and Portugal

Pot two: Mexico, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Uruguay, Switzerland, United States and Croatia

Pot three: Senegal, Iran, Japan, Morocco, Serbia, Poland, South Korea and Tunisia

Pot four: Cameroon, Canada, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Wales or Scotland or Ukraine, Costa Rica or New Zealand and United Arab Emirates or Australia or Peru

Even before the ceremony got underway, it was clear to see that there was plenty of