Senong in Korea for world cup draw after returning from Zambia

The South African u20 Men’s National Team safely arrived back in the country on Monday from Zambia, where they took part in the 2017 CAF u20 Africa Cup of Nations tournament.

Amajita finished fourth after falling to Guinea 2-1 in the 3rd/4th place playoff at Heroes National Stadium in Lusaka on Sunday.

Despite failing to win any medal, South Africa qualified for the 2017 FIFA u20 World Cup, which will be played between 20 May and 11 June 2017 in South Korea.

With the World Cup tournament around the corner, there is no time to rest for head coach Thabo Senong, who jetted off to the draw in South Korea accompanied by team manager Levy Ramajoe.

The draw will be held on Wednesday, 15 March, 2017, at the Suwon Artrium in Suwon, South Korea.

The draw will be followed by a team workshop as well as inspection visits to venues where teams will be drawn to play. The duo is back in the country on Saturday, 18 March.

Two Argentine players who have won the FIFA U-20 World Cup, Diego Maradona and Pablo Aimar, will participate in the draw.

The 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup will be the 21st edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup.

A total of 23 teams have qualified for the final tournament, while South Korea come in as hosts to make 24 up nations in total. All six confederations are represented.

NB: The top two teams of each group and the four best third-placed teams advance to the round of 16.

Here are the qualified teams:

AFC:       Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam (first appearance**)

CAF:       Guinea, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia

CONCACAF:        Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, USA

CONMEBOL:       Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, Venezuel

OFC:      New Zealand, Vanuatu (first appearance**)

EUFA:    England, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal

DRAW PROCEDURES:

ALLOCATION TO POTS:

The 24 qualified teams are allocated to four pots of six teams each, based on a ranking built according to past sporting performance

The ranking is based on the total points obtained in the last five FIFA U-20 World Cups (3 points for a win – 1 point for a draw, 0 for a loss)

The ranking used to build the pots is thus based on the points obtained at the 2015, 2013, 2011, 2009 and 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cups

To enable the ranking to accurately reflect current form, the greatest importance is given to results from the most recent FIFA U-20 World Cups. To a lesser degree, attention is also paid to results from previous years.

The system uses five cycles as the points earned in one World Cup decline linearly within the past five cycles:

Year 2015: 100% value of total points

Year 2013: 80% value of total points

Year 2011: 60% value of total points

Year 2009: 40% value of total points

Year 2007: 20% value of total points

In addition, five bonus points are added to each of the confederation champions that won a qualifying tournament.

Based on the above ranking, the five top teams and the hosts are allocated to Pot 1, the next six teams in Pot 2 and so on.

This then means:

POT 1: Korea Republic, Portugal, Uruguay, France, USA, Germany

POT 2: Mexico, Argentina, New Zealand, Senegal, Japan, Costa Rica

POT 3: Zambia, Honduras, England, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Venezuela

POT 4: Ecuador, South Africa, Iran, Vietnam, Guinea, Vanuatu

DRAW MECHANICS:

The four pots representing the teams are labelled Pots 1 to 4

The six pots representing the groups/venues are labelled Groups A to F

In each pot, there are four balls which contain the position numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 of each respective group

The draw starts with Pot 1 and ends with Pot 4. Each pot is completely emptied before moving on to the next pot

A ball from a team pot will be drawn, followed by a ball from one of the groups, thus determining the position in which the respective team will play.

DRAW CONSTRAINTS:

In Pot 1, Korea Republic are in a red ball and have been pre-assigned to position A1 as hosts

FIFA’s general principle is to ensure that no group has more than one team from the same confederation drawn into it.