Hope Powell's Great Britain's women will face New Zealand, Cameroon and Brazil while Stuart Peace's men will play Uruguay, United Arab Emirates and Senegal
Evan will be here shortly, with the draw festivities set to kick off from around 11am. In the meantime, here's an extract from Owen Gibson's draw preview:
It may one day form the basis of a particularly fiendish quiz question. What could take place only after Senegal faced Oman in Coventry and featured Robbie Savage, a former Spice Girl and a one‑time world footballer of the year?
The Wembley draw for the Olympic football tournament on Tuesday – overseen by Gary Lineker and featuring Ronaldo and Mel C among others – is a big moment for London 2012 organisers in more ways than one. Paradoxically, it presents them with both a huge challenge in stimulating demand for some of the matches and – potentially – a job to do in ensuring that a David Beckham influenced Team GB bandwagon does not overshadow other events at the Games.
While the debate over the inclusion of a combined British team in the main draw for the first time since 1960 will run and run, as will the wider argument over whether football should be an Olympic sport at all, the immediate challenge facing organisers is simply that of selling tickets.
The 16 countries qualified for the men's tournament and the 12 in the women's draw will between them account for around 2.3m of the 8.8m tickets on offer for the Games. The Locog chief executive, Paul Deighton, points out that "almost a million" tickets have been sold already – more than for any other sport – but that leaves more than 1.5m. It was also the only sport not to sell all of its tickets in the opening round of ticket sales and the prospect of swaths of empty seats will haunt organisers.
Good morning. Nothing says major sporting event like Mel C and Robbie Savage. And, despite this insistence of my colleague Tom Lutz that it is Mel B who will be performing the draw, I can confirm that it is Sport, rather than Scary, who will be rummaging through the sack to pull out the teams for this summer's Olympic football tournament – an event that lies somewhere between the Christmas party and a team bonding trip to La Manga in the order of importance for the club manager's of most of the players involved.
Even the host for this morning's draw at Wembley, Gary Lineker, seems a little less than enthused about the process. The Olympics - dry? Surely there's been some mistake.
Anyway, here are the pots for the men's and women's tournaments ...
Men's tournament
Pot One: Great Britain, Spain, Switzerland, Belarus
Pot Two: Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Honduras
Pot Three: Japan, South Korea, UAE, New Zealand
Pot Four: Egypt, Gabon, Morocco, Senegal
Women's tournament
Pot One: Great Britain, Sweden, France
Pot Two: Cameroon, South Africa, Colombia
Pot Three: Japan, North Korea, New Zealand
Pot Four: United States, Canada, Brazil
There are various conditions to that, such as no team can be drawn against a country from the same regional pot, so, in the fine tradition of World Cup draws, they'll basically just be making it up as they go along.
A quick perusal of the official London 2012 football site reveals that "the aim of Football, to score more goals than the opposition, is both simple and universally known." Less universally known is the fact that the games will be played in the City of Coventry Stadium, (Coventry); Hampden Park (Glasgow); Millennium Stadium (Cardiff); Old Trafford (Manchester); St James' Park (Newcastle); Wembley Stadium (London).
SPOILER ALERT: I'm waiting for the start of the draw while watching a cracking episode of Waybuloo. It's the 49th episode in a series of 50 so all those important plot points are coming together now. If you don't want to know what happens look away now but it seems that Lau Lau is about to get caught for her ongoing affair with Yojojo and Nok Tok seems likes he's finally ready to take decisive action on the gambling addiction that has threatened to overshadow his involvement in the choo choo noise game they're all paying in the meadow. In short it's all kicking off, unlike at the Olympic draw where they're still waiting for Ronaldo to finish last night's dinner. A quick nap, a short breakfast and then he'll be ready to go.
"Any idea on when we will know who is playing where? asks Liam Coyle. After the draw I would imagine.
Heeere's Gary ... he's got a theme tune and everything. His speech seems pretty dry so far - he's talking about how high Wembley is. Because that's obviously the important thing.
The sound quality of this draw is more like lunchtime Uefa Cup fixture from eastern Europe in the 1980s - it's all muffled sound and static. Through that I can confirm that the number of jokes Gary Lineker has made about his age already stands at two. So basically it's like an episode of Match of the Day.
Now Zhang Jilong, the president of the Asian FA and the man who is overseeing the Olympic football tournament. Let's hope his organisational skills are better than his speech writing because this is rubbish. He'll go far.
Here comes Seb Coe. Or Lord Coe as he seems to go by now. Re: the top seed pot in women's competition, Philippa Booth asks "Is that the right way around? Japan won the last WWC, US the other finalists - seems weird." My beautiful assistant Tom Lutz is looking up the seeding criteria as we speak. He's wearing a glitzy gold dress and everything. I think that earlier group pot is wrong - Tom's research says that GB, world champions Japan and defending champions the United States will be the seeded teams.
The women's draw is going to be first. Gary Lineker hands over to Jerome Valcke, a man who "has conducted many draws. He will be assisted by Robbie Savage, Mel C, Kevin Gallagher, Kelly Smith and Ronaldo. Of those only Robbie Savage has gone for the Debbie McGee look. But then he always looks like that.
Fat Ronaldo is looking pretty good. He seems happy.
Ronaldo goes first, managing to fit his hand into pot one and pulls out ... Great Britain.
Kelly Smith pulls out Japan and then the USA are drawn. I have no idea what is going on. This is making the World Cup draw look like a rock paper scissors contest.
Sweden are drawn out - they go into Group E. Then France go into Group G (even though there's only four groups). They will play USA in their first game.
Cameroon go into Group E and will face Great Britain. South Africa go into Group F along with Japan and Sweden.
Colombia go into Group G with USA and France. They really are making this up as they go along. Alan Patridge's World Cup wheel makes more sense.
New Zealand go into Group E and will face Great Britain in their first game. Brazil also go into this group.
North Korea go into Group F while Canada go into Group G. The groups in full ...
GROUP E:
Great Britain
New Zealand
Cameroon
Brazil
GROUP F:
Japan
Sweden
South Africa
North Korea
Group G:
United States
France
Colombia
Canada
The top two teams from each of the three groups, plus the two best ranked 3rd place teams, go through to the last eight. So nearly everyone gets through.
The first event of the London Olympics will be the women's football between Great Britain and New Zealand on 25 July in ... Cardiff.
On that note, Bernand Crofton writes: "Er, aren't these the London Olympics, not the Great Britain Olympics (I don't say Uk as NI is not included). There are several football grounds in London big enough for the numbers likely to turn up."
No time for this debate, here comes the men's draw ...
Ronaldo gets things underway and draws Great Britain who go into Group A. Spain go into Group D.
Switzerland are drawn out and Mel C puts them in Group D along with Mexico. Then Belarus comes out and they go into Group C along with Brazil.
Uruguay go into Group A along with Great Britain. That's a tough draw. They were the team to avoid. You would call it the Group of Death but everything about the Olympics is meant to be positive, innit? So let's call it the Group of Joy.
UAE go into Group A with Great Britain and Uruguay. Honduras are in Group D with Spain, Korea Republic go into Group D while New Zealand go into Group C. Japan also go into Group D.
The final pot (thankfully) Senegal go into Group A along with Great Britain, UAE and Uruguay.
Gabon go into Group B, Egypt go into Group C while Morocco go into Group D. Great Britain v Senegal will be the opening game on the men's football in London 2012 ... in Manchester.
"Great Britain should progress," says Robbie Savage, a confident statement given that nobody really knows who will be in the squad. "I'm loathe to say it's an easy group, but it's an easy group," says Garth Crooks. The basis for that analysis seems to be that "Africans love the Premier League". Well that's that sorted then. England should beware, however. Has Jack Rodwell got these kind of moves? Here are the groups in full ...
GROUP A
Great Britain
Senegal
UAE
Uruguay
GROUP B
Mexico
Korea Republic
Gabon
Switzerland
GROUP C
Brazil
Egypt
Belarus
New Zealand
GROUP D
Spain
Japan
Honduras
Morocco
You have to hand it to Locog. They've taken the trademark Uefa and Fifa draw format and ran with it. I still have no idea what either of those draws were about. You have to hand it to London 2012 - they're breaking new boundaries.
A quick recap shows that Great Britain's women's team will kick off the Olympics against New Zealand in the opening event of the London 2012 Games in Cardiff on 25 July - two days before the opening ceremony. The match against Cameroon will also be in Cardiff, on 28 July, with the game against Brazil at Wembley on 31 July.
Great Britain's men have been drawn against Uruguay, United Arab Emirates and Senegal. Stuart Pearce's side will kick off the tournament against Senegal at Old Trafford on 26 July 26, then play the UAE at Wembley on 29 July 29 and finish the group against Uruguay in Cardiff on 1 August.
That's it from me. Thanks for your emails. If anyone needs me I'll be fighting a (losing) battle with Ronaldo at the buffet. Bye. Read More
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.
