Draw set to take place on 30 May at the Home of FIFA
Deyna Castellanos will be one of the assistants
The road to the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup Uruguay 2018 is entering its final straight, with the Official Draw set to take place in Zurich this week.
Draw details
When: Wednesday 30 May
Time: 15:00 (CET) / 10:00 (Uruguay time)
Where: the Auditorium at the Home of FIFA, Zurich
How to follow: Live video coverage of the ceremony will be broadcast on FIFA.com, Facebook and FIFA TV on Youtube
The key figures
The event will be attended by Sarai Bareman, FIFA's Chief Women's Football Officer, and Rafael Fernandez, president of the Local Organising Committee.
Two very special guests will also provide their assistance: official tournament ambassador Deyna Castellanos, from Venezuela, and FIFA Legend Niko Kranjcar, from Croatia.
The U-17 Women's World Cup holds a particularly special place in Castellanos’ heart: she finished fourth at both Costa Rica 2014, where she was joint winner of the adidas Golden Boot (awarded for the tournament's top scorer), and Jordan 2016, where she claimed the adidas Bronze Boot (awarded for the tournament's third top scorer) and Bronze Ball (awarded for the tournament's third-best player) prizes.
Kranjcar represented his country at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™.
The pots
The 16 finalists will be placed in four pots of four teams. Each team will receive a number from one to four in their respective pot, depending on their results at previous tournaments.
The seedings for the three CONCACAF countries, whose identities are yet to be confirmed, will be based on the rankings of the three best-performing teams from that region at the last five editions of the tournament.
Pot 1: Uruguay, Japan, Korea DPR, Spain
Pot 2: Germany, Ghana, CONCACAF 1, CONCACAF 2
Pot 3: Brazil, New Zealand, CONCACAF 3, Korea Republic
Pot 4: Colombia, South Africa, Cameroon, Finland
Draw procedure
The four pots representing the groups will be labelled from A to D
There will be four balls in each of them, numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4 to represent the different positions in the group
The draw will start with “Pot 1” and will end with “Pot 4”. Each pot must be emptied before the draw moves on to the next one
Each time a ball is drawn from a team pot, a corresponding ball will be drawn from the group pot in order to determine that team’s exact position in the group
As the hosts, Uruguay have already been assigned the first spot in Group A
No one group can contain more than one country from the same confederation
Did you know?
The forthcoming World Cup in Uruguay will be the tournament’s sixth edition. It will take place between 13 November and 1 December in Montevideo, Maldonado and Colonia.
The identities of the three teams who will represent CONCACAF at the tournament will be revealed on 12 June.
As things stand, Finland are the only team set to make their tournament debut in Uruguay.