The first event of the FIFA World Cup starts with a kind of lottery but instead of selecting classified numbers, in this contest a country is selected; most had been made in January of the tournament year until 1982 and since the 1986 World Cup it is held in early December of the year before the start of the tournament.
History
The first version of the draw had been made in a football association's office, a few days before the 1930 World Cup; it was also repeated in 1934. Five of these have been held in hotel ballrooms; the 1950 draw was conducted in the office of a government agency. The 1958 draw was the first to be held in a television studio. The 1986 draw was notable as it was held less than two months after an earthquake struck the hostnation's capital. A party was held a few hours before the 1998 draw which was the first to be performed in a stadium that hosted the tournament. The first draw that involved celebrity guests such as musical artists was held for the first time in 1990, a practice maintained until now. It was also held in a city that would not host the tournament like the one in 1994 that was developed in Las Vegas.
Previous draws
Teams in the groups
The following table shows the times a country has been part of the World Cup groups. Updated to include Russia 2018
Team
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Group G
Group H
1
1
1
1
1
4
3
1
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
4
3
6
2
1
2
1
1
2
3
2
3
2
1
2
5
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
3
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
4
1
2
2
6
1
3
1
1
1
4
5
1
3
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
4
1
1
2
2
1
1
4
3
1
4
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
7
2
2
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
2
1
2
2
2
1
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
4
1
2
1
1
2
2
2
1
2
1
1
1
1
2
1
2
2
1
1
1
2
1
3
2
1
2
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
3
3
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
2
1
1
1
5
3
2
2
2
3
5
2
2
2
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
2
1
1
1
5
1
3
2
2
1
Belgium and South Korea are the two countries that have been in all groups.
This table does not contain the participations of the countries in the World Cups of Italy 1934 and France 1938, and these editions have not been grouped for the tournament.
Draw criticism
The current format of the draw has been criticized for lacking balance, fairness and equal distribution of quality. A study in the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports suggested that while the current model does ensure Randomness, Tractability, and Geographic separation, it "fails to satisfy the principle of balance". Under the study's proposed draw model, based on over 40,000 simulations of the 2014 draw, the model exhibited a much more balanced group and much less variation in the strength of the groups when compared to the current system utilized by FIFA.
