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2018 World Cup Qualifying Draw: Complete results for each confederation

REUTERS/Grigory Dukor

The qualifying draw for the 2018 World Cup was held Saturday in St. Petersburg, with FIFA's secretary general Jerome Valcke revealing the obstacles each nation will need to overcome to qualify for the tournament in Russia.

Being on official FIFA draw, there were bad musical interludes, worse jokes and, at the end of it all, some mouthwatering matchups that will captivate the football world.

Without further ado, here are the results of the 2018 World Cup qualifying draw.

UEFA (Europe) - 13 World Cup Places

With 52 of Europe's 53 member associations involved in qualifying, the UEFA portion of Saturday's draw saw seven groups of six teams and two groups of five teams pulled from the respective pots.

The winner of each group will qualify automatically for the 2018 World Cup, while the eight best second-place teams will enter a playoff, where they will be paired off and partake in a two-legged tie to determine who wins the final four World Cup spots allocated to Europe.

Note: Russia qualifies automatically as tournament hosts.

Group A: Netherlands, France, Sweden, Bulgaria, Belarus, Luxembourg

Group B: Portugal, Switzerland, Hungary, Faroe Islands, Latvia, Andorra

Group C: Germany, Czech Republic, N. Ireland, Norway, Azerbaijan, San Marino

Group D: Wales, Austria, Serbia, Republic of Ireland, Moldova, Georgia

Group E: Romania, Denmark, Poland, Montenegro, Armenia, Kazakhstan

Group F: England, Slovakia, Scotland, Slovenia, Lithuania, Malta

Group G: Spain, Italy, Albania, Israel, FYR Macedonia, Liechtenstein

Group H: Belgium, Bosnia Herzegovina, Greece, Estonia, Cyprus

Group I: Croatia, Iceland, Ukraine, Turkey, Finland

Related: 2018 World Cup Qualifying Draw - Breaking down the UEFA groups

The European qualifiers will begin in September 2016, and run through November 2017.

CAF (Africa) - 5 World Cup Places

With Zimbabwe expelled from qualification for the tournament earlier this year as punishment for its failure to pay former coach Jose Claudinei Georgini, Africa saw 53 of its 54 member nations involved in Saturday's proceedings.

The first round of African qualifying sees the continent's 26 lowest-ranked teams paired off to play two-legged ties, which are scheduled for October of this year. That draw played out as follows:

Round One

  • Somalia vs. Niger
  • South Sudan vs. Mauritania
  • Gambia vs. Namibia
  • Sao Tome e Principe vs. Ethiopia
  • Chad vs. Sierra Leone
  • Comoros vs. Lesotho
  • Djibouti vs. Swaziland
  • Eritrea vs. Botswana
  • Seychelles vs. Burundi
  • Liberia vs. Guinea-Bissau
  • Central African Republic vs. Madagascar
  • Mauritius vs. Kenya
  • Tanzania vs. Malawi

Round Two

The winners of those ties will then proceed to the next round, where they will join the region's 27 highest-ranked teams, and be paired off again for another series of two-legged ties. That draw was also made Saturday at the Konstantin Palace in St. Petersburg, and resulted in the following matches:

  • Algeria vs. (Tanzania vs. Malawi)
  • Ivory Coast vs. (Liberia/Guinea-Bissau)
  • Ghana vs. (Comoros/Lesotho)
  • Tunisia vs. (South Sudan/Mauritania)
  • Senegal vs. (Central African Republic/Madagascar)
  • Cameroon vs. (Somalia/Niger)
  • Congo vs. (Sao Tome e Principe/Ethiopia)
  • Cape Verde Islands vs. (Mauritius/Kenya)
  • Egypt vs. (Chad/Sierra Leone)
  • Nigeria vs. (Djibouti/Swaziland)
  • Guinea vs. (Gambia/Namibia)
  • Congo DR vs. (Seychelles/Burundi)
  • Mali vs. (Eritrea/Botswana)
  • Gabon vs. Mozambique
  • Burkina Faso vs. Benin
  • South Africa vs. Angola
  • Zambia vs. Sudan
  • Uganda vs. Togo
  • Rwanda vs. Libya
  • Equatorial Guinea vs. Morocco

The winners of these ties will then advance to the final round, which sees the 20 remaining teams divided into five groups. The winner of each group will then, finally, qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

Still following along?

CONCACAF (North, Central America and the Caribbean) - 3.5 World Cup Places

Leave it to CONCACAF to have one of the more convoluted systems for determining which teams reach the promised land. The confederation uses a five-round system, with Saturday's draw outlining which teams will be pitted against one another in rounds three and four.

Round Three

This round featured twelve teams, who were divided into two pots and paired off. The teams will play a two-legged tie - between August 31 and September 8 of this year - to determine which six teams reach round four. The draw unfolded as follows:

  • El Salvador vs. Curacao
  • Canada vs. Belize
  • Haiti vs. Grenada
  • Jamaica vs. Nicaragua
  • St. Vincent/Grenadines vs. Aruba
  • Guatemala vs. Antigua and Barbuda

Round Four

The winners of the ties listed above will then take their place in one of three groups, which were also determined Saturday, and feature CONCACAF's perennial powerhouses.

Group A: Honduras, Mexico, (Curacao/El Salvador), (Canada/Belize)

Group B: Costa Rica, Panama, (Grenada/Haiti), (Jamaica/Nicaragua)

Group C: USA, Trinidad and Tobago, (St. Vincent and Grenadines/Aruba), (Guatemala vs. Antigua and Barbuda)

From here, the top two teams from each group advance to the fifth and final round of CONCACAF qualifying - popularly known as the Hex.

OFC (Oceania) - 0.5 World Cup Places

Another confederation with multiple rounds. We're starting to notice a concerning, confusing trend ...

Round Two

A tournament will take place next month between American Samoa, the Cook Islands, Samoa, and Tonga, with the winner advancing to the second round of OFC qualifying alongside seven other nations - who have already been determined. Those seven teams, along with the (as of yet) unknown eighth nation, were drawn Saturday into two groups of four:

Group A: Tahiti, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, (Winner of tournament)

Group B: New Zealand, Solomon Island, Fiji, Vanuatu

From these two groups, the winners, runners-up, and third-place teams (in other words, everyone but the two last-place teams) will advance to the third round of Oceania qualifying, where another group stage will take place. The groups for this round will be determined at a later date.

Yes, our heads hurt too.

CONMEBOL (South America) - 4.5 World Cup Places

The South American portion of the draw is far more straightforward than that of its counterparts. Ten teams will compete for 4.5 World Cup places, with each team being put into one group, where they will play each other home and away between October 2015 and October 2017.

The nations in question are: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

The top four teams qualify for the 2018 World Cup automatically, while the fifth-place team earns a berth in the intercontinental playoff.

All that needed to be clarified on Saturday was the schedule for the aforementioned group stage, which you can see in its entirety here.

Intercontinental Playoffs

With CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, the OFC, and the AFC (Asian Football Confederation) all boasting one non-guaranteed World Cup spot, a draw was necessary to determine which confederations would play against one another in the intercontinental playoff.

Why, you ask? Sit tight. Here's an example:

With South America having 4.5 World Cup places, the fifth-place team from the CONMEBOL qualifying group does not earn an automatic berth into the World Cup. Instead, that nation gets a place in the intercontinental playoff, against a nation from one of the other three aforementioned continents. In qualifying for the 2014 World Cup, for instance, Uruguay were that fifth-place team, and were entered into a playoff against Jordan, who gained the half-place from Asia. The South American nation emerged victorious 5-0 after a two-legged tie, and thus earned a spot in Brazil.

Saturday's draw pitted the following confederations against one another for the intercontinental playoff:

  • CONCACAF (North and Central America) vs. AFC (Asia)
  • CONMEBOL (South America) vs. OFC (Oceania)

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