I had the dubious honour of watching the World Cup draw live yesterday (on the telly, I wasn't sent an invite). As this is a non-political forum, I will limit myself to saying that it was "interesting" and that most karaoke singers would put the Village People to shame. FIFA lost the plot years ago, and the next World Cup having 48 teams is evidence of this.

Anyway, this is our group:

England
Croatia
Ghana
Panama

Any thoughts?

Croatia were the one team from pot B I wanted us to avoid, but I don't really know how strong they are compared with the past. With it being the first match, I can imagine it being a cagey affair with neither side willing to risk too much. With two thirds of the teams from the first round going through, this might also finally be Scotland's year to progress past the grop stage.

I think that England will qualify comfortably. I concur that having 48 teams is too many and completely unnecessary.

We all know why it's 48 teams. It's just to make lots of money for lots of different companies that will be taking advantage of this Worldwide sporting spectacle.

The sporting spectacle has become a sideshow & making money has now become the priority it seems.

I turned it off after 20 minutes, as it was utter dross, looked at the groups after it had finished

I didn’t watch it and I was glad I hadn’t when I saw the news later and a certain person featured.

Of course yours truly has committed a faux pas of being on holiday for a good portion of the tournament, we will be cruising around the Greek islands when it’s on which means a kick of time of 9pm UK time will be 11pm for me. The ship will show the matches (satellite signal permitting) so hopefully I can stay awake.

England should get through the group stage and will probably lose on penalties in the quarter or semi final as per usual.

I saw the content and how long it was to go on for and decided unanimously not to watch. This wonderful stage of the best footballers this planet can offer has been turned into a Circus for money makers. No thought of climate, travel distances and cost have been taken into consideration. A chance in a lifetime has been made unrealistic for most. Players once again are expected to train and perform in temperatures most would only lie in. To top it all that person @Fan of Big Tone talked about thinks it's his and his only show and that's all you'll hear next year, and as far as peace goes, he's done nothing other than wine and dine the person who awards this inanimate object???

Yeah, I turned it on saw Robbie Williams on the stage singing and turned it off. I agree about that peace prize thing it was just laughable, what subject that they have nothing to do with are they going to branch into next the FIFA Food Awards? It was the most unnecessary event ever, 99.9% of real football fans just wanted to watch the actual draw take place, no singing, no dancing, no celebs and for it to have been done in about 20 minutes.

Anyway as for the actual draw I think it’s about as good as you get. Pot 2, Australia and Iran aside, had a number of very good teams but Croatia are one of the strongest teams in that section, they are still reliant on their older players but they beat France in the Nations League this year. Panama are ranked 30 in the world right now, no idea how that happened but they are not the 30^th best team in the world and I can’t say I know much about Ghana, they didn’t qualify for AFCON though so they clearly aren’t that strong a side.

Croatia is the only real tough match for me, if we can't beat Ghana or Panama than frankly we don't deserve to get out the group!

Actually @menzinho I would be in favour of a FIFA Food Award. Infantino and cronies could descend on every greasy van parked outside a football ground in the UK to help decide who gets the prestigious gong.

Watching the FIFA powers that be crawl and scrape to the rich and powerful is nauseating, but that's hardly new. It's probably an accurate reflection of the top levels of our game actually - not only will clubs accept money from any old despot to get an advantage, the fans will also worship said despot. Can we be surprised that FIFA acts the same way?

(Steps off soapbox) Anyway, we've at least lucked out a bit with kick-off times, with the possible exception of the round of 16 if we win our group and make it that far (I think that's 1am my time).