Spain win World Cup seed

The seeding is recognition of Spain's world standing

PUSAN, South Korea -- Spain have been awarded the final seeded place in the 2002 World Cup.

South Korea and Japan are automatically seeded as joint hosts, as are France, the champions. The other four countries are Argentina, Italy, Brazil and Germany. The World Cup finals draw takes place on Saturday.

England, Croatia, Portugal and Nigeria were considered to be in the reckoning for the eighth seeding, but Spain's recent performances and current ranking from FIFA, the sport's world governing body, gave them the edge.

Spain are regularly touted as outsiders to win international tournaments but regularly under-perform.

RESOURCES World Cup news CNNSI.com

But in qualifying for the 2002 tournament they won six and drew two of their eight matches and scored 21 goals while letting in just four.

Germany and Brazil were also awarded the prestigious seeded status despite both having difficulties in qualifying.

Brazil grabbed the last automatic qualifying spot in their group and Germany had to take part in a two-legged play-off against Ukraine after coming second in their group behind England

But both have appeared in every World Cup Finals tournament they have entered and Brazil has won the competition four times while Germany have been World Champions three times.

The draw, scheduled to take place in Pusan on Saturday starting at 1000 GMT will have two built-in safeguards.

The first means that no more than two European teams will play in the same group and that, for example, all the South American teams will not be based in either Japan or South Korea -- they will be evenly spread between the two.

FIFA general secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen also said that teams that met in the qualifying competition could meet each other in the finals.

"The draw is open, apart from the restrictions we have described," he said.

"Once the eight seeded nations are allocated into each group, eight European nations will be drawn and placed in each group from A to H. The three remaining European teams will then be drawn and placed in a group which does not already contain two other European teams."

The draw will be conducted along the following lines:

-- Pot 1: Seeds: France, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany, Spain

-- Pot 2: The 11 remaining European teams: Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, England, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey

-- Pot 3: Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, China, Saudi Arabia

-- Pot 4: Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, Costa Rica, Mexico, United States.

The committee also confirmed that China would play their first round matches in South Korea.