World Cup 2018: England drawn with Belgium, Tunisia and Panama – as it happened

And here’s the full schedule:

And with that, we’re done. It’s been a blast. I bid you farewell, with a parting gift in the shape of this social media upsum. Bye!

I’ve now updated my little table below following a maths fail spotted by Oli Juliusson:

Potential football/politics crossover alert.

If you ever want to know the time, ask Diego Maradona, for whom one watch is never enough.

“Found any photos of the models accompanying the guest of honour entrance at the World Cup draw yet?” asks Pete Heskett. In all the excitement I’d nearly forgotten about them:

Gareth Southgate talks to the BBC, first about England’s game against Tunisia at the 1998 World Cup.

It was a fantastic day as a player. Brilliant occasion, incredible atmosphere. Nice to be able to relive that. [how good are they?] We’ve got to find that out now. We haven’t done as much research on the African teams as yet. Now’s the opportunity. We know who we’re playing, where we’re playing, and now we can start to focus in on that.

[Asked about Panama] We’ve been good at writing teams off and then getting beaten by them, haven’t we? We’ve got to make sure we prepare for those games. It’s fantastically exciting to be here for the draw.

It’s been great today, mixing with some of the more experienced coaches in terms of World Cups. It’s nice to have that fresh challenge and I’m really looking forward to it. Travel-wise, the way the tournament is now you’ve got to be adaptable, but kick-off times are decent for us as well. Belgium are an outstanding team. They’re ranked where they are because of the quality of players they’ve got. That is top quality opposition and a great game to prepare for.

We’ve got to focus on the first game and go from there. The objective is to qualify from the group. There’ll be ups and downs along the way I’m sure, and we’ve got to be prepared for all those things.

We have a news story on the draw for you:

World Cup-related pun of the day: “How are teams competing in Russia 2018 supposed to win the ball back quickly,” muses Peter Oh, “when there are such serious restrictions on the free press?”

Our World Cup draw live video chat is worth heading to, if only to witness Paul Doyle’s shirt. You can find it here.

Before the draw talk was that C3 was the worst draw of all, at least in travel terms. Peru have the dubious pleasure. Morocco, AKA B3, are blessed with the best.

And now for something completely different.

Then England would play a team from either Group E or Group F. So there can be no England v Germany semi-final.

Whoever qualifies from England’s group will play either the winner or the runner-up from Poland’s Group H in the round of 16.

It should be said that the way Fifa calculates their coefficients quite savagely punishes teams who play lots of friendlies, and that the ranking of Russia – who haven’t played a competitive international for two years – is thus unfairly low.

So, the groups in order of difficulty, according to Fifa coefficients:

Group E Brazil, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Serbia Ave coefficient: 1069.75
Group F Germany, Mexico, Sweden, South Korea Ave coefficient: 1048.7625
Group C France, Australia, Peru, Denmark Ave coefficient: 1039.3975
Group B Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Iran Ave coefficient: 1031.105
Group D Argentina, Iceland, Croatia, Nigeria Ave coefficient: 986.7075
Group G Belgium, Panama, Tunisia, England Ave coefficient: 957.88
Group H Poland, Senegal, Colombia, Japan Ave coefficient: 948.275
Group A Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uruguay Ave coefficient: 700.41

This one features rap, opera, and dancing mascots.

Meanwhile, another musical interlude!

I’m just totting up the current Fifa ranking statistics to figure out the inevitable group of death, but aside from Group A and Group H they seem reasonably balanced.

South Korea then slot into Group F:

Group F Germany, Mexico, Sweden, South Korea

Nigeria are next out, so Group D looks like this:

Group D Argentina, Iceland, Croatia, Nigeria

Australia are next out, completing Group C:

Group C France, Australia, Peru, Denmark

Morocco go into Group B, and these are the completed groups so far:

Group A Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uruguay
Group B Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Iran
Group E Brazil, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Serbia

Serbia are drawn next, and aren’t allowed into Group B, Group C or indeed Group D, so they become the final team in Brazil’s Group E.

We now know who will compete in the opening game of the 2018 World Cup: it’s Russia v Saudi Arabia.

Tunisia join England’s group, leaving Senegal to slot into Group H.

Costa Rica go into Group E, and Sweden into Group F with Germany and Mexico.

Iceland take position D2, so will open their campaign against Argentina.

Iran, then, join Spain and Portugal in Group B.

Egypt are added to Group A, and Denmark come out next. They can’t go into Group B, which already has its maximum quota of two European teams, so they go into Group C with France and Peru.

It’s England v Belgium! They will henceforth be known as G4.

England avoid Germany, as Mexico take Pot 2’s place in Group F.

Switzerland head into Brazil’s Group E. England, Colombia and Mexico to go.

Peru join France in Group C, and Croatia will face Argentina in Group D.

Spain are plopped into Portugal’s Group B, forming an Iberian supergroup. They take position B2, and get a special round of applause.

Uruguay join Russia in Group A, taking position four.

So, down to real business.

Group E contains Brazil, Group F features Germany, and Group G includes Belgium, which leaves Poland for Group H.

Even though we know as soon as a Pot 1 team is allocated to a group that they will take position one, they are still picking out, opening up and reading out a position one ball for each one of them. Why is this? Why? We could have had five more minutes of folk dancing!

France take first place in Group C, and Argentina slide into Group D.

Portugal are drawn into Group B, in position one (all the Pot 1 teams will be in position one in their respective groups).

Russia are drawn as team A1. We knew this already, but they drew it anyway.

They’re about to start drawing!

Gary Lineker has arrived. Disappointingly he is not wearing a subversive “Blatter Says Relax” T-shirt.

Each assistant is escorted on by a hilariously-costumed woman. I can’t find a picture of one yet, but I promise I’m going to.

The serious business is getting under way, with the draw assistants being introduced (scroll down for full line-up).

It’s finished, sadly. It looked something like this:

I’m not being sarcastic, by the way. This really is great. Oh, and read this quick, before it’s too late. Though I suppose strictly speaking you’ve got six months or so, so no hurry.

This is fabulous. A draw is simply never complete without some folk dancing. It is a tragedy that Sir Bert Millichip never figured this out, I bet that boy could move.

The Moiseyev Ballet is now performing. “Cossack dancing meets street dancing meets, oh, I don’t know,” says Jonathan Pearce.

Sample question: “Tell us Miroslav, just how iconic is this trophy?”

The trophy has arrived! Miroslav Klose brought it on stage. “It’s a wonderful trophy,” he says, during a short interview of astonishing banality. It might have become more interesting in the latter stages, but the BBC ceased translating it for me.

A musical interlude! It’s Alsou, so the non-surprise one. Dirty-haired rocker Nuno Bettencourt is on stage with her.

Vladimir Putin has already spoken, particularly about the way that “friendship and fair play are eternal values”. There was no audible laughter.

“The best 32 teams in the world will be here next summer,” says Infantino. Not according to your own rankings, chum.

I’m watching it! Gianni Infantino is talking. “I’m sure that the experience in all the 11 cities will be absolutely amazing for everyone who is coming here next summer,” he says.

OK, so nobody in Britain thinks we want to see the first 15 minutes. I want to see it! Show it to me!

BONG! It’s 3pm GMT, 6pm in Moscow. Showtime.

Is it me, or can you tell – if you’re really eagle-eyed, obviously – which ball is Russia’s here?

Just 10 minutes to go. A bit more pre-draw reading for you:

We still don’t know who will perform the draw’s other song, the one not being sung by Alsou. My knowledge of the Russian popular music scene is far from exhaustive, but please let it be Buranovskiye Babushki.

Other useful reading:

Tired of waiting for the draw? Do your own:

Latest: Nigerian broadcaster and journalist wins headgear-of-the-day award:

It looks very much like every attendee at the draw has been given some kind of World Cup Draw bingo kit.

Excitement building backstage. There’s a splendid game of Spot the Legend to be had here.

Update: Diego Maradona has located a razor. And a suit. And a comedy bow tie.

The pots in full:

Pot 1: Russia, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium, Poland, France.
Pot 2: Spain, Peru, Switzerland, England, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Croatia.
Pot 3: Denmark, Iceland, Costa Rica, Sweden, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Iran.
Pot 4: Serbia, Nigeria, Australia, Japan, Morocco, Panama, South Korea, Saudi Arabia.

The red carpet is open, and the big names have started to arrive.

Latest pictures from inside the green room reveal scandal of Russia’s missing razors:

A remarkable statistic: there were a total of 871 matches played in 2018 World Cup qualifying, which works out as 54 days, 10 hours and 30 minutes of qualifying football. Plus stoppages.

You may have missed the unveiling of the new Man of the Match trophy, which took place at the State Kremlin Palace yesterday. “The trophy is awarded to the best football player of each match, who will be selected by fans around the world,” Fifa declared. “Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar are among the high-profile players to have been named Man of the Match in previous Fifa World Cups.” Fifa promised that “a football legend” would be on hand for the unveiling and they were as good as their word, wheeling out none other than David Seaman:

I am by nature a cynic, and thus not predisposed to liking garishly branded items of unnecessary footballing nonsense, so my judgement may be clouded a little, but it strikes me that this is a hideously ugly bauble.