Sepp Blatter and Vlad Putin press flesh. FIFA held is preliminary draw yesterday at St Petersburg for the 2018 World Cup and the USA received some good news. They are in Group C with Trinidad and Tobago. Both sides will be joined by the winners of the Aruba vs St Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda vs Guatemala matches. On paper, the USA should be competing with the Soca Warriors for the top spot.

In comparison, Mexico in Group A face Honduras and possibly El Salvador and Canada if those teams win against Curacao and Belize respectively in their qualifiers. Group B is the group of death as Costa Rica and Panama could tangle with Jamaica and Haiti as potential opposition if they get by Grenada and Nicaragua.

The group winners and the three runners up then go to round 5 in a round robin format to decide three CONCACAF spots with the best fourth placed team advancing to the intercontinental playoffs.

In the European zone: England in Group F face fairly straightforward opposition. They drew Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, and Malta. The Three Lions are pretty good odds on taking the top spot. Scotland vs England should be interesting with the underlying trope of nascent nationalism spicing up the match.

Wales in Group D have Austria, Serbia, Republic of Ireland, Georgia, and Moldova. Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and company will be battling Austria and ROI for second spot. Northern Ireland in Group C have an uphill climb with World Cup winners Germany followed by Norway and the Czech Republic as the next best headliners. San Marino and Azerbaijan will be sides to beat up on.

13 spots are at stake from the European zone.

For a closer look at the rest of the draw, here it is >>