Opponents of Azerbaijani national team in 2018 World Cup qualifying round determined

Baku. 25 July. REPORT.AZ/ World Cup 2018 Preliminary Draw will be held today in St. Petersburg. Report informs Vladimir Putin and Sepp Blatter will also attend the draw ceremony that will be held at 20:00 on Baku time.

They will open the event with a welcome speech.Draw will be conducted by Jerome Valcke, theFIFA general secretary.Football. stars Ronaldo, Fabio Cannavaro, Samuel Eto'o, Rinat Dasayev, Alexei Smertin and Alexander Kerjakov will help him. 95 million people from 170 countries are expected to follow the drawing.

The draw will determine the composition of the groups in the European zone, Asia, Oceania and CONCACAF (North, Central American and Caribbean countries) zones couple of teams will be divided into groups, as well as the South American qualifying tournament schedule will be announced. Russian national team as organizer, will not take part in qualifying round. But neighbors in northern Europe, will hold friendly matches one of the groups in the 5-team division. In general, the "old continent" teams will be divided into 6 baskets. Azerbaijani team will be in 5th place.

1st basket: Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, England, Wales, Spain, Croatia

2nd basket: Slovakia, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, France, Iceland, Denmark, Bosnia and Herzegovina

3rd basket: Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Sweden, Albania, Northern Ireland, Serbia, Greece

4th basket: Turkey, Slovenia, Israel, Ireland, Norway, Bulgaria, Faroe Islands, Montenegro, Estonia

5th basket: Cyprus, Latvia, Armenia, Finland, Belarus, Macedonia, AZERBAIJAN, Lithuania, Moldova

6th basket, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Georgia, Malta, San Marino, Andorra.

7 groups of 6 teams in the draw, and 2 groups of 5 teams will be formed. Competitors at home and away will hold 2 games from September 4, 2016 until October 10, 2017. 9 group winners will qualify directly to the 2018 World Cup. 8 best teams that win the second place will perform in "play-off" matches in November 2017.