Brazil the team to avoid in World Cup draw

Brazilian football fans celebrate during a street party on the sidelines of the FIFA World Cup 2006 Final Draw, in Leipzig. The eyes of the football world will be fixed on this eastern German city when the draw for next year's World Cup finals in Germany is made in a glittering ceremony with five-time champions Brazil the team everyone will want to avoid

The eyes of the football world will be fixed on this eastern German city when the draw for next year's World Cup finals in Germany is made in a glittering ceremony.

Five-time champions Brazil are the team everyone will want to avoid while host nation Germany and England are also guaranteed top seedings when stars including Pele and Johan Cruyff help make the draw at 9.20 pm (2020 GMT).

Two-time World Cup runners-up the Netherlands as well as losing Euro 2004 finalists Portugal are both unseeded and so lie in wait for the top eight seeds when the 32 nations are divided into eight groups of four.

West Germany's 1974 World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer, who heads the organising committee for the tournament, said no one would envy playing Brazil and their galaxy of stars led by European Player of the Year Ronaldinho.

"Brazil are the favourites for me. I watched them at the Confederations Cup and they were brilliant," Beckenbauer said, referring to the World Cup warm-up tournament won by the South Americans in June.

"If they peform like that at the World Cup they are going to be very hard to stop."

South Korea, the surprise package of the 2002 World Cup where they reached the semi-finals under the guidance of Dutchman Guus Hiddink, could find themselves drawn against Australia, who are now coached by Hiddink.

World Cup debutants Angola, Togo, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, will meanwhile learn which superstars of world football they will have to face when the finals kick off next June.

Italy, Argentina, France, Mexico and Spain are the other top seeds and are therefore guaranteed to avoid each other in the first round of matches.

England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson said his side -- tipped as the strongest English squad since the 1966 World Cup-winning team -- deserved their top seeding.

"We are one of the teams that have the potential to do very well in Germany and we have some of the best players in the world," Eriksson said.

Pele, the Brazilian widely regarded as the world's greatest ever player, said he believed the tournament would produce a "dream final" between Germany and Brazil, a repeat of 2002 when Brazil won 2-0.

"They are both strong teams and there is a strong possibility of that happening," he said.

"If I had to decide today, Brazil would be world champions. They are the big favourites but often in World Cups the favourites don't win."

West Germany's 1990 World Cup winning captain Lothar Matthaus and Cameroon's star from 1990, Roger Milla, will also play a key role in the draw.

However world football governing body FIFA said Argentina's controversial 1986 World Cup hero Diego Maradona had declined an invitation to take part.

The organisers say they expect the draw, which will be hosted by German supermodel Heidi Klum, to attract a TV audience of 320 million and be broadcast to 145 countries.