South Africa has been handed a fair draw in the Brazil 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers. Bafana Bafana will face neighbours Botswana, Central African Republic and one between Somali and Ethiopia. The draw was conducted at the Marina da Glória in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Saturday, 30 July 2011.

It was the first major World Cup event in Brazil since the South American nation was awarded the right to host the competition for the first time in 64 years.

The draw to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil began with Africa as the first continent to be assigned its matches. The picturesque island of Seychelles was the first name pulled out of the hat first as the draw for the first round kicked off. The 12 winners of the 1st round head into the 10 Groups, of which Group C already looks like the proverbial 'Group of Death' with Ivory Coast and Morocco paired together, along with Gambia and the winner of the Chad vs Tanzania round 1 contest. Group H can also lay claim to being a tough group as Algeria and Mali are the big guns along side Benin.

Heavyweights Ghana have been drawn in Group D along with Zambia and Sudan while Egypt have a fairly straightforward group involving Guinea and Zimbabwe. 2010 FIFA World Cup hosts South Africa are in Group A with Bostwana and the Central African Republic while Cameroon are in drawn in the group along with Libya, Guinea-Bissau/ Togo, Swaziland/Congo DR

The always engrossing Asian region was the 2nd continent to be drawn in the 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualifying Draw following Africa. The resulting draw sees some of the biggest names pitted against each other, especially in Group E, where three of the Middle-East's biggest teams, Iran, Qatar and Bahrain, will fight it out along with Indonesia for the two spots into the next round. Australia have a fairly easy group involving Saudi Arabia, Oman and Thailand, with the games between the Aussies and Saudi Arabian's more or less set to decide the top two positions. Japan have a lot of travelling to do as they face Uzbekistan and Syria in Group C, with the presence of North Korea making things all the more interesting.

South Korea have a strong record in recent years and they are unlikely to face too many issues navigatibg past UAE, Lebanon and Kuwait. Group A is wide open as China, Iraq, Singapore and Jordan fght for the two places. On top of the big matches to look forward to has to be the clash between Japan and North Korea, especially with so much sporting and political tension.

The US Soccer Federation has decided to part ways with head coach Bob Bradley after a five year tenure. Jurgen Klinsmann has been handed the responsibility of preparing the US national team for the coming tournaments, in particular the 2014 FIFA World Cup and its preceding qualifiers.

The current US squad has a balanced mix of both youth and experience. Bob Bradley had done a commendable job in bringing together a talented pool of players, but he has not fully been able to transform this mix into a cohesive footballing unit. USA's football team has had a cyclic performance, as far as World Cups are concerned, since 1990. They have reached the knockout rounds in1994, 2002 and 2010 but have failed to qualify from the group stages in the World Cups in between – 1990,1998 and 2006. This peculiar pattern, if it continues, predicts a dismal World Cup under the new coach. But fortunately, Klinsmann has the credentials to face and end this cycle.

With the memories of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa still fresh in one's mind, preparations for the next edition of football's biggest competition has already begun, with the preliminary draw for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil to be held on Saturday. The draw will determine the qualifying campaigns for each of the countries still vying to make the final cut for the competition.

Qualifying campaigns will be held seperately in FIFA's six confederations, with football's governing body deciding how many teams from each confederation will make the final 32. Here is a breakdown of the qualifying campaigns for each of the six zones:

Argentina's Lionel Messi collected the FIFA Ballon d'Or, his second consecutive title, while Brazil's Marta continued her winning streak by claiming her fifth FIFA Women's World Player of the Year award at the FIFA Ballon d'Or Gala held at the Zurich Kongresshaus on Monday evening. Meanwhile, José Mourinho, the Portuguese coach of Real Madrid, and Germany's women's national team coach Silvia Neid were the inaugural winners of the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men's Football and FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women's Football awards, respectively.

These awards were decided after a poll in which the captains and head coaches of the men's (for the two men's football awards) and women's (for the two women's football awards) national teams as well as international media representatives selected by France Football voted for candidates in each of the four categories. The votes from each of the three groups counted for one-third of the final result.