After rumors that the FIFA World Ranking wouldn't be heavily weighted for the 2010 World Cup Draw, FIFA's Organizing Committee ended up using the October ranking to determine the seeded teams. With South Africa already holding a seed as the host, the top seven teams in the October '09 ranking took the remaining slots. Brazil, Spain, Holland, Italy, Germany, Argentina, and England are the other seeded teams.
The United States along with the rest of CONCACAF, Oceania and the Asian Confederation are in Pot 2.
Pot 3 is CAF and CONMEBOL
Pot 4 is UEFA.
Except for UEFA teams, no other confederation can have two teams in the same group. No African team from Pot 3 can be drawn into South Africa's group. No CONMEBOL team from pot Pot 3 can be drawn into Argentina or Brazil's group.
Pot 1: South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, the Holland, Spain
Pot 2: Australia, Honduras, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic, Mexico, New Zealand, USA
Pot 3: Algeria, Cameroon, Chile, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Paraguay, Uruguay
Pot 4: Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland