section_path: Draw
section_name: Draw
paragraph_text: Draw
  
  The draw was held on December 5, 2024, 1:00 p.m. EST, at the headquarters of television broadcaster Telemundo in the Miami suburb of Doral, Florida. The ceremony was led by Alessandro Del Piero at the Telemundo headquarters and included a video message from U.S. then-president-elect Donald Trump. FIFA announced the draw procedure and seeding pots two days prior to the draw, taking into consideration sporting and geographical factors as far as possible.
  
  FIFA compiled the draw pots as follows, with teams ranked within each confederation based on FIFA's club ranking system:
  
  In the draw, teams from the same confederation could not be drawn into the same group except for UEFA teams, for which there was at least one and no more than two per group. Additionally, no two UEFA teams from the same national association could be drawn into the same group.
  
  To maintain competitive balance, two separate pathways of four groups were established for the knockout stage. They were composed as follows:
  
  Given these pathways, UEFA and CONMEBOL teams faced the following constraints in the draw:
  
  As teams from the host country and for scheduling purposes, Inter Miami CF and Seattle Sounders FC were drawn into position 4 of Groups A and B, respectively. Consequently, teams drawn into Groups A and B were allocated to the position corresponding to their draw pot.
  
  The draw started with Pot 1 and ended with Pot 4, with each team selected then allocated into the first available group alphabetically, based on the draw constraints. For Groups C to H, the position for the team within the group was then drawn (for the purpose of the match schedule), with the Pot 1 teams automatically drawn into position 1 of each group.
  
  The draw pots were as follows: