The draw has been made for the group stages of the ConIFA 2020 World Cup finals.
And some groups look significantly stronger than others. Here is the full draw:
Group A has Parishes of Jersey, Panjab, Kurdistan and the Chagos Islands.
Group B has Kárpátalja, Western Armenia, Tamil Eelam and Kabylia
Group C has Mapuche, Matabeleland, Cornwall (Kernow) and Mariya
Group D has South Ossetia, United Koreans in Japan, Cascadia and Darfur
Some of these sides are known to Cascadia. They played the Panjab to a 3-3 draw in the ConIFA World Cup in 2018. They also met the Chagos Islands in a friendly in Whyteleafe last year, winning 6-3.
In a tough looking Group B are Kárpátalja who knocked the Cascadians out of the 2018 World Cup. They also played Western Armenia in the Placement Rounds, winning 4-1.
Also in that group are Tamil Eelam, who Cascadia famously flattened 6-0 in a game where they needed to win by six to progress to the next stage. All four sides in that group have ConIFA World Cup experience.
Quite conversely, Group C is full of unknowns. Matabeleland played in the 2018 Cup in London. Mariya is the Australian First Nations side and like Andean side Mapuche, little is known about them. Kernow (Cornwall) are the fourth team in what appears to be the weakest group.
Cascadia are in Group D where they meet the strong European champions South Ossetia, and the United Koreans of Japan. They also meet Darfur who they beat 8-1 in a friendly last year.
Because of irregular fixtures, it is truly hard to gauge who are the favourites but South Ossetia, as European Champions, must be up there as will current World champions Kárpátalja, an ethnic Hungarian region of Ukraine, known once as Carpathia in English.
South Ossetia is a breakaway section of northern Georgia in the former USSR. The breakaway state is considered by the world community to be part of Georgia but is in fact, rather like the Crimea, under Russian occupation.
Mapuche is a side representing the native and original inhabitants of parts of Chile and Argentina including Patagonia.
