Only 32 teams can compete for the World Cup from South Africa in 2010 and we already know that one of those teams will be South Africa, as the host nation doesn't need to qualify.

The journey for every other footballing nation began on November 25th 2007 when the preliminary draw for the 2010 World Cup took place in Durban, South Africa.

The purpose of the draw was to fairly split the countries from the four regions, Asia, Africa, Europe and North, Central America and Caribbean, into competing qualifying groups for the 2010 World Cup.

South America and Oceania do things a little differently and we'll explain that in more detail on their pages.

It's also worth nothing that not all groups do things the same way. For example, what happens in Europe, while achieving the same end result as every other qualifying group, isn't the way it's done in North, Central America and Caribbean. The format is slightly different and you will be forgiven for not grasping it straight away.

You can select a World Cup 2010 qualifying group by clicking on the link above or below and see where your country got placed. As and when the match schedules get published we will, if we are allowed, list the matches here also.

Otherwise, there really is only one place to go if you want all the official news; www.fifa.com.

• Africa
• Europe
• Asia
• South America
• North, Central America and Caribbean
• Oceania