World Cup 2018: I've simulated the draw 100 times to see who England might get

Ok, I got a bit too excited about people pulling balls out of a bucket.

On Friday afternoon, the draw for the 2018 Fifa World Cup in Russia will take place at a glitzy ceremony in Moscow. It's all very exciting.

Unfortunately, there won't be interest from across the home nations, but England will be one of the 32 nations finding out who they'll play in the group stages of next year's big football party.

For someone whose earliest football memories stem from Italia '90, and have fuelled nearly three decades of football obsession, the draw for football's biggest international prize is always something to savour.

The process of old players reading from slips of paper prised from Kinder Egg-style balls held in a large plastic fruit bowl should not be that much fun, but in my mind these small acts conjure all sorts of wonderful memories. The greatest foul committed on a football pitch, "It's still Michael Owen", Graham Poll booking the same player three times, and sweet baby James.

So much so, that when I stumbled across a simulator for the 2018 draw, external I got a bit too into it.

Who would England get? Who would be in the 'Group of Death'? Which Central American minnow will England be struggling to get the ball off next June? All questions that needed answering, but simulating the draw just once felt a bit inconsequential.

So I picked an arbitrary sample size, made the draw 100 times and this is what I found...

32 teams go into eight four-team groups (A-H). The teams are split into four pots depending on how they were ranked by Fifa in October. Hang on, Spain are in Pot 2?? Go home Fifa.

Russia, as hosts, are in Pot 1 and automatically go into Group A, and no group can have more than one team from any continental confederation, except Uefa, which must have at least one, but no more than two in a group. Got it? Phew.

Ok, so I could give you the line-by-line, group-by-group results of the 100 draws but nobody has time for that, so these are just the headlines.

After making 100 draws using the simulator, these were the Three Lions' three most-commonly drawn opponents for Russia 2018: 

Brazil, Costa Rica (again) and Saudi Arabia. You'd think Gareth Southgate would be pretty happy with this outcome, but how did we get here? 

Brazil were the most-commonly drawn top seed, paired with England 17 times, ahead of Argentina (15) Germany (14) and Poland (14). The least magnetic Pot 1 opponents were Portugal (8) and hosts Russia (9).

Being in Pot 2 there's no chance of En-ger-land drawing the mighty Spain, Uruguay - who dumped us out last time around, Colombia, Switzerland, Croatia, Peru or Mexico. So that's a relief.

With six of the eight top seeds being Uefa nations (Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal and Russia), in my little experiment at least, England drew a European top-seeded team 68% of the time.

That means their chances of getting a European team from Pot 3 (Denmark, Sweden or Iceland) or Pot 4 (Serbia) take a hit.

In our 100 draws, England were joined by one of Denmark (3), Sweden (7) or Iceland (11) just 21 times. Far more regular opponents were Egypt (16) and the positively magnetic Costa Rica (26).

Costa Rica, that'd be OK, right? Well, maybe.

Costa Rica are familiar foes for England. The two played out a goalless bore draw in a dead-rubber group game at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. England were already out and Costa Rica already through. You'd probably expunged that game from your memory though, and no-one could blame you.

With four of the eight Pot 4 teams coming from Asia, England's chances of picking up an AFC team take a massive bump, with Iran the only Asian team outside Pot 4 and the African and Central American teams more evenly spread around the pots.

In fact, England drew an Asian opponent from pot 4 62% of the time, and the super-hot chemistry was with Saudi Arabia, who were drawn with England 21 times. Worryingly, next in line were England's sporting nemesis Australia (17).

So there it is, after 100 simulations, the most common outcome is, in many ways, the perfect group for England fans at a World Cup. One massive group stage game against Brazil to get the juices flowing and two winnable games against Costa Rica and Saudi Arabia. Surely a place in the knockout stages beckons. Surely....

This all sounds a bit too positive so far. Could England end up in a 'Group of Death'? 

The way this World Cup draw is set up, it's pretty hard to get one, and judging how tough a group is pretty subjective.

I decided to add together the November 2017's official Fifa rankings, external (not the most reliable of indicators of how good a team is, I'll admit) of the three opponents in England's group. It's crude, but the lower the score, the tougher the group.

For example, if Harry Kane and Co drew Germany (ranked 1st), Tunisia (27nd) & Japan (55th), I would give that group a score of 83.

Only four times out of 100 did England end up in groups with a score less than 60. They drew Argentina (4th), Denmark (12th) and Australia (39th) once, scoring 55. Three times they drew Brazil (2nd), Sweden (18th) and Australia, scoring 59.

Fans of football and Love Island alike should be warned that 'on paper' this is England's worst-case scenario:

That said, in 100 attempts, this 'Group of Death' - scoring 53 - never came to pass. Watch it pop up on Friday!

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Unless England draw Brazil, Costa Rica and Saudi Arabia on Friday, in which case, shower me in adulation. If England get the 'Group of Death', we'll forget this happened. Thanks.

You can watch the 2018 World Cup Draw live on Friday, 1 December at 15:00 GMT on BBC Two, the BBC Sport website and app.