With this week’s release of FIFA World Rankings for October, the final set of rankings which will be used to place the 32 qualified teams in pots for the 2018 World Cup draw in Moscow on December 1, has emerged.
How the tournament will look in Russia next summer is starting to take shape, although nine places are still up for grabs during the next round of play-offs in the first weekend of November.
With Pot 1 fully confirmed, Pot 2 is also looking incredibly strong with five of the eight teams confirmed and 2010 champion, Spain, has been placed in the second spot.
“Group of Death” scenarios could emerge, especially as teams from the
same confederation cannot be drawn together, except if they are from UEFA (where two European teams can be drawn in the same groups for the World Cup) due to the fact that UEFA has all of 13 spots.
Below is a look at how the four pots may well end up if the assumption that the highest-ranked teams in the nine undecided groups will all qualify for the World Cup during the next round of playoffs.
Pot 1:
Russia, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium, Poland, France
Pot 2:
Spain, Peru*, Switzerland*, England, Colombia, Italy*, Mexico, Uruguay
Pot 3:
Croatia*, Denmark*, Iceland, Costa Rica, Tunisia*, Egypt, Senegal*, Iran
Pot 4:
DR Congo*, Serbia, Nigeria, Australia*, Japan, Panama, South Korea, Saudi Arabia
*Denotes teams that are yet to qualify
Going by new FIFA procedure, all four pots are determined purely based on its rankings before the World Cup Draws. What that means is that aside from host Russia, which is ranked 65th in the world, the remaining 32 teams are distributed in order of their October ranking. Russia goes into the top pot, followed by the top seven-ranked teams, and the remaining 24 teams are spread into the three subsequent pots in order.
With only 23 of the 32 spots in Russia clinched (four European places, three African ones and two intercontinental playoffs will determine the remaining nine), it is tough to completely come up with scenarios for groups at the 2018 World Cup.
