The top-seeded teams for the Dec. 5 World Cup tournament draw were set Wednesday when FIFA published new rankings the day after the direct qualifying rounds for next summer’s marquee tournament concluded.<\/p>\n
Co-hosts the United States, Canada and Mexico will be joined in the pot of No. 1 seeds by top-ranked Spain, defending champion Argentina, France, England, Portugal, Brazil, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.<\/p>\n
Croatia, a semifinalist in 2022 and beaten finalist by France in 2018, was brought down into pot 2 for the draw ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. President Donald Trump is scheduled to attend.<\/p>\n
The updated FIFA rankings also decided seeding for the draw Thursday for playoff brackets in March that will decide the final six entries in the expanded 48-nation lineup.<\/p>\n
The 22 playoffs teams include 16 in Europe playing for four World Cup places and six from the other regions chasing two spots in the intercontinental brackets.<\/p>\n
Italy is the headliner in the European brackets as the four-time world champion aims to avoid a humiliating third straight exit in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The 12th-ranked Italians were pushed into the playoffs after finishing runner-up in a qualifying group won by Norway. Erling Haaland’s Norwegian team shapes as a dangerous option from pot 3 in two weeks’ time.<\/p>\n
Italy will be drawn Thursday at home against a fourth-seeded team. It could again be North Macedonia, which shockingly eliminated the Italians in 2022.<\/p>\n
The winner on March 26 advances to a playoff final five days later against the team that emerges from the No. 2 seed vs. No. 3 seed pairing in its knockout bracket. Home advantage in the single-game playoff finals will be decided by the draw Thursday and not FIFA ranking.<\/p>\n
The teams that eventually emerge from the four separate European playoff brackets are expected to be placeholders from low-ranked pot 4 in the Dec. 5 draw.<\/p>\n
The intercontinental brackets will see top-seeded Iraq and Congo each await the winner of playoff semifinals that involve Bolivia, Jamaica, New Caledonia and Suriname.<\/p>\n
European playoffs seeding:<\/strong><\/p>\n Pot 1: Italy, Denmark, Turkey, Ukraine.<\/p>\n Pot 2: Poland, Wales, Czech Republic, Slovakia.<\/p>\n Pot 3: Ireland, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo.<\/p>\n Pot 4: Northern Ireland, Romania, Sweden, North Macedonia.<\/p>\n Intercontinental playoffs:<\/strong><\/p>\n Seeded: Congo, Iraq.<\/p>\n Unseeded: Bolivia, Jamaica, New Caledonia, Suriname.<\/p>\n Reporting by The Associated Press.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Want great stories delivered right to your inbox?\u00a0<\/i>Create or log in to your FOX Sports account<\/u><\/i> and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily!<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY The top-seeded teams for the Dec. 5 World Cup tournament draw were set Wednesday when FIFA published new rankings the day after the direct qualifying rounds for next summer’s marquee tournament concluded. Co-hosts the United States, Canada and Mexico will be joined in the pot of No. 1 seeds by top-ranked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}