England will avoid playing France until the final if both teams win their groups at the 2026 World Cup and will not encounter Spain or Argentina until the semi-finals under a new seeding system.
It has been announced that Fifa will use tennis-style seeding in next week’s World Cup draw in Washington DC to keep the four highest-ranked countries apart until the finale of the tournament.
Spain, the top-ranked team, will be on the other half of the draw to Argentina, who are ranked No2 in the world. England, who are No4 in Fifa’s rankings, will be on the opposite side to France, who are ranked third. England were knocked out by France in the quarter-finals of the 2022 World Cup.
It means that if all the four strongest teams win their groups they cannot meet until the semi-finals.
Fifa experimented with a tennis-style draw for the Club World Cup earlier this year and have now introduced it to the World Cup for the first time. The idea is to give a greater chance for the most in-form teams to meet in the latter stages of the competition.
In tennis, seedings are used to keep the best players in the world rankings at opposite sides of the draw. This year on the ATP Tour that has resulted in several blockbuster finals between the top two in the world, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
For the World Cup there can be a maximum of two European teams in any group of four, but a maximum of one from other confederations. It means that England could play Scotland in their group, but not any of the other teams in pot 1 of seeds, such as Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, Portugal or Belgium.
England also cannot be in a group with the three host nations: USA, Mexico and Canada.
One team from pot 4 who could pose a threat are Italy, should they win their play-off against either Wales, Northern Ireland or Bosnia & Herzegovina.
The draw on December 5 will allocate teams to groups. There is no guarantee, of course, that the highest-ranked teams will win their group — at the 2022 World Cup, Spain were beaten into second place by Japan, who had been in the third pot of seeds.
Fifa confirmed that kick-off times and venues would be announced on December 6, the day after the draw, and that local conditions and the time zones of the countries playing would be taken into account. It means that the 48 participating nations will know their group opponents on December 5, but each match could be at one of two venues and varying kick-off times.
England’s head coach, Thomas Tuchel, and the FA would prefer to play any afternoon matches at stadiums that are covered to reduce the impact of the heat and humidity, but if those venues are not possible then to play matches in the evening.
John Stones is surrounded by Spanish players during the Euro 2024 final, which England lost 2-1. They could not mean Spain before the semi-finals if they win their group at the World Cup
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER BRADLEY ORMESHER
A Fifa statement said: “While the final draw will determine which teams play each other in the group stage, the updated match schedule, including the stadium assigned to each match and the respective kick-off time, will be confirmed on Saturday, 6 December.
“The match allocation process that follows the draw aims to ensure the best possible conditions for all teams while, where possible, enabling fans all over the world to watch their teams play live across different time zones.
“To ensure competitive balance, two separate pathways to the semi-finals have been established when developing the match schedule. In order to have a balanced distribution of the teams, the four highest-ranked teams … will have the following constraints: the highest-ranked team [Spain] and the second highest-ranked team [Argentina] will be randomly drawn into opposite pathways, and the same principle will apply to the third [France] and fourth [England] highest-ranked teams.
2026 Fifa World Cup draw
Friday, December 5, from 5pm
Kennedy Centre, Washington DC
TV BBC Two