New tennis-style seeding to keep top-ranked World Cup teams apart

GENEVA (AP):

THE 2026 World Cup draw next week will reward the four highest-ranked teams – Spain, Argentina, France, and England – who will be placed in separate sections of a new tennis-style seeded tournament bracket.

FIFA said yesterday the top four teams in the latest men’s rankings will, if they finish top of their respective round-robin groups, avoid each other until the semifinals of the June 11-July 19 tournament being co-hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Defending champions Argentina with Lionel Messi and top-ranked European champions Spain with Lamine Yamal therefore can ensure they do not meet until the final at MetLife Stadium near New York.

“To ensure competitive balance, two separate pathways to the semifinals have been established,” FIFA said in a statement, aiming to reward teams whose consistent good results have raised their world ranking.

At previous World Cups, the path for teams into and through the knockout phase was decided by which group they were drawn into.

The draw ceremony for the first 48-team World Cup will be held on December 5 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, in the presence of US President Donald Trump.

The 42 teams that already qualified include Iran and Haiti who FIFA expects will play exactly where they are drawn regardless of complicated politics those countries have with the US. The 16 host venues for the 104 games include 11 cities with NFL stadiums in the US, three in Mexico, and two in Canada.

The other six entries will be decided in March when European and global playoffs brackets are scheduled, and those teams all will come out of the draw pot of lowest-ranked teams.

That means four-time champions Italy could be a dangerous option in the draw on Friday of next week that will set the match schedule by placing teams in 12 round-robin groups of four teams each.

Europe has 16 teams in the lineup and a maximum of two can be drawn into any one group. The other 32 teams in the tournament cannot be drawn in a group with a team from the same continent.

The three co-hosts are among the 12 top seeds in the draw, which is scheduled to take about 45 minutes during a show lasting about an hour and a half, FIFA said.