2018 FIFA World Cup seeding

The draw for the 2018 FIFA World Cup took place on 1 December 2017 at the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia ^[1] to determine the groups in which the 32 qualified national teams will play in at the start of the tournament. The teams were put into four pots of eight, with one team selected from each pot to form a group. The draw sequence started with pot 1 and ended with pot 4.^[2]

Seeding

All teams were seeded using the October 2017 FIFA World Rankings,^[3] which numbers in brackets show, released on 16 October 2017.^[4]

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
Russia (hosts) (65)	Spain (8)	Denmark (19)	Serbia (38)
Germany (1)	Peru (10)	Iceland (21)	Nigeria (41)
Brazil (2)	Switzerland (11)	Costa Rica (22)	Australia (43)
Portugal (3)	England (12)	Sweden (25)	Japan (44)
Argentina (4)	Colombia (13)	Tunisia (28)	Morocco (48)
Belgium (5)	Mexico (16)	Egypt (30)	Panama (49)
Poland (6)	Uruguay (17)	Senegal (32)	South Korea (62)
France (7)	Croatia (18)	Iran (34)	Saudi Arabia (63)

AFC   CAF

CONCACAF   CONMEBOL

UEFA

Final draw

	1	2	3	4	Total Points
Group A	Russia	Saudi Arabia	Egypt	Uruguay	2,991
Group B	Portugal	Spain	Morocco	Iran	4,128
Group C	France	Australia	Peru	Denmark	4,101
Group D	Argentina	Iceland	Croatia	Nigeria	4,099
Group E	Brazil	Switzerland	Costa Rica	Serbia	4,415
Group F	Germany	Mexico	Sweden	South Korea	4,151
Group G	Belgium	Panama	Tunisia	England	3,953
Group H	Poland	Senegal	Colombia	Japan	3,944

According to the FIFA rankings,^[4] the strongest group is E (combining for 4415 points), followed by F (4151), B (4128), C (4101), D (4099), G (3953), H (3944) and the weakest by far is the host nation's group A (2991).