October 17 – Switzerland’s meteoric rise in football’s world rankings has been rewarded with the central European country being seeded for next year’s World Cup finals.
Hosts Brazil, defending champions Spain, Argentina, Germany, Belgium, Colombia and almost certainly Uruguay – provided they beat Jordan in a playoff – will make up the other seeds.
Despite their phenomenal qualifying campaign, the Netherlands will not be seeded, unless Jordan upset Uruguay. Nor, surprisingly, will 2006 world champions Italy. England have climbed from 17th to 10th but that wasn’t enough to place them in the top pot for the draw in early December.
For the upcoming World Cup playoffs in Europe, Portugal, Greece, Croatia and Ukraine will be seeded in next Monday’s draw – with Sweden, France, Romania and Iceland standing by to see who they will play.
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