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. It determined the group in which each of the 32 qualified national teams will play in at the start of the tournament. The teams were divided into four pots of eight, with one team selected from each pot to form a group.
Unlike previous editions of the World Cup, all pots were determined by each national team's October 2017 FIFA World Ranking, with Pot 1 containing the highest-ranked teams, Pot 2 containing the next highest-ranked teams, and so on until Pot 4, containing the lowest ranked teams; in previous editions only one pot containing the highest-ranked teams was determined by rank, with the other three pots determined by continental confederation. The hosts continued to be placed in Pot 1 and treated as a seeded team, and therefore Pot 1 consisted of hosts Russia and the seven highest-ranked teams that qualify for the tournament.
The draw sequence started with pot 1 and ended with pot 4.
As with previous editions, no group had more than one team from any continental confederation with the exception of UEFA, which had at least one, but no more than two in a group.

Seeding

All teams were seeded using the October 2017 FIFA World Rankings, which numbers in parenthesis show, released on 16 October 2017.
Pot 1Pot 2Pot 3Pot 4

Final draw

1234Total Points
Group A2,991
Group B4,128
Group C4,101
Group D4,099
Group E4,415
Group F4,151
Group G3,953
Group H3,944

According to the FIFA rankings, the strongest group was E, followed by F, B, C, D, G, H and the weakest was the host nation's group A.