For the first time since Fifa introduced world rankings in 1994, the top four teams have reached the World Cup semi-finals – a result that Fifa deliberately engineered by changing the draw process for the expanded 48-team tournament.
Spain (1), Argentina (2), France (3) and England (4) each won their groups and were placed in separate quadrants of the draw, ensuring they could not meet before the semi-finals. The move, which Fifa said ensured "competitive balance" by establishing "two separate pathways to the semi-finals", has set up two blockbuster ties: France v Spain on Tuesday, and England v Argentina on Wednesday.
“For first time since Fifa rankings began, top four teams (Spain, Argentina, France, England) reach World Cup semi-finals after deliberate draw change.”
Fifa officials changed the draw process with complete transparency, citing the need to prevent early knockout meetings between top-ranked teams – a risk that grew with the 48-team format, which added an extra knockout round. In this summer's last 16, three games pitted group winners against each other: the United States against Belgium, England against Mexico, and Switzerland against Colombia. Fifa felt it had to make a tweak because the expanded format made early meetings between group winners not only possible but almost certain, and the governing body wanted to guarantee that a top-four team would not be lost in such a glamour match.
The same ranking system was used for the Club World Cup last year, though only one of the four top seeds, Real Madrid, made it to the semi-finals. This time, it has worked out as Fifa intended.
The top four's clean sweep is unprecedented. In previous World Cups, top-four ranked teams have often fallen early: Belgium (2022), Germany (2018), Spain (2014), Italy (2010) and France (2002) were all among the top four and failed to get out of their groups. You must go back to 2010 to find two of the world's top four meeting before the semi-finals, when the Netherlands beat Brazil 2–1 in the quarter-finals. A similar seeding system is used at Wimbledon and in the new Champions League format, where seeds are kept apart in pairs.