Why and how did FIFA change World Cup seeding laws? And how has it influenced 2026 semi-finalists? What does it mean for England?

You’d think this would be a regular occurrence given the World Cup is the greatest showcase of the world’s biggest sport, that the best national teams and players spend years preparing for.

Yet it’s the first time this has ever happened since the FIFA world rankings were introduced in 1994.

Recently Belgium, Germany and Spain have been the weak links while before that, the underdog runs of Uruguay, South Korea, Croatia, Sweden and Bulgaria to the final four - combined with Brazilian under-performance since 2002 - has kept the streak alive until now.

But why is this the case? Are the top teams breaking away from the rest of the world? Well, it’s actually nothing to do with the players or tactics on the field.

England were one of the beneficiaries last November, when FIFA announced that the top four teams in the world could be guaranteed to be kept apart until the semi-finals at the 2026 World Cup, as long as they won their groups.

”To ensure competitive balance, two separate pathways to the semi-finals have been established when developing the match schedule,” FIFA’s statement said.

”In order to have a balanced distribution of the teams, the four highest-ranked teams in the FIFA/Coca-Cola Men’s World Ranking, when drawn, will have the following constraints: the highest-ranked team (Spain) and the second highest-ranked team (Argentina) will be randomly drawn into opposite pathways, and the same principle will apply to the third (France) and fourth (England) highest-ranked teams.

”This will ensure that, should they win their groups, the two highest-ranked teams will not meet before the final.”

In the random 50-50 draw England ended up in the same pathway as lower-ranked Argentina, and as a result they will meet Lionel Messi and co in Atlanta on Wednesday.

FIFA say it is to ensure competitive balance.

The expanded World Cup meant that it would be possible for two top-ranked group winners to meet in the round of 16, and therefore risk the tournament burning one of its premium games too early.

In 2018, second and third-ranked Brazil and Belgium met in the quarter-finals and the European team advanced 2-1 before falling to France in the final four, but now the equivalent match-up (Argentina versus France) could have taken place in the last 16 even if both sides topped their groups.

For example, if this change was not introduced and Argentina were assigned to Group E instead of Germany, then that would have set Argentina and France on course for a last-16 meeting, meaning one of the 2022 World Cup finalists would be set to go home before the quarter-finals.

So in a bid to save the biggest match-ups for later in the tournament, FIFA ensured these sides will be kept apart until the last opportunity.

Often the reason a top-four team in the world has missed out on the semi-finals has been through their own sub-par performance rather than their own misfortune at the draw - think reigning champions Germany, Spain and Italy getting grouped at successive tournaments or Croatia stunning Brazil four years ago.

However, there have also been examples of the favourites prematurely knocking one another out - in 2018, and in 2010 when the Netherlands edged out Brazil.

This set-up prevented that from happening but England, France, Spain and Argentina each needed to fulfil their sides of the bargain.

And they have, potentially setting us up for one of the most exciting finales in World Cup history.

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