FIFA held the 2018 World Cup Draw today in Moscow, setting the stage for the upcoming tournament that is scheduled to kick off in Russia on June 14th. As always, the 32 qualifying teams were split into eight groups.
The 32 teams were allocated in four different pots based on their October FIFA ranking, and then drawn into the eight groups, A through H, of four teams each. For instance, Pot 1 featured the highest-ranked teams and included countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Portugal and France. Pot 2 included second-tier teams, and so on.
The World Cup hosts, Russia, were automatically the top seed in Group A despite being the lowest-ranked team.
The results of today's World Cup Draw are as follows:
Group A: Russia, Uruguay, Egypt, Saudi Arabia
Group B: Portugal, Spain, Iran, Morocco
Group C: France, Peru, Denmark, Australia
Group D: Argentina, Croatia, Iceland, Nigeria
Group E: Brazil, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Serbia
Group F: Germany, Mexico, Sweden, South Korea
Group G: Belgium, England, Tunisia, Panama
Group H: Poland, Colombia, Senegal, Japan
After playing each team in their group, the top two teams will advance to the 16-team knockout stage. The winner of Group A will play the runner-up of Group B, and vice versa, continuing through the groups (C vs D, E vs F, G vs H).
The opening match of the 2018 World Cup will be held at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow is on June 14th, with the final held at the same stadium on July 15th.
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