{"id":82684,"date":"2025-11-19T19:07:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T23:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/world-cup-2026-draw-seeded-teams-defined-italy-to-play-offs\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T19:07:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T23:07:49","slug":"world-cup-2026-draw-seeded-teams-defined-italy-to-play-offs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/soccer\/world-cup-2026-draw-seeded-teams-defined-italy-to-play-offs\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026 Draw: Seeded Teams Defined, Italy to Play-offs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Seeded Teams Defined for the World Cup Draw<\/h2>\n\n\nThe seeded teams for the World Cup tournament draw, which will take place on December 5th, have been defined. Following the conclusion of the qualifiers on four continents, FIFA published the new rankings, thus establishing the basis for the competition.\n\nThe hosts, the United States, Canada, and Mexico, will join Spain, Argentina (defending champions), France, England, Portugal, Brazil, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany in the seeded pot.\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/story\/_\/id\/47015152\/2026-world-cup-squad-ranking-national-teams-win-updated-again\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2026 World Cup Squad Ranking: All 64 national teams that could still win next summer<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/story\/_\/id\/47020905\/best-stories-wildest-celebrations-amazing-week-world-cup-qualifiers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The best stories and wildest celebrations from the incredible World Cup qualifying week<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/story\/_\/id\/47020351\/statement-uruguay-win-shows-usmnt-come-long-way-16-months\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Convincing victory over Uruguay shows USMNT has come a long way in 16 months<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\nCroatia, a semi-finalist in 2022 and runner-up in 2018, was relegated to pot 2 for the draw ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.\n\nThe updated FIFA rankings also determined the seeding for Thursday&#8217;s draw of the March playoff brackets, which will decide the final six entries into the expanded 48-nation lineup.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a1.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F1119%2Fr1577771_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"Leroy Sane de Alemania celebra despu\u00e9s de marcar el cuarto gol de su equipo con Nick Woltemade (L) y Serge Gnabry, Florian Wirtz (C) durante el partido de clasificaci\u00f3n para la Copa Mundial de la FIFA 2026 entre Alemania y Eslovaquia en el Red Bull Arena el 17 de noviembre de 2025 en Leipzig\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n\n\n22 teams will participate in the playoffs, including 16 from Europe who will compete for four places in the World Cup and six from other regions who will seek two places in the intercontinental playoffs.\n\nItaly leads the European charts, as the four-time world champions seek to avoid a humiliating third consecutive elimination in the playoffs.\n\nThe Italians, ranked 12th, were pushed into the playoffs after finishing second in a qualifying group won by Norway.\n\nErling Haaland&#8217;s Norwegian team is emerging as a dangerous option from pot 3.\n\nItaly will face at home on Thursday a team seeded in the fourth pot. It could be North Macedonia again, who surprisingly eliminated the Italians in 2022.\n\nThe winner on March 26th will advance to a playoff final five days later against the team that emerges from the match between the second and third seeds in their elimination bracket.\n\nIt is expected that the teams that ultimately emerge from the four separate European playoff brackets will be substitutes from pot 4 in the December 5 draw.\n\nThe intercontinental brackets will see Iraq and Congo, both seeded, await the winner of the playoff semi-finals involving Bolivia, Jamaica, New Caledonia, and Suriname.\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">European Playoffs:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Pot 1:<\/strong> Italy, Denmark, Turkey, Ukraine.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pot 2:<\/strong> Poland, Wales, Czech Republic, Slovakia.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pot 3:<\/strong> Republic of Ireland, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pot 4:<\/strong> Northern Ireland, Romania, Sweden, North Macedonia.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Intercontinental Playoffs:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Seeds:<\/strong> Congo, Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n<strong>Non-seeded:<\/strong> Bolivia, Jamaica, New Caledonia, Suriname.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seeded Teams Defined for the World Cup Draw The seeded teams for the World Cup tournament draw, which will take place on December 5th, have been defined. Following the conclusion of the qualifiers on four continents, FIFA published the new rankings, thus establishing the basis for the competition. The hosts, the United States, Canada, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":82685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[8312,2430,104,522],"class_list":{"0":"post-82684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-classification","9":"tag-germany","10":"tag-playoffs","11":"tag-world-cup"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}