FIFA is introducing tennis-style seeding to the 2026 World Cup knockout stages.

England are set to benefit from tennis-style seeding at next summer’s World Cup and avoid Spain and Argentina until the semi-finals and France until the final – if all those teams win their groups.

FIFA is introducing a tennis-style system for the 2026 World Cup knockout stages, having adopted a similar format for the Club World Cup earlier this year.

The top two teams in the current FIFA rankings – Spain and Argentina – will be on opposite draw pathways, as will the third and fourth-ranked sides, France and England.

Those four teams would then be placed in different quadrants of the 32-team knockout phase if they all come top of their groups.

That would mean England potentially not coming up against Europ

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