2014 World Cup groups based on FIFA Rankings sees two Groups of Death

An interesting discussion took place when an image was uploaded on imgur where the World Cup groups were based on seedings instead of a World Cup draw.

Teams seeded based on FIFA Rankings

Instead of a draw, a seeding process (used in sports like tennis and basketball) would make for a fairer competition where the best team plays the worst, second best plays the second worst and so on.

Using that logic, Spain (seeded #1) would be the first team in Group A along with Cameroon (seeded #32). Likewise, the next group would have the second best and second worst teams – Germany and Australia. And so on.

Once all 8 groups have two teams, you come to the “mid-table teams” to populate the groups and here is the final result.

FIFA World Cup Groups based on seeding

Judging by these groups, it gives us an idea of how the tournament would be with teams fairly being divided into groups based on their recent performances.

Tasty group stage encounters include Argentina vs Portugal (initiate Messi vs Ronaldo debate here), Uruguay vs Brazil and Netherlands vs Italy. It’s hard to pick a Group of Death here but Group C and Group G (look, England again!) come pretty close.