All eyes will be on your ball. The ever-much-mentioned Death Group appears in the simulations with this selection included. Germany will not be seeded for the first time in recent decades and will appear in Pot 2 as the country that no one will want to face. One of the most time world champion teams behind Brazil will not be seeded. Why?
FIFA determined that the seeds that will be placed in Pot 1 will be the top seven in the FIFA Ranking that it last updated on March 31 of this year together with Qatar, the host of the World Cup.
The Germans reached the draw placed 12th on that list behind Denmark (11th), the Netherlands (10th) and Mexico (9th), the other members who will be in Pot 2 along with Uruguay, Switzerland, the United States and Croatia.
In the top eight places in the ranking, Italy even appears in sixth place. In other words, the Italians, who were eliminated in the repechage by North Macedonia, would have been seeded if they qualified.
The Germans have been away from the Top 8 in the world since July 1, 2018, when they were in first place in the ranking. In the next update, on August 16 of that same year, they surprised by dropping 14 places to 15th place. Even along the way to the World Cup in Qatar they were on several occasions in 16th place. This abrupt drop was associated with a change in the method of formulating the ranking that was carried out on that date.
From the 1994 World Cup onwards, with the national team representing the whole country, the Germans always appeared in Pot 1 of the draws. Since then, they were champions in 2014 but suffered a historic setback during the 2018 World Cup: they finished last in Group F that they shared with Sweden, Mexico and South Korea.
HOW IS THE FIFA RANKING ORGANIZED
In August 2018, the FIFA Council approved the SUMA method for calculating the world ranking: it is based on adding or subtracting the points won or lost in a match from the total points held so far, rather than averaging points per game over a certain period of time, as was the case in the previous version of the classification.
The points that are added or subtracted are determined in part by the relative potential of the two contestants, taking into account the logical expectation that the highest ranked teams are more likely to obtain a positive result against those teams that occupy more backward positions.
Through a mathematical formula that adds, subtracts and multiplies the points before the match, the importance of the match, the result of the match and the expected result of the match, a national team adds or subtracts points from their ranking. There are 9 items in different instances to increase the score: 5 (in the international calendar), 10 (friendlies in the men's international calendar), 15 (nations league group stage), 25 (playoffs and finals of the nations league), 25 (qualification for the final phase of confederations and World Cup competitions), 35 (stage final of the confederations competitions until the quarterfinals), 40 (confederations finals from the quarterfinals; and Confederations Cup matches), 50 (World Cup finals until the quarterfinals) and 60 (quarterfinals onwards of the World Cup).
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