FIFA confirms World Cup draw seeds

* FIFA has announced the seeds for the 2014 World
Cup finals draw after the October World Rankings
were released on Thursday.
As revealed by ESPN on Tuesday evening, hosts
Brazil will be joined by Spain, Germany, Argentina,
Colombia, Belgium, Uruguay and Switzerland.
Uruguay's place in the top pot of seeds is subject to
winning the intercontinental playoff against Jordan,
and if they fail to qualify then Netherlands will move
into the top pot.
Only the top pot is seeded for the Dec. 6 draw in
Bahia, with the remaining pools based purely on a
geographical basis to ensure a spread of nations in
each group. There can be no more than one team
from each confederation in each group, with the
exception of Europe which will have two nations in
four or five groups.
If Uruguay win their playoff, then the geographical
draw pots will likely be similar to that of 2006. One
pot may contain eight European nations, another
should have the four Asian countries and four from
CONCACAF (or New Zealand), with a final pot of
Chile, Ecuador and the five African qualifiers.
That would leave a separate pot for the lowest-
ranked UEFA side, who would be drawn against a
non-European team from the seeded pot - Brazil,
Argentina, Colombia or possibly Uruguay, to ensure
no more than two European teams are in one group.
In 2006 this fate befell Serbia & Montenegro, who
were dumped in the Group of Death and lost all
three games to Argentina (6-0), Ivory Coast and
Netherlands - three nations who can be drawn
together again in 2014.
The lowest-ranked UEFA team in 2014 will be an
unseeded playoff nation, or Ukraine if all seeded
countries win their ties. FIFA also confirmed the
seeded teams for Monday's European playoff draw
as Portugal, Greece, Croatia and Ukraine. The
unseeded teams will be France, Sweden, Romania
and Iceland.
Should Jordan beat Uruguay there is no obvious
geographical split of teams so FIFA will have to
devise a different pool system.
Spain continue to lead the rankings, well ahead of
nearest challengers Germany.
Switzerland, the surprise seeds, move up to seven to
seventh in the world while England are also new
entries in the top ten, also moving up seven places
to tenth -- one place ahead of Brazil who drop three.
Croatia are the other nation to drop out of the top
ten, down eight to 18th.
Scotland, on the back of wins over Macedonia and
Croatia, pick up the top score of the month (164
points) and climb 28 places to 35th, while the
biggest climbers are Moldova who jump 33 spots to
96th.