CORNERFLICK
France will meet Spain and England will face Argentina in the World Cup semi-finals, bringing together the four highest-ranked teams in FIFA’s pre-tournament standings for the first time.
It is the first time in World Cup history that the top four ranked teams have all reached the semi-finals and been drawn against each other at this stage. FIFA’s protected bracket was designed to keep the leading four nations apart until the last four, provided they topped their groups.
The set-up also explains the controversy around the group-stage draw, when Argentina were moved into a different section because of the ranking-based process. The source material says that decision was enough to rule out conspiracy theories.
This is only the second time the top four ranked teams have all met in the same tournament, but the first time they have done so in the semi-finals. The only previous case came at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, when Spain faced Portugal in the last 16 and the Netherlands beat Brazil in the quarter-finals.
The four semi-finalists are also all former world champions, a combination that has happened only twice before: at Mexico 1970 and Italy 1990.