For the first time in the history of the FIFA World Cup, the four highest-ranked nations in the world have all advanced to the semi-finals. Spain, Argentina, France, and England — ranked first, second, third, and fourth respectively by FIFA — have each survived the knockout rounds to set up a pair of mouth-watering last-four clashes.

The semi-finals are France v Spain on Tuesday and England v Argentina on Wednesday.

How the draw was designed

The achievement did not happen by accident. FIFA deliberately restructured the draw format for the 2026 World Cup, placing the top four seeds in separate quadrants so that none of them could face each other before the semi-finals.

For the plan to work, all four nations needed to win their respective groups — and each of them did exactly that. FIFA described the arrangement as guaranteeing "competitive balance" through "two separate pathways to the semi-finals."

A comparable seeding system is used at Wimbledon and in the UEFA Champions League's current format, where top seeds are similarly kept apart in pairs.

Why FIFA made the change

The trigger was the expansion from 32 to 48 teams for 2026, which introduced an extra knockout round. In the old 32-team format, group winners could not meet each other in the round of 16 — so an early clash between elite teams was never an issue.

To find the last occasion when two of the world's top four met before the semi-finals, you would need to go back to the 2010 quarter-finals, when the Netherlands eliminated Brazil 2-1.

With the expanded format, however, such meetings became not just possible but almost inevitable. At this summer's round of 16, it already happened in three separate ties: United States v Belgium, England v Mexico, and Switzerland v Colombia.

FIFA moved to protect the tournament's showcase matches — ensuring that a blockbuster contest between top-ranked sides would not take place in the early knockout rounds and eliminate a leading nation prematurely.

A record that had long proved elusive

FIFA introduced its world rankings in 1994, though they were not applied to that year's tournament draw. In the decades since, the top four have repeatedly fallen short. Belgium in 2022, Germany in 2018, Spain in 2014, Italy in 2010, and France in 2002 were all ranked inside the top four yet failed to progress beyond the group stage.

At every World Cup since 1998, the four highest-ranked nations had never all reached the semi-finals — until now.

A similar seeding experiment was applied to the FIFA Club World Cup last year, though one of the four top seeds, Real Madrid, did not make it to the semi-finals. At the 2026 World Cup, the system has delivered precisely what FIFA set out to achieve.