5 things that could go wrong during 2018 FIFA World Cup

#1 No heavyweight clashes early on

There are a distinct lack of heavyweight clashes - like 2014's Spain vs. Holland game - in Russia 2018's group stages

Recent World Cups have seen some massive clashes between heavyweight nations in the early stages – remember 2014, with Germany vs. Portugal, England vs. Italy and Uruguay, and Spain vs. Holland and Chile? The 2018 edition though, looks to be a little different. Yes, we’re getting England vs. Belgium and Spain vs. Portugal but outside of that, well, there are not many mouth-watering clashes in the opening stage.

Why is this? The seeding for Russia 2018 was done a little differently, with all four pots of teams seeded by their most recent FIFA ranking. In the past, the top seeds were decided in this way but the rest of the teams were all organised by their continental confederation – meaning the top eight teams would avoid each other, but outside of that, anything was possible.

However, this should mean that the better sides make it into the knockout stages and we get heavyweight clashes later in the tournament. And it could also mean that smaller sides have more incentive to play well against the bigger teams in the hope that they could escape the group stages. But unfortunately, it’s more likely to lead to a bunch of squash matches in the group stage, meaning the first two weeks of the tournament will be largely written off.

The change in seeding was a gamble on the behalf of FIFA, and it may not pay off.