how many groups are there in the fifa world cup
8
title: FIFA World Cup text: nation(s). There are two stages: the group stage followed by the knockout stage. In the group stage, teams compete within eight groups of four teams each. Eight teams are seeded, including the hosts, with the other seeded teams selected using a formula based on the FIFA World Rankings and/or performances in recent World Cups, and drawn to separate groups. The other teams are assigned to different "pots", usually based on geographical criteria, and teams in each pot are drawn at random to the eight groups. Since 1998, constraints have been applied to the draw to ensure that no group contains title: FIFA World Cup text: of 16 (or the second round) in which the winner of each group plays against the runner-up of another group. This is followed by the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final. On 10 January 2017, FIFA approved a new format, the 48-team World Cup (to accommodate more teams), which consists of 16 groups of three teams each, with two teams qualifying from each group, to form a round of 32 knockout stage, to be implemented by 2026. Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA's congress. The locations were title: 2018 FIFA World Cup seeding text: of UEFA, which had at least one, but no more than two in a group. All teams were seeded using the October 2017 FIFA World Rankings, which numbers in parenthesis show, released on 16 October 2017. According to the FIFA rankings, the strongest group was E (combining for 4415 points), followed by F (4151), B (4128), C (4101), D (4099), G (3953), H (3944) and the weakest was the host nation's group A (2991). 2018 FIFA World Cup seeding The draw for the 2018 FIFA World Cup took place on 1 December 2017 at the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow, title: FIFA World Cup text: more than two European teams or more than one team from any other confederation. Each group plays a round-robin tournament, in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group. This means that a total of six matches are played within a group. The last round of matches of each group is scheduled at the same time to preserve fairness among all four teams. The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. Points are used to rank the teams within a group. Since 1994, three points have been awarded for title: 2018 FIFA World Cup text: of each nation. At the end of the ceremony Ronaldo reappeared with the official match ball which had returned from the International Space Station in early June. Competing countries were divided into eight groups of four teams (groups A to H). Teams in each group played one another in a round-robin basis, with the top two teams of each group advancing to the knockout stage. Ten European teams and four South American teams progressed to the knockout stage, together with Japan and Mexico. For the first time since 1938, Germany (reigning champions) did not advance past the first round. For