How does seeding work for the World Cup?

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How are the top 8 seeds determined?

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I'm confused how a Swiss team in the easiest group in Europe can have a top 8 seed locked up even being ranked out of the top 10 in the world rankings.

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How it works

The formula is relatively simple, in theory: each team is awarded three points for a win. Those three points are then multiplied according to these formulas:

- Importance of the match (World Cup games 4.0, Continental/Confederations Cup such as the Euros 3.0, Qualifiers 2.5, Friendlies 1.0)

- Strength of the opposing team (200 minus the team's ranking at the time of the game, so Spain's multiplier is 199, while 100th ranked Georgia's is 100). There's a minimum 50 in this category, even if you're playing 207th-ranked San Marino.

- Strength of the Confederation (Europe or South America 1.00, North/Central America 0.88, Asia or Africa 0.86, Oceania 0.85)

In other words, if England beat top-ranked Spain in a World Cup match, they'll get three for the win, multiplied by four for the match importance, multiplied by 199 for the opposition, multiplied by one for the Confederation). That's 3x4x199x1=2,388. England's game against Poland, by contrast, landed them 1012.5 points (3x2.5x135x1).

All your points per match are averaged out for each calendar are year, and average results from the past four years are tallied up, with results longer ago counting less. Your score is then your average points this year plus 50% of your average points from the previous year, plus 30% of your average points from two years ago, plus 20% of your average points from three years ago.

Thus England have 1080: that's their average of 485 points a year in 2013, plus 310 from 2012 (when they averaged 620), plus 147 from 2011 (when they averaged 491) plus 137 from 2010 (when they averaged 686).

A little complicated, sure, but it seems fair enough. Until you start digging deeper, and you see that Switzerland, ranked seventh, have a ranking of 1,138, while Italy and Netherlands both have 1,136.

If you think that seems like a tiny margin dividing the teams, you'd be right. And that's brought up all sorts of anomalies.

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