How Poland gamed the Fifa rankings to end up in Pot One for the 2018 World Cup draw

Following the conclusion of the international break that saw all 32 teams confirmed for the 2018 Fifa World Cup in Russia, one nation – Poland – gamed the system to end up in Pot One.

While 2010 winners Spain as well as England are in Pot Two, Poland are surprisingly in Pot One, despite only making the knockout stage of the competition once in the last 36 years.

That means the European nation will avoid being grouped among the likes of Germany, Brazil, Argentina, France, Belgium or Portugal ahead of the World Cup draw.

So how exactly did the odd team out in Poland, ranked sixth in the world, manage to do this? The answer lies in how many games Adam Nawałka's side have played.

Fifa's ranking system calculates a nation's performance over the last four years, with more weightage given to the most recent years.

For example, only 20% of the points earned four years ago are calculated, while 100% of the points earned in the last year are calculated.

Along with this, nations have to play at least five games a year to maintain their points, with Poland achieving this with their stellar World Cup qualification record.

The Eagles won eight of their 10 qualifiers in a group that included the likes of Denmark, Montenegro, Romania, Armenia and Kazakhstan and last played a friendly in a 1-1 draw with Slovenia in November 2016 before this month.

While the likes of England and Spain have played each other since and also in other friendlies, losing ranking points in the process, Poland did not play a single friendly until their 0-0 draw with Uruguay and 1-0 loss to Mexico this month, which incidentally took place after the World Cup pots were decided.

As long as they do not draw Spain in their World Cup group, they should consider themselves very happy with how things have progressed in their favour.

The draw for the 2018 World Cup takes place on 1 December at the State Kremlin Palace inside the Moscow Kremlin.