Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Spain and four South American teams will be top eight seeds but England miss out, leaving Roy Hodgson facing a difficult draw in December

Luck of the draw: England will be second seeds in December's draw for the World Cup

England’s hopes of clawing their way into the top seeds suffered what looks to have been a fatal blow when Fifa decided the outcome of November’s friendlies would not be taken into account.

General secretary Jerome Valcke revealed the rankings as of Oct 17 would be used to determine which teams would be seeded, as opposed to those at the time of the draw on Dec 6.

England went into Tuesday’s match against Poland 17th in the rankings, short of the top-eight position required to be a top seed in Brazil.

Brazil are guaranteed to be in Pot A because of their host status, with England set to be placed among the lower-ranked European qualifiers in one of the other pots.

The remaining pots will be divided up along geographical lines, the nature of which will be determined by precisely which countries qualify.

The process is designed to prevent any of the eight groups containing more than two European countries or more than one country from other confederations.

The change in determining the seedings came about after it was deemed unfair that countries involved in competitive play-offs in November could obtain more additional ranking points before the draw than those which had already qualified and therefore ended up playing just playing friendlies.

Seeded teams Spain, Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Switzerland, Colombia, Uruguay/Holland.