England will face a rematch of their 2018 semi-final in the opening fixture of their World Cup campaign next summer, after they were drawn alongside Croatia in Group L.
England will also play Panama, another side they faced at the Russia World Cup, and Ghana. Venues and kick-off times will be announced from 5pm GMT on Saturday but the group’s matches are split across four US cities – Dallas, Boston, New York/New Jersey and Philadelphia – and Toronto.
Croatia beat England 2-1 in extra time to end an unexpected run for Gareth Southgate’s side in Russia. England beat Panama handily, though, winning 6-1 in the group stage. They have never faced Ghana at the World Cup.
At the draw in Washington DC, which lasted more than two hours after 90 minutes of preamble, there were a number of strong groups selected. Scotland will also face a partial repeat of their last World Cup campaign in 1998 after they were drawn alongside Brazil and Morocco, as well as Haiti, in Group C.
The most prominent candidate for the title of “Group of Death” is Group I, where the seeds France are joined by Senegal and Erling Haaland’s Norway alongside the winner of an international playoff. The US face Australia, Paraguay and a European playoff winner.
If England win their group they will face a third-placed team from groups E, J, I, H, or K in the last 32. Victory would probably then bring a match against the winners of Group A, where Mexico are drawn alongside South Africa and South Korea and the winner of the playoff section involving the Republic of Ireland. Win that and there is the potential for a mouthwatering quarter-final against Brazil. After seeding changes by Fifa, England would be in line to face Argentina in the semi-finals.
Although Croatia will be strong opponents for England, their golden generation has mostly retired, with the remaining stars Ivan Perisic and Luka Modric 36 and 40 respectively. England have beaten Croatia at a tournament since the chastening defeat in Moscow, winning 1-0 in their opening match of the 2021 European Championship.
Ghana have featured in four of the past five tournaments but have fallen some way from the team that reached the quarter-finals in 2010. Their squad includes familiar faces from English football, including Tottenham’s Mohammed Kudus and Antoine Semenyo of Bournemouth. Panama are ranked 30th in the world, one place behind Norway, and were unbeaten through two rounds of qualifying, despite an absence of household names.
With 48 teams competing at a World Cup for the first time in its 96-year history, the draw was complicated and, because of the playoffs, incomplete. A further complication was added by the recent decision by Fifa to prevent their four highest-ranked sides – Spain, Argentina and France and England – from playing each other before the semi-finals.
The draw served as the climax to a glitzy, stilted event dominated by the award of a new Fifa peace prize to Donald Trump on behalf of “the billions of people who love this game and want peace”. Trump acknowledged the award as one of the “great honours of my life” and gave a speech that praised the scale of World Cup ticket sales and stuck precisely to his allocated time of two minutes.
Gianni Infantino was also a recurring presence on the stage, with the Fifa president not only awarding the peace prize but acting as moderator of an added part of the draw where the leaders of the three host countries, Trump, president Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, and the prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, were invited to draw the balls featuring their own nations. He also performed in a recorded skit with Rio Ferdinand, the former England international acting as conductor for the draw.
