In the Theatre of the absurd, timing is everything.

Wales have the timing down to a tee. At International level, it has been a good period for Wales. They are top of their Euro 2016 qualifyng group, after gong unbeaten in the first six games. But does that place them in the World’stop ten? Few people would really claim this, but that is where the FIFA rankings have placed them this week.

It is difficult to take the FIFA rankings seriously, despite improvements when they changed the calculation methods. Coca-cola pays well to have their name attached to the monthly press release from FIFA with the new rankings, and they need dramatic headlines in the press to bring them to people’s attention. Hence we have a rankings system that allows for a rapid rise for a few good results in competition.

Headlines are all very well, but these rankings also decide the order of things in competitions organised by FIFA. England, for example played five friendly games in the year before the draw for the 2014 World Cup finals. Results were not bad, England lost to Sweden, got a win and a draw against Brazil, drew with Ireland and beat the Scots. However, the ranking methods count friendlies and then average the results over a season. Even if England had won all five, it would have had a negative effect on their ranking! Switzerland on the other hand played only one friendly (also beating Brazil), and sneaked into the last of the seeded places in the draw.

But for Wales, the time is right – the first time they appear in the top ten, and it is ranking that will be used to determine the seedings when the World Cup qualifiers are drawn later in the month. As a result, Wales will be seeded in the top group in the draw, along with Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, England, Spain and Croatia. Teams missing out include Italy, Switzerland and France. The French having no way of retaining their ranking as they play only friendlies before hosting Euro 2016

The draw for 2018 will be in 9 groups, with two of them having five teams, the rest having six. Russia do not take part as hosts for 2018, while UEFA’s 54^th member, Gibraltar has so far been refused permission to join FIFA as well. All group winners qualify, with eight of the nine runners-up competing for four final places

Thanks to UEFA’s centralised TV contract, they need to maximise the number of matches for the “big six” countries, England, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Italy and France. Hence all of these six will be drawn in groups of six teams – but they are not kept apart except by the seeding. Hence if Wales are lucky enough to be drawn into one of the two five team groups, they cannot face France or Italy. England, however must have these two as potential opponents! Scotland and Northern Ireland are both in pot 3, while the Republic or Ireland are in pot 4. The seven minnows in the final pot are Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Georgia, Malta, San Marino and Andorra.

Had it been a European qualifying draw we are waiting for, then the seedings would be different. UEFA maintains its own ranking, which has less publicity and is published less frequently. The cynic in me says the main reason UEFA does this, is so as it does not have to use the FIFA rankings. UEFA will not publish their rankings until after the October round of Euro qualifying games. The rankings will be used for deciding the seeding of play off games the following month and for the finals themselves the following summer.

Unofficially, the rankings can be seen at http://www.footballseeding.com/national-ranking-uefa/ England, ranked 9^th by FIFA, and hence 6^th in Europe are 5^th on the UEFA ranks, behind Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands. France keep their ranking as they do not drop points due to not playing in the current cycle. Wales may be 10^th in the World, but they are only 29^th in Europe.

A third set of rankings, which takes account of both friendlies and competitive games, but does not penalise teams for being outside of tournaments can be found at http://www.eloratings.net/ it is a useful site as the result of every game that is used in their database can be viewed. On this ranking, England are 8^th in the World, 4^th in Europe, while Wales are 25^th in Europe (43^rd worldwide)