Greece will now certainly be in the first pot for the World Cup draw on July 31, after being among the top-nine teams in Europe according to the FIFA ranking.

The FIFA statistical chart is used to determine the seedings for the draw process next month and Greece will be one of the top teams in the qualifying groups for the 2014 event in Brazil by virtue of its results in the last few years.

Greece only just made the cut as it is ninth in Europe and will therefore avoid top teams such as the Netherlands, Germany, England or Spain in its pool.

The draw in the exhibition match with Ecuador on Tuesday put the national team at risk of dropping out of the top nine, but the draws that Montenegro had with Bulgaria and France at Belarus meant that Greece kept the ninth spot and can look forward to a relatively smooth group.

The other teams to get seeded are Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, England, Portugal, Italy, Croatia and Norway.

The top team of each group will advance directly to the finals, along with the best second-placed across the nine qualifying groups, while the other runners-up will meet in play-offs for the four remaining World Cup tickets.