<P> The current final tournament has been used since 1998 and features 32 national teams competing over the course of a month in the host nation (s). There are two stages: the group stage followed by the knockout stage . </P> <P> In the group stage, teams compete within eight groups of four teams each . Eight teams are seeded, including the hosts, with the other seeded teams selected using a formula based on the FIFA World Rankings and / or performances in recent World Cups, and drawn to separate groups . The other teams are assigned to different "pots", usually based on geographical criteria, and teams in each pot are drawn at random to the eight groups . Since 1998, constraints have been applied to the draw to ensure that no group contains more than two European teams or more than one team from any other confederation . </P> <P> Each group plays a round - robin tournament, in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group . This means that a total of six matches are played within a group . The last round of matches of each group is scheduled at the same time to preserve fairness among all four teams . The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage . Points are used to rank the teams within a group . Since 1994, three points have been awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss (before, winners received two points). </P> <P> If one considers all possible outcomes (win, draw, loss) for all six matches in a group, there are 729 (= 3) outcome combinations possible . However, 207 of these combinations lead to ties between the second and third places . In such case, the ranking among these teams is determined as follows: </P>

How many matches does each team play in group stage world cup