The first task facing Steve McClaren's successor has been made that much tougher after England slipped out of the group of top seeds for Sunday's World Cup qualifying draw in Durban.

England's defeat by Croatia on Wednesday has seen them leapfrogged by Greece in FIFA's world rankings announced today, and drop out of the top nine countries in Europe.

The seedings for the draw for the European qualifying groups will be based on those world rankings, and England will now join Scotland among the nine second seeds.

Greece overtook England by just a single point in the rankings courtesy of their victories in two Euro 2008 qualifiers — Otto Rehhagel's side gained 80 points to a total of 1114 while England dropped 24 points to 1113 after their dismal defeat by Croatia.

It means England will have to face one of the top seeds — the likes of Italy, Germany, France, Portugal and Spain — and as only the nine group winners automatically secure qualification, the task may not be a straightforward one.

Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, ranked 32nd and 35th in the world respectively, will both be among the group of third seeds while Wales, ranked 58th in the world, will one of the group of fourth seeds.

The draw will split the 53 European countries into eight groups of six teams, and one group of five.

The nine group-winners will qualify automatically and the best eight runners-up will go into home and away play-off matches for the remaining four places.

Sunday's draw starts at 1500 GMT. Asia's groups will be drawn first, followed by those in the CONCACAF region (north and central America and the Caribbean), then Europe and finally Africa.

There is no draw for South America and the Oceania region, who have already started their preliminary competition.