What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

Craig P. said:
Of course you can punish the player. If you're convinced that he was acting consciously rather than instinctively, you should punish the player.
Click to expand...

But you can't be convinced of that. Ever.
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

Punishing the player here makes no sense to me whatsoever. That would be like punishing a hockey player for scoring a goal with a high stick. What would the 'punishment' have been during the game? How can they rationalize adding on to it after the game is done?

Reading a quick article they talk about the disrespect of the players by bending rules. Apparently their refs aren't doing a good enough job during the games so they want to step in as an extra disciplinary arm but keep the 'human face' of the game by not allowing video for anything but goal line calls.
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

The seeds are in:

South Africa, Germany, Brazil, Italy, Spain, England, Holland and Argentina.

Considering previous seeding processes have been very punitive against the team that missed the previous World Cup, I can't help but wonder if FIFA tweaked the criteria for public relations reasons and essentially, loss of a seeded draw is France's punishment for Henry.

Also the pots are confirmed as Asia/CONCACAF and AFC/CONMEBOL.
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

3W said:
The seeds are in:

South Africa, Germany, Brazil, Italy, Spain, England, Holland and Argentina.

Considering previous seeding processes have been very punitive against the team that missed the previous World Cup, I can't help but wonder if FIFA tweaked the criteria for public relations reasons and essentially, loss of a seeded draw is France's punishment for Henry.

Also the pots are confirmed as Asia/CONCACAF and AFC/CONMEBOL.
Click to expand...
it looks like I was correct...FIFA seeded based on ONLY the October 2009 FIFA World Rankings
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

This is nothing but a retcon. FIFA knew who they wanted seeded and worked backwards to find a way to get it done. If they were going to use FIFA rankings, the right way to do it would have been to take the November rankings (which have always been the pre-seeding snapshot that gets used in the seeding formula), but that would have gotten France seeded at England's expense.

Ultimately, I think the outcome is more or less "right" in terms of strength, but I abhor the precedent that was set.
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

Craig P. said:
This is nothing but a retcon. FIFA knew who they wanted seeded and worked backwards to find a way to get it done. If they were going to use FIFA rankings, the right way to do it would have been to take the November rankings (which have always been the pre-seeding snapshot that gets used in the seeding formula), but that would have gotten France seeded at England's expense.

Ultimately, I think the outcome is more or less "right" in terms of strength, but I abhor the precedent that was set.
Click to expand...
They stated that this was decided internally back in October because it was an unfair advantage to the highly ranked UEFA teams (France & Portugal) that they were involved in the home/home playoffs while other top teams only had friendlies...

The biggest thing that bothers me is the lack of transparency in the fact that it wasn't announced ahead of time...we all rag on the PWR for hockey but everyone knows what they have to do to get make the NCAA tournament when the season starts and it doesn't change in some smoke filled room on selection day...
 
Last edited:
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

Ah well, I never thought there was much of a chance they'd lump the CONEMBOL also rans with Asia. I can only hope Sepp Blatter rigs the votes in our favor to avoid a group of death. Maybe ESPN/ABC's increased interest will help.
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

The really important information: Charlize Theron will do the draw.

charlize_theron-5043.jpg
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

Just for grins, here's what a fairly seeded draw based on the current world rankings might look like (but we all know FIFA isn't about fair play)
Group A: 1) Spain 18) Swiss 19) Uruguay 86) S. Africa
Group B: 2) Brazil 16) Ivory Coast 20) Serbia 84) N. Korea
Group C: 3) Dutch 17) Chile 21) Australia 77) New Zealand
Group D: 4) Italy 15) Mexico 22) Nigeria 52) S. Korea
Group E: 5) Portugal 14) USA 26) Denmark 43) Japan
Group F: 6) Germany 12) Greece 28) Algeria 38) Honduras
Group G: 7) France 11) Cameroon 30) Paraguay 34) Slovakia
Group H: 8) Argentina 9) England 33) Slovenia 37) Ghana

Only changes were to swap Slovakia and Ghana (to keep 3 UEFA teams out of Group H and 2 CAF teams out of Group G) and Chile and Ivory Coast, to keep 2 COMNEBOL teams out of Group B. I realize Australia and New Zealand are in the same group, but technically they are in different confederataions.

Let's see how far the actual draw is from this.
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

Here's a draw using the pots announced by FIFA:

Code: 
Seed	Group 1			Group 2			Group 3			Group 4			Group 5			Group 6			Group 7			Group 8
1	South Africa		Netherlands		Spain			Germany			Italy			         Brazil			Argentina			England
2	New Zealand		Denmark			Nigeria			Slovakia			Portugal			Cameroon			Slovenia			S. Korea
3	France			Uruguay			Mexico			Honduras			Australia			Serbia			Chile			       Switzerland
4	Paraguay			N. Korea			Greece			Ivory Coast		Algeria			United States		Japan			Ghana

I suppose it could be worse for the US.
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

Heres one I just did with the today's announced pots:
Group A - South Africa, North Korea, Paraguay, Portugal
Group B - Germany, South Korea, Chile, Greece
Group C - Brazil, New Zealand, Cameroon, Slovakia
Group D - Netherlands, Japan, Algeria, France
Group E - Spain, Australia, Ivory Coast, Denmark
Group E - Italy, Honduras, Ghana, Slovenia
Group F - Argentina, USA, Nigeria, Switzerland
Group G - England, Mexico, Uruguay, Serbia
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

Here are the pots by current world ranking, so you can see the best and worst teams in each pot:
Pot 1: 1) SPA 2) BRA 3) NED 4) ITA 6) GER 8) ARG 9) ENG 86) SAF
Pot 2: 14) USA 15) MEX 21) AUS 38) HON 43) JPN 52) SK 77) NZ 84) NK
(Note: by putting the US in this pot, FIFA drops the chances to 3/8 that the US will have a team outside the Top 32 in their group)
Pot 3: 11) CAM 16) CDI 17) CHI 19) URU 22) NIA 28) ALG 30) PAR 37) GHA
Pot 4: 5) POR 7) FRA 12) GRE 18) SWI 20) SER 26) DEN 33) SLV 34) SVK

Ridiculous that you could have a SPA-USA-CAM-POR (4 of the Top 14) group and a SAF-NK-GHA-SVK group (no one in the Top-32). So much for "fair play." FIFA is a joke.
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

Given the pots, doesn't that make it fairly likely that one of the groups that draws Mexico or the US will be the group of death? Since those are really the only two teams out of the pot that would make everyone else cringe?

Yeah, if one of them wind up with South Africa, and the other gets in a group with both Slovakia and Ghana, it might not be that way, but still...
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

unofan said:
Given the pots, doesn't that make it fairly likely that one of the groups that draws Mexico or the US will be the group of death? Since those are really the only two teams out of the pot that would make everyone else cringe?
Click to expand...

You could say the same thing about Portugal.
 
Re: World Soccer XI: To South Africa, and Beyond!

why don't they just use KRACH???

all this supposition is confusing.:confused:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top