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World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

  • Thread starter Thread starter Priceless
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Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Jimjamesak said:
Only way for things to shift is if New Zealand beat Mexico ( ;) ) in the playoff. Even then we'd still would have the same pots but New Zealand with CONCACAF.

Even then, being paired with Asia isn't bad, you avoid Japan, S. Korea, and Australia. With the rankings now, imagine a group of Germany, England, USA, and Japan, a very real possibility if we got paired with Africa in the pots. What's significant about that grouping? All 4 of those teams made the knockout round in 2010.
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Group of death - and-a half!
 
Hopkinja said:
Group of death - and-a half!
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Exactly. What pairing CONCACAF and AFC in the pots does is creates a pot with most of the Tier 2, perennial knockout round containers in USA, Mexico, Japan, S. Korea, and Australia and spreads them out among the groups. Until someone in Africa besides Ghana can be a consistent knockout round threat, it makes sense to pair CONCACAF and AFC.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Jimjamesak said:
Exactly. What pairing CONCACAF and AFC in the pots does is creates a pot with most of the Tier 2, perennial knockout round containers in USA, Mexico, Japan, S. Korea, and Australia and spreads them out among the groups. Until someone in Africa besides Ghana can be a consistent knockout round threat, it makes sense to pair CONCACAF and AFC.
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Africa is certainly the wildcard but AFC, CAF, CONCACAF and the leftover CONMEBOL teams need to be put into pots somehow. CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL are actually pretty even in QF or better appearances as a group if you remove hosts in the history of the 32 team field. If anything based on this, CONMEBOL and CONCACAF should be in same pot with CAF and AFC in same pot (not possible based on distribution but based on ability to advance to the 2nd round)

If we removed the seeded teams for each tournament since the field was expanded to 32 here is the breakdown of 2nd round or better finishes:
AFC:
Australia 2006 (as OFC)
Japan 2010
South Korea 2010

CAF:
Nigeria 1998
Senegal 2002
Ghana 2006, 2010

CONCACAF:
Mexico 1998, 2002, 2010
USA 2002, 2010

CONMEBOL:
Chile 1998, 2010
Paraguay 1998, 2002, 2010
Ecuador 2006
Uruguay 2010

UEFA:
England 1998, 2002
Netherlands 2006
Croatia 1998
Denmark 1998, 2002
Norway 1998
Serbia 1998
Belgium 2002
Ireland 2002
Sweden 2002, 2006
Turkey 2002
Switzerland 2006
Portugal 2006, 2010
Ukraine 2006
Slovakia 2010

Also of note, Seeded teams to not make at least the QF

Spain 1998
Argentina 2002
France 2002
South Africa 2010
Italy 2010
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Worst case Group of Death right now is probably something like
Spain/Germany/Italy, Chile/Ecuador/Ghana, USA/Japan/Australia/S. Korea, Netherlands/Portugal/Sweden/England

So based on that, there could be 3 groups of death.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

FreshFish said:
Not in and of itself. What you really want is to enter the World Cup in the FIFA rankings top 8, which looks out of reach for the US this cycle no matter how well we do.
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Technically, one just needs to finish in the top 7. Brazil is guaranteed of being in Pot A. They are currently 8th in the latest FIFA rankings.

Shirtless Guy said:
Wow, I decided to check in on WC qualifying in Africa and couldn't believe it when I saw that Group A was won by Ethiopia (currently ranked 93 in the world and 25 in CAF) which were the lowest ranked team in the 4 member group along with South Africa, Botswana and Central African Republic...pretty impressive. In the other 9 groups the winner was the favorite and in 8 of the groups the runner up was from the 2nd pot (Congo was the other oddball, finishing 1 point behind Burkina Faso). The draw to determine the third round playoff pairings is Monday.
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Africa is a wonderful region to follow. My wife spent extensive time in Burkina Faso when she was younger, so we always watch them. They played very well in the African Cup of Nations (finished 2nd), and only won their group by a point due to having to forfeit a game (3-0) to Congo (the actual game played was a 0-0 draw). That was one of the more epic endings to the 2nd Round Group Stages in the CAF, as Burkina Faso were up 1-0 in their game (against Gabon), while Congo-Niger were all tied at 2. The Burkina game finished about 5 minutes ahead of the Congo-Niger game, and the Burkinabe went nuts when Niger held on for the draw (to allow Burkina to advance).

Jimjamesak said:
Only way for things to shift is if New Zealand beat Mexico ( ;) ) in the playoff. Even then we'd still would have the same pots but New Zealand with CONCACAF.

Even then, being paired with Asia isn't bad, you avoid Japan, S. Korea, and Australia. With the rankings now, imagine a group of Germany, England, USA, and Japan, a very real possibility if we got paired with Africa in the pots. What's significant about that grouping? All 4 of those teams made the knockout round in 2010.
Click to expand...

The best way for things to shift is if CONCACAF and AFC win their intercontinental playoffs. We would have to have odd numbered pots:

EDIT:

CONCACAF - 4 teams
CONMEBOL - 1 team (plus 4 in the top 7 + Brazil)
CAF - 5 teams
AFC - 5 teams
UEFA - 9 teams (plus 4 in the top 7)
Top 7 + Brazil - 8 teams

My guess would be something along the lines of this...

Pot A: Top 7 + Brazil
Pot B: UEFA (9 team pot)
Pot C: CONCACAF + AFC (9 team pot)
Pot D: CONMEBOL + CAF (6 team pot)
 
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Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

In looking at the rankings a bit more, it is possible that a team like Uruguay or Spain finish ranked in the top 7 of the FIFA rankings, yet miss the World Cup. While that is highly unlikely for Spain, it is certainly a possibility for Uruguay. That could make things a bit more interesting.

Also, we're all assuming that FIFA will use the FIFA Rankings to determine the top 7 + Brazil. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if FIFA decided to drop that if a team like the USA were to sneak in the top 7 in the FIFA Rankings.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Fighting Sioux 23 said:
In looking at the rankings a bit more, it is possible that a team like Uruguay or Spain finish ranked in the top 7 of the FIFA rankings, yet miss the World Cup. While that is highly unlikely for Spain, it is certainly a possibility for Uruguay. That could make things a bit more interesting.

Also, we're all assuming that FIFA will use the FIFA Rankings to determine the top 7 + Brazil. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if FIFA decided to drop that if a team like the USA were to sneak in the top 7 in the FIFA Rankings.
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Or Uruguay shifts the Pots in a way they don't like and they'd rather have 5/3 distribution of seeds between UEFA/CONMEBOL to have 8 UEFA leftover.
 
Shirtless Guy said:
Worst case Group of Death right now is probably something like
Spain/Germany/Italy, Chile/Ecuador/Ghana, USA/Japan/Australia/S. Korea, Netherlands/Portugal/Sweden/England

So based on that, there could be 3 groups of death.
Click to expand...
As things grow in Asia and N. America it really complicates things with the groups if FIFA continues to pair things up Confederation wise. But going by FIFA Rankings doesn't work either (Japan is 42nd?).
 
Shirtless Guy said:
Or Uruguay shifts the Pots in a way they don't like and they'd rather have 5/3 distribution of seeds between UEFA/CONMEBOL to have 8 UEFA leftover.
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Yeah but it won't be Uruguay that gets the shaft. How a World Cup Semifinalist and Copa America winner be kept off a seed I don't know. But it is FIFA...
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Shirtless Guy said:
Or Uruguay shifts the Pots in a way they don't like and they'd rather have 5/3 distribution of seeds between UEFA/CONMEBOL to have 8 UEFA leftover.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't surprise me what FIFA does. They might go back to the old how you did in previous World Cups + FIFA Ranking to determine seeds. Right now, the groupings are pretty bad, especially when you factor in that Belgium and Colombia are both in the Top 8. You could literally have a Group of Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, and USA. Then you could have a group of Belgium, Jordan, Honduras, and Ethiopia. Talk about nutty.
 
Jimjamesak said:
As things grow in Asia and N. America it really complicates things with the groups if FIFA continues to pair things up Confederation wise. But going by FIFA Rankings doesn't work either (Japan is 42nd?).
Click to expand...
You would have to think that sooner or later, FIFA would think about expanding the tournament field. Eight pools of 5 teams for a total of 40.

Of course, that would just further limit the number of countries that could host the world cup.
 
Fighting Sioux 23 said:
It wouldn't surprise me what FIFA does. They might go back to the old how you did in previous World Cups + FIFA Ranking to determine seeds. Right now, the groupings are pretty bad, especially when you factor in that Belgium and Colombia are both in the Top 8. You could literally have a Group of Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, and USA. Then you could have a group of Belgium, Jordan, Honduras, and Ethiopia. Talk about nutty.
Click to expand...
What'll it'll take is getting a grouping like Germany, England, Ghana, and USA and then having USA and Ghana advance. That would get things to change.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Jimjamesak said:
What'll it'll take is getting a grouping like Germany, England, Ghana, and USA and then having USA and Ghana advance. That would get things to change.
Click to expand...

That would be a lot of fun to see.

Ultimately, I think FIFA will make sure that we don't have a situation like that. My guess is that the "top 8" look something along the lines of 6 UEFA/2 CONMEBOL. Maybe they allow Colombia or Uruguay to stick around, and it is 5 UEFA/3 CONMEBOL. They'll just never allow only 4 UEFA teams being seeded...especially when 1 of those 4 is Belgium. If they have to re-tool how the Top 7 + Brazil are chosen, then they will. If the FIFA Rankings look like this in November, watch out for FIFA to use the Past World Cup Performance + Average of FIFA Rankings to seed teams. That ensures that they get the "appropriate" teams seeded.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Fighting Sioux 23 said:
It wouldn't surprise me what FIFA does. They might go back to the old how you did in previous World Cups + FIFA Ranking to determine seeds. Right now, the groupings are pretty bad, especially when you factor in that Belgium and Colombia are both in the Top 8. You could literally have a Group of Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, and USA. Then you could have a group of Belgium, Jordan, Honduras, and Ethiopia. Talk about nutty.
Click to expand...
very unlikely that you get Brazil and two european teams...especially Portugal and Netherlands. Far more likely to have Spain, Netherlands, Uruguay, USA depending on how the seeds shake out. The seeding could be adjusted to hurt Belgium and Colombia since neither has done much in the World Cup (neither qualifying in the last 2, etc).
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Shirtless Guy said:
very unlikely that you get Brazil and two european teams...especially Portugal and Netherlands. Far more likely to have Spain, Netherlands, Uruguay, USA depending on how the seeds shake out. The seeding could be adjusted to hurt Belgium and Colombia since neither has done much in the World Cup (neither qualifying in the last 2, etc).
Click to expand...

It is unlikely, but possible under my previous hypothetical.

Pot A: Top 7 + Brazil (Currently - Spain, Argentina, Germany, Italy, Colombia, Belgium, Uruguay, and Brazil)
Pot B: UEFA (9 teams)
Pot C: CONCACAF + AFC (9 teams)
Pot D: CONMEBOL + CAF (6 teams)

In this scenario, one of two possibilities could occur...

1) Brazil is chosen out of Pot A initially. They then select 1 team from Pot B, 1 team from Pot C, and 1 team from Pot D (so long as it is not the lone remaining CONMEBOL team). If this is the scenario, then no, you would not have 2 UEFA teams in that group. This leaves 8 teams left in Pot B, 8 teams left in Pot C, and 5 left in Pot D. You simply can't keep going this route and ensure that more than 2 UEFA teams are not in the same group. At some point, you have to pair 2 UEFA teams with 1 of the CONMEBOL seeded teams.

or

2) Brazil is chosen out of Pot A initially. They then select 2 teams from Pot B, and 1 team from Pot C. We now have 7 teams left in Pot B, 8 left in Pot C, and 6 left in Pot D. Then, say Spain is drawn out of Pot A second. They then select 2 teams from Pot C, and 1 team from Pot D. We now have 7 teams left in Pot B, 6 left in Pot C, and 5 left in Pot D. Then, say Argentina is drawn out of Pot A third. They then select 2 teams from Pot B, 1 team from Pot C. We now have 5 teams left in Pot B, 5 left in Pot C, and 5 left in Pot D. Now the remaining 5 draws will take 1 team each from Pots A-D, making sure that the 1 CONMEBOL team left in Pot D (if there is one left in Pot D) does not get paired with one of the two remaining CONMEBOL teams in Pot A.

I would think that FIFA would go with Option 2. As a result, you could easily have Brazil paired with two top UEFA squads, such as Portugal and the Dutch.

I suppose FIFA could split UEFA into sub-pots to make sure that you don't get 3 superpowers in the same group. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, but under traditional notions of the draw (which I would concede there may not be such a thing as "traditional notions" when it comes to the World Cup Draw), it is entirely possible to have a group of Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, and USA.
 
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Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

If you go with the 1998 style seeding, these teams would likely be seeded:
Germany
Spain
Brazil
Argentina
Netherlands
England
Portugal
Italy

Interesting, the next 8 in order are:
Mexico
Japan
Ghana
Uruguay
United States
France
Switzerland
South Korea

Obviously as the number of teams still eligible for qualification changes, these will change too...I tried to come up with an approximation for points based on FIFA World Rankings for December 2011, December 2012 and Current.
 
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