Okay, # teams that really don't look like they belong: (ie teams that finish with 0 points) CONCACAF: 7 CAF: 5 OFC: 4 AFC: 3 UEFA: 2 CONMEBOL: 1 (that's looking at the last ten u-17 and u-20 world cups (ie since 2005), excluding this year's u-17) So very rare for a UEFA team to look like they don't belong (keep in mind that they have the most entries given them more possibilities of finishing with zero points).
U17 World Cup (lets stick with the tournament at hand): Winners by continent: CAF: 5 CONMEBOL: 3 UEFA: 3 CONCACAF: 2 AFC / OFC: 1 Finalists by continent: CAF: 10 UEFA: 8 CONMEBOL: 6 CONCACAF: 2 AFC / OFC: 2 Semi-finalists by continent: UEFA: 18 CAF: 17 CONMEBOL: 13 AFC / OFC: 5 CONCACAF: 3 Note: Since 2007 UEFA has 20%-40% more representation, but has less finals and final wins, while only just having one more semi-finalist. The conclusion is pretty obvious: UEFA is overrepresented at this tournament compared to CAF. At worst UEFA and CAF should have the same amount of slots.
Russia doing their best to qualify, but they need results in 2 of the 3 remaining groups to help them out. Group E is likely to swing their way, but group C and F no... UEFA champions fail to exit the group?
I don't think there is any set of figures from the youth tournaments, not even the ones cherry picked and highlighted by BocaFan, which would lend one to imagine UEFA is underrepresented, while the so-called lesser confederations are over represented. At this level, the differences between the various confederations is often marginal at best. African teams have been particularly successful in youth tournaments, but all confederations (except OFC, which is not a real confederation anyway and less so without Australia) have had some success at this level. To the extent any adjustment in the allocations is warranted, it would be to reduce UEFA's representation and increase the representation from Africa and to require more playoffs between Concacaf and Conembol and AFC and OFC for some of their combined allocations.
Your conclusion is flawed since it doesn't look at how many CAF teams bomb (0 points and out). Your data only suggests that CAF sends at least 1 or 2 excellent teams. But doesn't say anything about how good the 5th or 6th-best CAF team would be.
I expect Croatia will at least draw with Uzbekistan so Russia need Sweden to beat Mexico assuming Canada don't win. The big win was important as it takes out the draws in Group E. Sweden beating Mexico is not that unlikely so still a good chance for Russia.
Venezuela join New Zealand on 0 points, while Russia wallop 4 past them. With 3 points and +2 GD they have to hope that the third placed teams in the remaining 3 groups don't have 4 pts (it's almost a given that they will have the best GD). Japan and their backside turbo engines scrape a win against Tunisia, who basically fell over in the last 5 minutes or so complaining of cramp and . I've said it before and I'll say it again: Japan and South Korea have the best physical training regime in the world. Tunisia now face the winner of group C (Argentina?), while Japan wait for their opponent (80% chance it'll be Cote d'Ivoire).
Gabon and Ghana. Given Ghana have 5 finals I'll venture to say they won't struggle... As for this year: CAF will have a 100% qualification rate, while UEFA will almost definitely have a 66% qualification rate (Austria and either Croatia or Russia), while 2 of the remaining UEFA teams are set to qualify as 3rd best teams.
Sure, but I'm more than certain both sides will be happy with a draw. Sweden has a small chance of catching Nigeria due to goal differential and above all won't want to lose, while Mexico will above all fight for the draw (as it should be enough to qualify). Basically groups C and F are similar in that respect: Uzbekistan, Croatia, Sweden and Mexico will all be satisfied with a draw. And if that happens Russia is out.
probably and it even suits Sweden to lose assuming they can't catch Nigeria. The runners up meet Italy and then Brazil. 3rd will have an easier route.
Well, my analysis looked at several tournaments, didn't cherry-pick just one. That said, Gabon could have easily been another Burkina Faso. They lost 4-1 to Angola and Morocco in qualifying, but beat Botswana which probably has more lions than people. Nothing to suggest they are so good.
Morocco - Panama 4:2 Uzbekistan - Croatia 2:1 Croatia basically open the door for Russia and they themselves are all but out. However this means Slovakia qualify as one of the best third placed teams. As it stands (with Russia and probably Mexico or Sweden as the other two 3rd placed teams qualifiers we'll have: Brasil vs Russia Uruguay vs Slovakia Morocco vs Cote d'Ivoire Japan vs Mexico / Sweden If this remains the case then Morocco, Cote d'Ivoire and Tunisia will find themselves in the same quarter of the tournament, while Brasil will have a tough route to the final with Russia, Italy / Mexico / Sweden, the best of the African quarter or Argentina and potentially Nigeria in the final. Meanwhile Nigeria will at worst have Uruguay or Japan en route to the final.
Taking into account the likeliest outcome Morocco, Cote d'Ivoire and Tunisia will find themselves in the same quarter of the tournament, while Brasil will have a tough route to the final with Russia, Italy / Mexico / Sweden, the best of the African quarter or Argentina and potentially Nigeria in the final. Meanwhile Nigeria will at worst have Uruguay or Japan en route to the final. Honestly the only team that looks good enough to trouble Nigeria looks to be Japan (or Sweden if they lose tomorrow's game).
What exactly do you disagree with in my comment? I know you love to make yourself into an cross between a horse and a mule, but really: As it stands the likely pairings are: 1 BRACKET: Honduras vs Uzbekistan Japan vs Mexico / Sweden Uruguay vs Slovakia Nigeria vs Iran 2 BRACKET: Argentina vs Tunisia Morocco vs Cote d'Ivoire Brasil vs Russia Italy vs Mexico / Sweden From the 2 pre-tournament favorites Nigeria obviously has the easier bracket. How can you deny this? For the listed teams from bracket 1 only Japan has put in truely impressive performances. Well, apart from Sweden, who I expect to qualify ahead of Mexico thus ending up in the 2 bracket.
BTW: There is a small chance we'll have a Brasil vs Argentina 1/8 final (if Argentina lose to Canada and Iran beat Austria and Mexico don't lose to Sweden).
With ABCD being an unlikely scenario (although not impossible) Uruguay will almost certainly be playing Slovakia and Morocco play Cote d'Ivoire (with Tunisia in the same quarter of the last 16).
You may want to redo your math... Group C: 1 point me. I have Morocco over Uzbekistan. mwjppgr: 1 zahzah: 1 If results go your way tomorrow than 3:1. Else it'll be 1:2 for me Not that I'm really interested in your stupid game... p.s. Not to mention that the missed results in other groups basically make your whole 1/8 final predictions irrelevant. At best you'll have 4 draws right, so far you have zero.
In Group C, Uzbekistan beat Croatia 2:1, while Morocco beat Panama 4:2. Morocco and Uzbekistan ended up with 7 points each, but Morocco finished on top by virtue of a better goal difference. Croatia finished 3rd in this group with the 3 points it earned against Panama, while Panama finished last and pointless. Thus, by confederation, this group had: 1- Morocco (CAF) 2- Uzbekistan (AFC) 3- Croatia (UEFA), and 4- Panama (Concacaf). Earlier we had seen Japan and Tunisia both beat European champions Russia as well as Venezuela in Group B, while Russia ended up 3rd in this group after it too beat Venezuela. Japan then beat Tunisia 2:1 to finish the group stage with the maximum 9 points. Venezuela finished pointless and the Group B standings by confederation were as follows: 1- Japan (AFC) 2- Tunisia (CAF) 3- Russia (UEFA), 4- Venezuela (Conembol). In these two groups, no matter how you look at it, the AFC teams were simply much better than the UEFA sides, finishing together with 5 wins, 1 draw, and 0 losses, while the UEFA sides finished with 2 wins, 0 draws, and 4 losses. CAF's combined results in these 2 groups were 4 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss (to the AFC), which is still much better than UEFA's. Conembol and Concacaf, on the other hand, had teams that finished pointless in these groups. The story in Group A was, of course, different. There the AFC representative were hosts UAE, who went out pointless, while the best team of the tournament so far, Brazil, ended the group stage with the maximum 9 points after thrashing both Slovakia and the UAE by the identical 6:1 scores, while showing a bit more mercy to beat Honduras merely 3:0. With Honduras and Slovakia drawing their game together, with both beating the UAE (2:1 for Honduras and 2:0 for Slovakia), Group A standings were: 1- Brazil (Conembol) 2- Honduras (Concacaf) 3- Slovakia (UEFA) 4- UAE (AFC) However, while the UAE did have a terrible tournament, since they qualified as hosts without going through a qualification process, I don't think that says anything about the AFC more generally. For all we know, this UAE U17 squad might have finished similarly pointless in its AFC qualifying group. What is interesting, albeit without the difference between the 2nd place and 3rd place team being that pronounced, is that the UEFA again finished 3rd in this group as well. The games in Group E and Group F have not yet concluded, so one can't make any definitive statements with respect to those groups. But so far the UEFA representative in Group E, Austria, is in last place with 1 point. While Sweden in Group F has been the only UEFA side that has still not lost, having a win over Iraq and a draw against Nigeria. The AFC side in Group E is Iran, which outplayed both Argentina and Canada in 2 draws it got against them, heading to its last match against Austria very much hopeful of a place in the knock-out round. In Group F, on the other hand, the AFC side is Iraq which lost its first 2 games but will head to its last match to at least salvage some pride.
While I'll be thrilled with Iran finishing first regardless of who ends up in 2nd place, I don't think your prediction for this group is possible. If Iran finishes first, it must have defeated Austria, with Canada and Argentina getting a draw. In which case, Austria will end up in last place. Any other results will drop Iran to either 2nd or worse in its group. On the other hand, for Austria to finish 2nd, it has to take 3 points from Iran (which means Iran will finish either 3rd or 4th in the group). Even then, Austria might still need the result in the match between Argentina and Canada to be such that those two don't finish ahead of Austria. (There are scenarios where, even beating Iran, Austria finishes 3rd). All that said, I don't think Austria are going to beat Iran. Of course, anything can happen, but Iran has so far been the best team in this group and I think will finish the job against Austria and hopefully win comfortably. If we do beat the Austrians, we would still have a chance to finish first in the group if Canada and Argentina draw. In that case, it would come to goal difference. More likely, however, Argentina will beat Canada (perhaps by a couple of goals) and finish on top of this group. In that case, as long as we don't lose to Austria, we would then finish 2nd in our group even with a draw.
So far confederation-wise Oceania naturally is the weakest, whilst second from last will be contended between UEFA and CONCACAF (Concacaf leads for now). CAF just edges out CONMEBOL as the best confederation (only confederation with 100% of teams qualified + highest pts per game average) CAF: 24:12, 21 pts (1,91 pts per game) CONMEBOL: 31:16 20 pts (1,82 pts per game) AFC: 16:22, 18 pts (1,38 pts per game) UEFA: 26:26, 21 pts (1,31 pts per game) CONCACAF: 13:23, 9 pts (0,9 pts per game) OFC: 0:11, 0 pts (0 pts per game)