2014 FIFA World Cup: Final Draw 06.12.13

I agree, they could put the UEFA seeds in pot Y and choose two of them to face Chile and Ecuador. Then slot the CAF teams into the remaining 5 groups.

Instead of that they're just going to pull (the 7 remaining) teams from pot 2, and allocate them to (the remaining 7 of) groups A->H in order, but shuffle them over to the right if necessary. That will have to happen if they pull a CONMEBOL team into a group with a CONMEBOL seed. Also they'll have to do it if they pull a CAF team into a group with a UEFA seed when there are still as many remaining CONMEBOL teams in the pot as there are UEFA seeds left for them to play against. It could look a bit ad-hoc.

 

Yes, forsure, but a sample size of 4 would be far from scientific, as oppose to 23.
Palynka is right though, Italy is the type of team we would struggle with.

 

In the end, it's the same lemonade: to be the best, you have to beat the best.

And there are no easy rivals in a world cup. Ask France and Italy what happened to them four years ago...

 

I dont know why everyone thinks Belgium is a favorable draw for Pot 1. I would take anyteam besides them with the exception of maybe brazil. Their squad is pure quality and their physical strength will make it hard for my team (Iran) to defend against.

 

Or, they could put the European seeds in pot Y, and Chile and Ecuador in pot Z, and draw one of each (twice) to ensure the right combinations. Then put the remaining Y and X teams into the seeded team pot and go on from there.

Edit - oops, that's what you said already.

 

This is how I would have done a geographical seeding.

For a South American World Cup, I would have seeded all Conmebol teams plus Germany and Spain.

Pot B would have the remaining 11 European teams PLUS the 5 Africans (16 teams in Pot B).

Pot C would have AFC plus Concacaf

That's it.

With these pots, you only need to prevent 3 Uefa sides from being in a single group.

To address this, the first 2 african teams drawn from Pot B would go to Germany and Spain's groups.

In the event that we draw a Uefa member from Pot B over to Germany or Spain's group without there already being an African side, the Uefa member will skip to the next available group.

I need to get a job at FIFA.

 

I was being dead serious. It is well within Platini's influence to affect how pots are decided. Doesn't require any "fixing".

France could still end up in a tough group, but the probability has been significantly cut. If he's a French fan, then you would expect him to do that.

If the lowest rank team was Bosnia, do we think Fifa would have risked putting the likes of France into a special pot? I don't think so.

 

I don't think its because France is being favored, the last time it was done to Serbia and it was an injustice.
So this is the correct way of doing it IMO .

 

Agreed. Since moving to Pot 2 essentially condemns a team to the group of death, it should be done randomly.

Although FIFA still deserves criticism for inventing the rules in the middle of the game.

 

Quick question guys:

As England are in pot 4 does this automatically mean they will be A4/B4/C4 etc? Or can this change after the conclusion of the draw?

 

No, only Pot 1 teams are allocated a set position within their group - position 1.

When teams from other pots are drawn, their position is determined by a draw. This can be 2, 3 or 4, regardless whether the team is from Pot 2, 3 or 4.

 

No, the position within the group(e.g:B1,B2,B3,B4) is decided right after the country is picked to go to a certain group(e.g:B). There is another pot with the positions and they're picked from there.
The only one that is decided already is Brazil as A1.

 

All teams from Pot 1 are allocated position 1 in the groups they are drawn into.

 

Official draw procedure

 

yup you're right

 

Best draw for a seeded team would be group H as far as distances and temperatures.
Group games will be at Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
So we'll see who gets lucky that way.

 

Thanks. Iran is definitely an underdog and I hope it will be able to find the support that Brazilian fans will show for an underdog side. Just to make sure that will be the case, I just hope we don't end up in the same pot as you!

 

I would love to get Argentina, not only so we play against Messi and see how good we really are. But so we have the support of all the Brazilians there

 

For those who are not mathematically inclined, there is a 13.75% chance that two European powers (Netherlands, Italy, England, France, Portugal) get drawn with either Brazil or France.

And there is a 8.3% chance that two of the four European "weaklings" (Croatia, Russia, Bosnia, Greece) get drawn with either Uruguay or Colombia.

 

I wasn't trying to prove anything scientifically, but it seemed common sense that most sides would probably prefer not to be grouped against a team that has defeated them every time since 2000 during the period when Portugal has been on the rise, even if the sample size is admittedly small and involves only 4 matches! Especially when that team has defeated them 10 times since 1980 in 11 games (with only 1 draw to break the flow of losses Portugal has suffered against Italy in that time frame).

Of course, to get a sample size as large as you mentioned, you would need to look at Portugal's overall historical record against Italy, which shows that in 24 matches, you have defeated the Italians 4 times (last time in a friendly in 1976), drawn them twice, but lost 18 times. Not a good record, although as you had alluded to most of those losses are dated and the record isn't atypical of Portugal's record against other top teams like Brazil, Germany or even Spain. Or Argentina, even if the sample size you get against Argentina is really small and dated (7 matches, but all but 1 of them played long before 2000).

Incidentally, there is definitely a bright side to all of this for Portugal. One of the teams you have actually done well against historically is Iran. Alas, we have played you only twice, but both were losses. Once we lost to you in Brazil (Recife) in fact, in 1972, 3:0, and the other time 2:0 in World Cup 2006. So I definitely prefer to find Portugal in our group, never mind the sample size!

 

The Navad poll I cited earlier had most Iranian fans chose Argentina as their favorite team for Iran to be grouped with among the seeded sides! I guess most of them were thinking along the same lines as you, comforted a bit perhaps also by the fact that the only time we have played Argentina (a pre 1978 World Cup warm up match in Spain), we actually managed to draw them 1:1!

p.s.

I don't want to see Messi agaisnt Iran, not unless we have advanced from our group. Not at all.