I compared them to most of organizers in the recent years to show that even teams that got bad results in the previous years perform in front of their crowd. What was south korea before their semi in 2002? Did you expect them to reach even round 16? Let's be honest. It is easy to say after it happened that France had world class players. In 97 after they missed 2 world cups and were struggling in most of their matches you were certainly the last to think about them as possible world cup winners. Russia is not a random country with a random leader. They don't invest billions in that to make fools of themselves in front of the world.
We all saw what happened on Brazil-Croatia game. South Africa was already happy to be the first country in Africa to organize a world cup. Russian situation is different. Poutine is very concerned by that he is not there to laugh.
They don't need players like Ramos and Pique. So much young talent on the rise. Busquets is still young (in his prime), so not sure why you include him. Iniesta is loved throughout Spain. He is a uniter if there ever was one. Plus he's not even really Catalan. I think Spain are still 3 years away from reaching their peak but they have too much talent right now not to beat the pot 3 and 4 teams in their group.
Its not me that including him. And its not because of age: http://www.marca.com/en/football/spanish-football/2017/10/19/59e90d5e468aeb47488b466f.html
England will be a serious threat in the future. Harry kane delle alli rashford u20 world champions u 19 european champions They are coming.
They have a lot of good young talent. Just wonder if they will have a manager who knows how to groom that talent into a winner.
I think only God even knows what the heck these awards are. Is this what was the old FIFA Ballon d'or/ FIFA WPOTY award? Or is that still coming later? No need to answer, don't really care. I just noticed how there now seems to be a world player of the year award being awarded every month.
It sucks that the World Cup wasn't entirely seeded before. It wasn't fair that Cote d'Ivoire, the best African team in 2006 and 2010, had the toughest draw. If all the pots were seeded back then, that wouldn't happen.
Even if they only seeded the top 8 according to FIFA rankings, CIV couldn't have gotten the group they got in 2006. Unfortunately for them, the top seeds back then were partly based on past WC performance, which put Holland in pot 2. So CIV ended-up with two of the top 4 teams in their group, according to FIFA rankings at the time. That said, CIV were ranked #41 in the world so they would've been put in pot 3 or 4 under the current seeding system which could've still meant a very tough group.
Kante needs to do the same in champions league semi finals and finals to get a place near these players. Once he does he will get there.
No champions league no top level experience. Yes we can discuss the fact that iniesta is in this team. It should have been casemiro with kroos and modric. The midfield that outclassed everybody for 2 years.
England in 2017: A team Qualified for world cup with 26 points. 8 wins 2 ties. U21 Reached euro semi-finals. Lost against the germans only on pk. U20 won the world cup. U19 won the euro. U17 Will be in the world cup final this week end. Impressed.
Am I missing something or will they have to force a FAIR bit of special rules in order to preserve separation of confederations? I know that writing these rules into a simulation algorithm is easy enough, but seeding by ranking won't make it possible to easily uphold the principle in a hand picked draw. There might be multiple instances of up to 4 confederations in the same pot. There are so many possible setups that illustrate this problem. How would you uphold separation of confederations? After much thinking and headscratching, I would do it the following way. Pot 1 drawn normally into each group. Pot 4. Separate Serbia in a special pot for the purpose of being drawn in either Argentina or Brazil's group. Draw the rest of the pot normally. Pot 3. Separate into two sub pots: one will have the 3 African teams and the other will have the remaining ones. The first two teams drawn from the non-african pot will be immediately placed into the two groups that have african teams until this point. Now mix both pots back together. The next 4 drawings will go into the groups with AFC teams. However, if Iran is drawn, they will have to jump to the next possible pot. At this point there will be 2 teams left to draw. If Costa Rica hasn't been drawn at this point, they will be placed in whichever group Panama is not in. Pot 2. Separate into three sub pots: one will have the 4 UEFA teams, one will have the 3 South Americans and the last one will have Mexico. If at this point Argentina or Brazil's group include two UEFA teams, Mexico will automatically be placed in this group. If not, Mexico remains in special pot. At this point there will also be a minimum of one other group that have 2 UEFA teams and a maximum of three groups with 3 UEFA teams. Up to three teams drawn from the South American pot will be immediately placed into any groups with two UEFA teams. Place any remaining South Americans in the pot with UEFA teams. The first two teams drawn from this pot will be immediately placed into the two groups with Concacaf teams. Now add Mexico in this pot and draw the remaining teams in order in the remaining groups. Done.
Sorry Serbia, it's rigged against you. UEFA teams are already at a disadvantage (probably until the expansion with 16 groups and 16 UEFA teams and they can't be drawn into a group together). Spain could even be drawn into Germany's group this time round. Last WC 5pa1n faced Holland in the group, current European Champions, Portugal, suffered a big loss at the hands of the current World Champions Germany. Other teams already don't have to face their own confed's powerhouses. FIFA shouldn't add another disadvantageous rule.
How on earth are UEFA teams at a disadvantage. They are already on average ranked higher than they should be thanks to terrible FIFA ranking system which actually gives them an unfair advantage through the confederation co efficient. If anybody is getting screwed it certainly ain't UEFA.
Didn't FIFA promise they'll fix the rankings after Russia2018? Don't worry. You know you can trust those guys Two wrongs don't make a right though and until the expansion some teams can avoid e.g. Brazil while other teams have no such luck when it comes to e.g. Germany. PS maybe FIFA will use the new World League rankings (UEFA is planning to use the NL rankings for seedings purposes). Who knows, it's the future. https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/10/2...ing-international-friendlies-new-world-league
Well the world league is certainly a much more interesting prospect than the uefa nations league. But how would it work without uefa? Already there are not enough cross confederational competative matches to formulate an accurate fifa ranking. This would be a great idea. Another all euro competition is redundant as far as I am concerned.
Brazil and Argentina are asking for it ("who are finding it harder to play lucrative games against European opposition"). So UEFA is very much needed in the WL. Ideally you'd have the WL ahead of WCs and the NL ahead of EUROs (other confeds can copy if they want).
Unfair to Mexico being in a better pot than the one of Panama or Costa Rica, very probably will be placed in the group of Argentina or Brazil + two UEFA teams ARGENTINA - MEXICO - CROATIA - SERBIA (death Group) while the other two concacaf teams would have less difficulty e. g. : POLAND-URUGUAY-IRAN-PANAMA PORTUGAL-SWITZERLAND -COSTA RICA-MOROCCO
Mexico automatically going to Brazil/Argentina is a simple contingency, just an extra rule *just in case* to uphold the separation, since no other team in Pot B could fit at this point. If you closely follow my Pot 3 procedure, you will notice that we first attempt to pair the UEFA teams with 2 African teams and 4 Asian teams. After this, well it's entirely possible that two UEFA teams remain undrawn and see Serbia, but it's somewhat unlikely. Looking at Pot 2 it seems that most of the teams are stronger than Mexico anyway, so I would effectively be avoiding the risk of an even more unbalanced group.
Well, a 50% chance of getting Brasil and 0% chance of getting Russia is a disadvantage. Lets be honest... Only if you look at it from an elitist's perspective. League D teams will be playing meaningful matches for the first time ever. And League C teams will be playing much more meaningful matches than currently. Besides there are already 2 all-world competitions. Creating a third isn't redundant though?