That's right, but of course it's not being an Euro team that puts you at a disadvantage. It's being an Euro team in Pot 4, despite the benefit of the ridiculous FIFA multiplier.
Besides, it's only a potential disadvantage as the draw can play out in any number of ways that you might like or dislike. If you're Serbia, would you rather be in a group with with Russia, Uruguay and Costa Rica, or in a group with Argentina, Switzerland and Iran?
There's no such thing as a potential disadvantage. It's a disadvantage, period. You can get screwed by a ref and get shown a red card and still win the game. Doesn't mean you weren't at a disadvantage by playing with fewer players. Well, that's one opinion. The fact that they are still at a disadvantage relative to other teams in the same pot , many of which had easier qualifying routes, is another way to look at it.
Fair enough. This is still an attempt at a draw that respects the basic seedings across 4 pots and the separation. That is all that need to be done, really. If anything I am on the edge of my seat for a more elegant alternative without it seeming so fraudulent to certain viewers.
I have always favored and advocated having more intercontinental playoffs. Instead of having 8 UEFA runner up teams complete against one another to give UEFA an additional 4 spots, we could have these 8 teams compete against teams from different confederations in intercontinental playoffs. The basic idea would be to pair the 8 UEFA playoff teams such that the highest ranked UEFA team would face the lowest rank non-UEFA team qualifying for playoffs from other confederations. In this regard, if AFC's 4.5 allocation had been changed/decreased (in light of the poor showing in the last World Cup) from 4.5 to 2 plus 4 (which would be 4), and Concacaf (in light of its good showing in the last World Cup) given an extra playoff spot (3 plus 2), you would have had the following 8 non-UEFA playoff teams competing against the 8 UEFA teams in the playoffs for a World Cup berth (their respective FIFA rankings in parenthesis): I. Switzerland (11) v New Zealand (122) 2. Italy (15) v Syria (77) 3. Croatia (18) v Honduras (69) 4. Denmark (19) v Saudi Arabia (63) 5. Northern Ireland (23) v South Korea (62) 6. Sweden (25) v Australia (43) 7. Republic of Ireland (26) v United States (27) 8. Greece (47) v Peru (10)
Why is it UEFA vs. the rest of the world? It's quite problematic to allow for the possibility of qualifying up to 18 UEFA teams at a 32 team World Cup. This would mean seeing two World Cup groups with 3 Euro teams. All of a sudden we have lost much of the "World" component of the World Cup.
3 quick points: 1- UEFA would get between 9-18 teams in the World Cup, the exact number based on how they do in the playoffs. That is fair. Theoretically, they could end up with only 9 teams as opposed to the 13 guaranteed spots they have now. 2- The intercontinental playoffs will give us the world flavor in a much more meaningful way than having a couple of more or fewer teams from the lesser confederations. Those playoffs would be part of the world cup experience. 3- I am confident that eventually UEFA's actual representation would drop as more and more non-UEFA sides benefit from the experience of the intercontinental playoffs and the like. Any benefit to UEFA in that regard would be temporary. P.S. It is UEFA versus everyone else because its UEFA that gets the biggest chunk of the guaranteed, automatic, spots right now. They are the ones whose guaranteed spots should be put to test.
I disagree. We have a world component in qualifying and getting teams from around the world at the finals. I don't have any problem with 3 or 4 Euro teams in a group, so long as there is a decent seeding system that puts them there. I would rather see full full seeding without restrictions as you have more chance of getting groups with similar talent levels.
Why do we have to keep teams from the same confederation in separate groups? It's like the NCAA tournament where they try and separate conference teams. Point being is, if you are trying to make each group as balanced as possible (which I think should be the goal) anytime you make a new rule that causes certain teams to go into certain groups, your doing so at the risk of making things imbalanced. Of course if no one cares about imbalance then yeah go ahead with this lol
I'm not sure why that matters. Wouldn't having more balance between the groups be more important than whether or not team a played team b in qualifying?
True, but it will be quite a challenge to synchronize all domestic championships across the world one more time. Asia Group Stage ended in September and Africa is still playing. And a great chance for African teams for join playoffs somewhere in Sweden in December for example. For example: there is a chance for a group with 3 CONCACAF teams in it. This can be fair but awkward situation for the current World Cup.
It's way more interesting to set up the neatest possible distribution of confeds across groups. Groups perceived to be stacked/unbalanced have been a World Cup staple for a while now, and these groups have typically featured some of the most memorable upsets and revelations.
From the World Cup point of view all teams that got into the same Pots are equal now. And World Ranking is ignored from this moment. So now there is a point of mixing confederations to make unique match pairs that can meet only once per 4 years.
the imbalance isn't really as a result of geographical consideration. Its much more a result of the FIFA rankings being CRAP. I think geographical consideration is fine as long as the rankings are accurate. Lets look at 2014. Imbalanced groups like Spain , HOlland in one group was because of the crappy rankings and not geographical consideration. When you have teams like POland and Switzerland as top seeds, you are going to have imbalance. When you have every UEFA side ranked higher than every CAF side, you are going to have imbalance. FIFA rankings are the problem.
I agree that the actual rankings are the bigger problem and until that gets fixed, you are always going to run into this. I guess I'm just thinking in terms of things that could actually change. I don't see them doing away or changing FIFA rankings anytime soon unfortunately.
Well, you can't really blame FIFA rankings for Group B in 2014. Remember, apart from 7 teams the pots had nothing to do with FIFA rankings. And even a good, logical ranking system shouldn't have put Holland in the top 7. They were crap in Euro 2012 the year before. Its just bad luck for Spain to have gotten 2 good unseeded teams, but at the same time Chile & Holland hadn't justified a seed at that point.
Lol in the 5 last world cups between 98 and 2014 in the 8 groups that have been played in 16 years with only one uefa team only one finished last. Yet there are still people that think that having 2 uefa teams in the same group gives advantage Greece finished ahead of Nigeria in 2010 then ahead of Japan and Ivory Coast in 2014 but they still don't get it. When from 2026 you will have 16 groups with 16 uefa teams separated in each group. The haters will cry even more. The uefa teams from the 16th 25th range will have to deal with only one team from the world top 16. Which will give them the edge even more to reach the knock out stages.
Don't lose any sleep over it. No matter if the FIFA rankings are revised or not people will always say they suck. Two factors: - people are inherently biased; - there's a tendency to look at teams on paper and think they should be higher/lower before they actually prove it on the field. Spain vis a vis Poland right now is a good example of the second factor. Spain have stunk the past 2 major int'l tournaments, but they win one match against Italy and some people feel they should be #2 in the world!
Yeah, I actually think in the 48 team format that there will be less African and Asian teams in the final 32 than there are now.
Only reason why Holland (Netherlands), didn't get seeded was the fact they played 2 meaningless friendly matches against 2 very low ranked asian teams during the last year before the draw took place (vs. China and Indonesia in June , 2013), both of which they still won, but given the low ranks of their opponents, instead of wining points for their average of points, they lost a few of them instead, which were enough for Switzerland to overlap them by 2 miserable points in the FIFA rankings, for the last seeded spot of the WC draw. If Holland wouldn't have played only one of those meaningless friendly matches, they would've got the last seeded spot, and therefore would have avoided facing Spain during the WC (and if how things went during that WC, maybe the past WC champion, Spain, would've had a better WC performance, as well )
A major weakness in the seedings (rankings) system which could easily be fixed. Instead of weighting matches very low and affecting the overall average you can calculate the average performance in different categories of matches, something like world cup = 50% of points, confederation Championships = 40% and friendlies = 10%. You could also negate the advantage that some confederations have when they run two championships in the 4 year cycle. Use a system like this for world cup seedings where the points get reset to zero after the draw for each tournament and you accumulate points over the next 4 years (with the previous World Cup results being counted). The ranking system could stay unchanged as a guide, just not used for seeding.
Concacaf don't deserve another spot, if anything give it to Conmebol I mean last qualifiers pretty much sums it up. On one hand USA had to beat T&T to make enough points to qualify to the world cup while on the other Chile had to beat Brazil
So? "Deserving" more or less WC berths should be entirely dependent on WC performance (progess to knockouts), and Concacaf have performed quite well.