on a separate note Moldova are now ranked like mid thirties, WTF, I dont remember them beating anybody, even for FIFA's low standards this has to be an all time low.
FIFA should cut out the whole drawing of groups for the bottom 3 pots based purely on geography. All 4 pots should be seeded, they can still avoid putting more than one confed apart from uefa in the same group, but this way it is less likely for there to be such tough groups.
For those that don't feel like clicking a link: Group A: South Africa, Greece, Uzbekistan, Paraguay Group B: Germany, Portugal, USA, Nigeria Group C: France, Croatia, Korea Republic, Ghana Group D: Spain, Scotland, Mexico, Cote d'Ivoire Group E: Brazil, Bulgaria, Japan, Cameroon Group F: Italy, Romania, Honduras, Venezuela Group G: England, Netherlands, Australia, Colombia Group H: Argentina, Czech Republic, Iran, Egypt I don't think H is that bad. Iran still has to qualify, and the way they've started off, there's already doubts about whether they'll even make it. Granted, Egypt won the most recent Africa Nations, right? Italy would love that group. I might even put some money on Honduras advancing out of that. And, once again, Group A is a cakewalk. South Africa actually has a shot at advancing out of that group.
Flat out, there is something wrong with a seeding and grouping process that produces: Group A: South Africa, Greece, Uzbekistan, Paraguay Group B: Germany, Portugal, USA, Nigeria
That's the whole point. FIFA wants the host nation to advance to the second round; the host nation has never failed to advance to the second round in any World Cup.
Until 2010. Baring a miraculous turnaround or massive help from officials, there is no possible group from which South Africa would likely advance. They will be far and away the worst team in the 32 team field.
I would, at this point, be comfortable saying that the US was the worst team in '94. If it weren't for home field advantage, an own-goal, and 3 teams going through, the US would've been the first host team to hold that distinguished spot. As I said in my post, that group that Edgar drew this time, I could actually see South Africa qualifying from. It would still be uphill, but they could do it. All that aside, I think, more than anything, it's the poor quality South African side that's the problem in all this, not the draw process, necessarily. If Morocco had been chosen instead (I always thought it would have been the better choice to host), Morocco (46) is currently ranked not far behind Nigeria (39). Granted, a Morocco, Greece, Uzbekistan, Paraguay group still looks pretty weak. Unfortunately, we're no where near the place where any one of the top African teams could host the tournament. Give Nigeria 20 years, and maybe. All us Yanks can really do is cross our fingers and hope we get another lucky draw like '02. The odds are against us, I expect. Don't worry. With Brazil hosting in '14, the draw is less likely to be nearly so lopsided. Lucky for us, eh? With such a nice, even set of seeds, we got a real easy group in '06.
I completley disagree, yes S AFrica is not at their best right now, but they are just comming off of a 3-0 victory over Paraguay, they also drew with Senegal and Angola in the recent nations cup. I doubt theyd be by far the worst of the 32.I'm sure there would be at least 5 teams they would be better than that qualify. They are most certainly better than S Arabia and Iran who will most likely qualify. Id put them above any other concacaf side other than the big 2 as well. It will still be a struggle for them to qualify though, but I'd bet on them getting through this group in the mock draw.
You watch. China will somehow sneak through in AFC (like 2002 - final groups will prol have Aus, Iran, Korea, Uzbek and Japan on one side with KSA and China on the other) and Concacaf will have another TnT or similar and both will end up in Sth Africas group.
I'm just very worried about where they are as a federation right now: the very bottom of a long down cycle; busy spending and planning for the Cup itself rather than the team. Where would you rank South Africa among African nations right now? And if they had to qualify, would you give them even a decent chance of making it?
South Africa are definately not top 10 in Africa, that's all I can say, they almost certainly would not qualify if they had to, but the point is that they cannot get any worse at this point, the only way is up, and in the nations cup and their last friendly there are signs of drastic improvement. Quite frankly I'm a little worried because they are in Nigeria's preliminary group, and are probably one of the best second seeded teams in the 12 group draw. They will definatley be one of the worst teams when the final 32 are revealed, but saying they will be by far the worst is going overboard. If they can get a favorable group like the one in the mock draw, with home support and their seemingly improving form they could definatley make the second round. I don't think they want to become the first home nation to fail at that.
It's geographic, not quality based. Which basically ensures that good concacaf and CAF teams are in a GoD 90% of the time. In 2006 it was basically like this: Pot A = Seeds Pot B = Other UEFA teams Pot C = Other Conmebol + CAF Pot D = Concacaf + AFC
The US would need another strong showing in the World Cup (much like 2002) in order to get seeded for the next world cup. They would probably also need to win all of the Gold Cups between now and the 2014 World Cup. They were very close to being seeded for the 2006 World Cup, but Mexico got the nod instead.
That's a tough one. I think I'm going to go with 'move to another continent.' ...Hey, Australia did it!
But it is not always like that. Throw out 02 because of the ridiculous double hosts etc and go back to 98: Mexico-South Korea US-Iran Jamaica-Japan The pots were kind to us that year. Concacaf completely avoided Africa and unseeded South America.
Argentina should be seeded ahead of Spain, btw. The linked source has the points from world cup performance wrong (unless I'm calculating it wrong) for Argentina, France, Portugal, Czech Republic, and probably more. Using the same methodology from the 2006 World Cup Seeding, the points gained from World Cup Performance should be 33% of 2002 WC Ranking + 66% of 2006 WC Ranking.
I believe that Edgar's calculations are right. The key is the number of points for teams finishing 3 & 4th in the group stage. IIRRC, the FIFA method gives 9 points for 3rd place teams and 8 points for 4th place teams. This will explain why you have a discrepancy for teams that made the WC, but finished 3 or 4th in the group stage.
Ok, I see that I was calculating the points for each world cup performance incorrectly. I thought he points earned for each performance is equal to (33 - your rank), but that only seems to hold true for top 16 ranks. Those ranked 17-24 get 9 points, and those ranked 25-32 get 8 points; essentially the difference between coming third and last in your group, I imagine.