That's also better competition for the club teams than AFC Champions League. Well, that and the money of course...
Kazakhstan was an Asian member and only joined UEFA in 2002. Confederation membership isn't all about WCQ. It's also about revenue sharing and club competitions. The revenue sharing in UEFA must be much higher than the AFC. Anyway, happy with our group. Portugal hasn't impressed me lately.
By and large i feel Denmark have gotten a so-so draw ... purely going by strength Group E should be relatively easy (I'm a proponent of World football Elo ratings, in which Denmark and Romania is basicly neck-to-neck with Poland some 10 spots further down), but with only East European opponents, with whatever problems that include, including protentailly lacking ticket sales for home, hostile away turfs and badly fitting opponent tactical view ... pff ... not exactly a dream draw.
?? Group H is anything but clear. All of BiH, Belgium and Greece could finish anywhere between 1st and 3rd.
Don't forget about Iceland. They're no joke either. They're currently sitting atop a Euro qualifying group that also includes the Netherlands, Turkey, and the Czech Republic.
I am the poster to whom you replied. Thanks, because I don't have a way to gauge the staying power of Belgium, or of BiH.
Yes, that's what I thought. I think somehow Belgium is now getting all these mad props for 2 years, at most, of good running form.
(Not sure if sarcastic ) Typically, second-tier Euro teams such as BiH and Greece (and Belgium is probably borderline 1st-tier) are the most inconsistent in UEFA. You never know what kind of campaign you'll see from them.
Not to mention we have a great record against them in our history. We drew 1-1 with them at home this campaign (where a Begovic blunder let in their goal) and beat them home and away in the 2010 WC qualifiers. Not saying at all that we'll sweep them (or Greece, who we did well against in WC 2014 qualifying) but it will be very close between these three teams. I feel like Estonia may turn out to be the whipping boys of the groups, Cyprus will be somewhat tricky.
I don't want to delve too deeply into politics here, but I think Turkey being a UEFA member isn't just about better competition and financial reasons. Turkey considers itself European. They are a member of NATO and have wanted to join the European Union for many years. So they're closely aligned with Europe politically. It wouldn't make sense politically for them to be in AFC. It wouldn't be consistent to be affiliated with Europe politically, but with Asia in sports organizations. Despite their geographical location, they have closer ties with Europe than with Asia.
Belgium is getting props for the last couple years, the fact they have a talented core who will still be young enough for 2018, and the fact they've revolutionized their youth training system. They'll be good for some time and are no flash in the pan. Ger, Fra, Ita, Esp, Eng, Ned, Por was more or less the cream of the crop from UEFA for the last 15 years with the odd team like a Czech joining them for a couple years. I don't see another short term golden generation like a Czech from anyone else on the horizon (maybe Sui). Portugal has regressed a bit and is arguably out of this group. Belgium looks like they'll join this group for a long stretch. Just my opinion, but that's what the evidence would suggest anyway.
To the Bosnians who answered my post.... Cheers. I am new to following the WC draw so closely. I knew that Belgium was a seeded team last summer, and currently ranked in the top 5 by FIFA. What I lack is experience to know how likely that is to stay for the next 2+ years until the qualifying campaign is finished. Many here, including Chicago76 have helped me with that. Likewise, I knew that BiH had a good 2014 year. Again, I didn't know if it is reasonable to expect that to continue. And, Greece. What I have read indicates that they have a defensive style difficult to play against, and as such, their results are often difficult to predict. Everyone here seems to have confirmed that. My initial comment about the group containing all 3 of these was based on the idea that, if Belgium was more young than old in 2014, winning the group in 2018 WCQ should not be impossible for them. Many here have commented and helped me understand better. Thank you.
Don't know about BiH or Belgium, but it is hard to believe Greece could have deteriorated so badly since WC2014, but they have. They are ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. Seriously. I mean, they've lost home and away to Faroe Islands in the present Euro Qualifiers and are on their THIRD manager of the campaign. I think they should get the Greek FA to run their Government and the Greek Government to run their football team. Each could only be an improvement... P.S. Nothing personal to any Greeks reading - nice people in my experience.
You're right that Greece traditionally rely on being defensive, competitive and hard to beat, while hoping to win by the only goal of the game. This has worked well for them in the past. But I saw Greece lose 2-0 to Northern Ireland in Athens in October 2014 (Euro2016 Qualifier) and couldn't believe how bad they were. When they had the ball, they looked OK until the last 1/3rd of the field, when they became totally clueless about scoring. And when they conceded the ball to NI they looked very shaky. Basically, when NI got their second goal in the 51st minute, that was the game over - Greece could still be playing that game and not have scored, even after NI had gone home! And their other games in the Group have been little better - in total they've played six games, scored two goals and gained two points. Of course, they can only get better - and likely will eventually - but there is no sign of that happening any time soon.
Unfortunately FIFA still haven't worked out how to properly conduct a draw where there is this sort of constraint. When it starts to go wrong they shuffle teams along to a different group. That's not good enough: it skews the odds, one way or another. Using the FIFA bodge-up, the chance of any of England/Germany/Spain/Netherlands being in each group were: A: 56/126 ( = 4/9), 44% B: 56/126, 44% C: 56/126, 44% D: 61/126, 48% E: 73/126, 58% F: 91/126, 72% G: 111/126, 88% H: 0 I: 0 Likewise, the chance of either of France/Italy being in each group were: A: 8/36 (=2/9), 22% B: 8/36, 22% C: 8/36, 22% D: 8/36, 22% E: 8/36, 22% F: 11/36, 31% G: 21/36, 58% H: 0 I: 0 This all made the chance of a clash in group G far more likely than it should have been, and made (e.g.) Italy's chance of drawing Germany a bit higher than 1/7 for no good reason.
I have wondered about their draw procedures for a long time. It seems like, in a situation like this, they should do: First, Draw the Group for the team, rather than the team for the group, in the case of Ger/Neth/Eng/Spain. Like this: Put Letters A - G in the bowl. Start at the top of FIFA Rankings. Germany. Draw a ball. Germany goes in that group. Continue for these 4 teams. It's a 4 out of 7 draw, with even odds. Second, the other #1s don't matter. Draw them either way. That's a 5 team/5 group draw, with no restrictions. Third, start on the #2s. Same way. 7 balls, 2 draws for Italy/France. Then, continue the rest. Alternative in this case. Draw all the first 5 pots. That gives you 9 groups. At most, 6 have the big hitters. Now, when you draw the last pot, do it like this: However many groups you have without the big teams, put those balls in the bowl. Draw 2. Those are the groups with 5 teams. Now, draw the teams to the other 7 groups. It's not hard, once you think of how to do the odds right. Same applies to the WCF draw. They need to do that different, too, because when they avoid confederation matchups, it skews the odds the same way.
For the later groups where the odds increased, you didn't show your work. Assuming your odds are correct, here are odds of each group having one of England/Germany/Spain/Netherlands and one of France/Italy, calculated by multiplying the two probabilities: A: 448/4,536, 9.9% B: 448/4,536, 9.9% C: 448/4,536, 9.9% D: 488/4,536, 10.8% E: 584/4,536, 12.9% F: 1,001/4,536, 22.1% G: 2,331/4,536, 51.4% I expressed all fractions with the large denominator of 4,536 even when they could be reduced. I think reducing the fractions to lowest terms is unnecessary when the percents are given. Adding the seven fractions yields an expectation of 1.27 groups having one of England/Germany/Spain/Netherlands and one of France/Italy. I'd be interested in the probability that both France and Italy would be grouped with one of England/Germany/Spain/Netherlands. If the seven probability were independent events, I could calculate the probability of that, but the probabilities are not independent events because once Netherlands was placed in Group A, the probability of the other groups having one of England/Germany/Spain/Netherlands went down. Edit: If every country in the top two pots was equally likely to go into each group, the expected number of groups with one of England/Germany/Spain/Netherlands and one of France/Italy would be 4/9 * 2/9 = 8/81 * 9 groups = 8/9ths. Therefore the rules about countries having to go into groups of six increased the expected number of groups with one of England/Germany/Spain/Netherlands and one of France/Italy from 0.89 to 1.27 which is an increase of 0.38 groups and 42.6% more groups.
That's because I enumerated them. I make it 1665/4536. (I may have cocked it up somewhere, of course.)
I agree, it's not hard. But for the time being we're stuck with Valcke fudging it. Maybe when he's gone we'll get someone with a clue instead.
WCF Draw should be like this: (Assuming 5 UEFA #1s, and 3 CONMEBOL) Step 1: Draw One UEFA nation from the all-UEFA Pot, as well as 2,3,4 team designator for game order. This team effectively goes into Pot 2, but its Group #1 and order number are already determined. Step 2: Draw One CONMEBOL nation from among the CONMEBOL #1s. These 2 are now linked. (They actually did this pretty well). Step 3: Draw the #1s into their Groups. Thus, one UEFA is placed as well, as described in 1) and 2) above. Step 4: At this point set aside a special bowl for the 2 CONMEBOL #2s. Set aside another special bowl with either the names of the UEFA #1 seeds, or with the Groups into which they have been already been drawn. (If you want to have all this done ahead so the SHOW runs smooth, then a bowl with the nations' names works better.) Step 5: Now, draw first a CONMEBOL team and then a UEFA team from these special bowls, and an order number for the CONMEBOL team. Do this twice for the CONMEBOL teams. You have now taken care of the special considerations for this draw IN A WAY THAT PRESERVES PROPER ODDS AND RANDOMNESS. Step 6: Only now can you actually, randomly select the remaining teams from Pot 2. Step 7: Pot 3, which has no issues, assuming it is all AFC and CONCACAF as it has been in the past 2 WCFs. Step 8: Pot 4, chooing the other 8 UEFA teams.
How has Portugal regressed? With the likes of Bernardo Silva, Joao Mario, William Carvalho, Lopes, Cedric, Andre Gomes and Andre Silva. We were argueably the best team at the u-21 euro beating teams like Germany 5-0 and England who had the likes of Kane on there squad 2018 is a while away a lot of youngsters can play a big part of there respective teams Look at Serbia they are awful but by 2018 they will have a decent team when the youngsters get into the game same goes for Italy, England and Sweden
? Serbia euro u19 winner 2013 world champion u20 2015...Croatia ahead of Italia in his group, modric, rakitic, mandzukic in the Last 3 champions league winners and several young talented players around...and both of these squads Would Feel very comfortable in Russia.
Portugal should be introducing some of the youth that have been turning heads the past few youth WC and Euro. So yes, they seemed to have taken a step back during WC14 and though getting the job done this Euro qualifying, they haven't looked that good, but unfortunately for the Swiss I think that's all about to change. Even a weakened Portugal is a few notches above Switzerland, lucky for you guys the third best team is Hungary and I doubt they will cause much issues.
Youngsters are promising, but currently their ability to achieve their potential is highly speculative, particularly when many of them have not yet played a lot of first team matches. When I speak of regression, I'm talking about Portugal has regressed in qualifying and tourney results over the past 8 or so years. 2004 and 2006 were high water marks. Then you guys were a bit unlucky from 2008-12 running into the eventual champs early in knockouts (but playing well overall). The team seemed to live and die with CR, and last WC was tough all around. Portugal came closer to going out than at any point in recent history (close to the very end v. Sweden) and the wheels came off in the tournament. Portugal looked old and slow at the WC. Part of that was Ronaldo's fitness. In truth, I feel like his quality masked a lot of the decline from 2006-14, but it was there for all to see last year. Will Portugal rebound with the new crop of youth? Maybe. But promising groups of young players have fizzled before.