Host: Armenia(since not enough South American team, i chose the highest ranked FIFA team that did not qualify for Brazil 2014 and this B Finals) AFC: Jordan, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Oman, Iraq(no playoff team from South America) CAF: Egypt, Senegal, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Burkina Faso CONCAFAF: Panama, Jamaica, Guatamela, (best third place team in Round 4), Canada(victory over Oceania playoff team, New Caledonia) CONMEBOL: Venezula, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay. UEFA: Group A: Serbia Group B: Denmark Group C: Sweden Group D: Romania Group E: Iceland Group F: Israel Group G: Slovakia Group H: Ukraine Group I: Finland Last remaining qualified teams are the best third placed team in their group and the highest FIFA ranking at time of writing: Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria. place),. Pot 1: seeded team:Armenia(the host), Ukraine, Sweden, Denmark, Czech Republic, Serbia, Romania, Slovenia Pot 2:Jordan, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Oman, Iraq, Panama, Jamaica, Guatamela. pot 3: Egypt, Senegal, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Venezula, Peru, Bolivia. Pot 4: Iceland, Isreal, Slovakia, Finland, Hungary, Austria, Canada, Paraguay. Group A: Armenia, Oman, Ethiopia, Canada Group B: Ukraine, Egypt, Qatar, Paraguay. Group C: Sweden, Panama, Israel, Peru Group D: Denmark, Uzbekistan, Tunisia, Iceland. Group E: Czech Republic, Iraq, Burkina Faso, Austria Group F: Serbia, Jordan, Senegal, Slovakia Group G: Romania, Jamaica, Venezula, Hungary. Group H: Slovenia, Guatemela, Bolivia, Finland. What would be the winner?
Probably Sweden or ukraine would win, maybe Egypt surprising. Other than that, not many clear-cut favorites.
While the AFC saw its top 4 teams qualify to the World Cup, I must say that its next best teams aren't the ones that came out of the qualifiers. Teams like Saudi Arabia and China, who didn't even make the final rounds, would in my opinion rate between Uzbekistan and Jordan, making the real pegging order in the AFC for a B World Cup that truly represented the best non-qualified AFC teams as follows: 1- Uzbekistan 2- Saudi Arabia 3- China 4-Jordan 5-Iraq Incidentally, there can actually be an interesting "consolation" World Cup, but it obviously can't be hosted by Armenia! The best solution would be to divide the hosting privileges between the top 2 non-qualifying teams from each of AFC/OFC, CONMEBOL/CONCACAF, UEFA, and CAF and have them each host one of these groups. The hosts would then be weeded out in a predetermined fashion for the quarterfinals and beyond.
I picked those teams because they actually finished in the spots right below the four qualifiers. In fact, all of the teams were chosen based on actual WCQers. Okay, I have Iraq beating Lebanon on the AFC playoff and Canada on top of New Caledonia, the actual second place team from Oceania. Armenia surprisingly ranked very high on the FIFA ranking. I thought of hosting it in South Africa. And all the seeds were European teams too. It was based on actual FIFA rankings.
Sorry, my mistake.... I completely forgot about them. Playoff: New Zealand vs Canada. I will give the spot to New Zealand.
bold = advance to round of 16 Group A: Armenia, Oman, Ethiopia, Canada Group B: Ukraine, Egypt, Qatar, Paraguay. Group C: Sweden, Panama, Israel, Peru Group D: Denmark, Uzbekistan, Tunisia, Iceland. Group E: Czech Republic, Iraq, Burkina Faso, Austria Group F: Serbia, Jordan, Senegal, Slovakia Group G: Romania, Jamaica, Venezula, Hungary. Group H: Slovenia, Guatemela, Bolivia, Finland.