Oh sure, Brazil, Netherlands, Mexico, Côte d'Ivoire would be the toughest group ever in a World Cup, but I think we'd all be rejoicing that 1. we weren't in it, and 2. Mexico would be.
With Argentina qualifying last week, there is only one "seed" that has yet to qualify -- France. If they don't qualify, Holland is next ahead of Mexico and the US.
Well Argentina had the group of death in 02 and 06. As for the just discussed worst group ever. It will not happen. When has Brazil ever had a difficult first round group?
That would be the ultimate outcome. However, it also opens up the possibility of the absolute worst outcome which is that it's CAF+CONMEBOL+Mexico instead, and the US is in with AFC. Given the politics at FIFA, I would be surprised if the US was given preference over Mexico. Already, there are rumors that Mexico is being placed in South Africa's group, and the Mexicans have set up their base in Johannesburg. It would be pretty irritating for Mexico to wind up with another cupcake draw while the US gets a group like the one from '06.
Bizarre, but keeping to facts, the US is already based in Pretoria, near Johannesburg as well. Most teams are choosing to be based in this area regardless of where they are drawn.
Fair enough, but it doesn't seem likely that the US would be preferred to Mexico on the basis of politics.
Definitely. In the ELO rankings (which I trust more than FIFA rankings).......they're ahead of the Ivory Coast.
Blatter weighs in on the subject: Blatter Concedes Poor PR for World Cup Qualifying Seedings As usual, Sepp is as clear as mud, but it doesn't look like they plan on changing anything until 2014
That's nothing to do with seeding the WC groups, it's about seeding the WC UEFA play-offs and the fact it was only announced a few days before the play-off draw that the teams would be seeded.
This has already been mentioned, but not clarified... why would USA be the broken out team and not, say, Mexico? Just because of current FIFA ranking? How was Serbia picked for the special pot last WC draw? I thought it was random.
They were in the special pot because they were the lowest UEFA team in the FIFA rankings at the time.
UEFA seeding their playoff of second place teams is one of the most outrageous things I've ever seen. Teams that finish second do not deserve a seed! This crap has got to stop. I am very optimistic about our chances next year. A European team has never won the WC off European soil and it won't happen next year either. It will probably be Brazil (who looked 100x better than Italy & Spain in the Confed Cup), but look for several non-UEFA teams to stage big surprises. USA doesn't need a seed in South Africa.
We know why UEFA did that. CONCACAF does the same silly business. They never seem to explain anything. Like how they pick some arbitrary point in time to determine the pots for WCQ seeds. This past cycle........they picked the date just before the 2007 Gold Cup. Surprise, surprise......that meant Trinidad & Tobago got a "higher seed" than if they had used the rankings from AFTER the Gold Cup. Canada would have been in that more highly seeded pot B. But they never really announced what date they were going to use until later. Is there any question that seeding the playoffs favored France? Who's the head of UEFA? Only Michel Platini. I never believe in coincidences.
But Portugal is ahead of the Netherlands. Also, Portugal could mathematically even slide in ahead of France. Edited to add: Assuming, of course, that Portugal qualifies.
ribery is out for the play-off making it tougher for france... root root root for bosnia... the math is still against usa, but you never know if fifa does some tinkering.. still keeping LIKE confeds, except europe from the same group, makes it tougher to seed the 2nd potted sides... you'd be almost rigging the draw doing so, with all the special rules you'd need to create to keep them apart... usa plays well, and it can advance.... then it's a luck of match-ups in the elimination rounds
There is no math or tinkering that gets us there. We won't get a seed. There are 7 teams already qualified who are 10+ points ahead of us.
i agree, the only chance would be a change in the rules... and i wouldn't say never to fifa doing something to get what they want...
And I can't figure out how they'd redo the formula to have us jump over 3-4 teams. Our results have been our results. I mean, they're not going to say............"the team that finished first in CONCACAF qualifying gets a seed." That would be about the only thing they could do, and the rest of the world world be a little confused why that wouldn't apply to them as well (see Asia, Africa, etc.) And the big elephant in the room is that as far as I can tell, every seeding calculation I've seen has Mexico ranked ahead of the US anyway. I know we won the hex, but they won the Gold Cup. So technically Mexico is the CONCACAF champion right now. (i know, i know, "B" team, blah, blah, blah. Irrelevant). And if Mexico had known a seed was on the line, they sure as hell would have won their last hex game against TT. We're not getting a seed. And Mexico isn't getting a seed either. Simple as that.
Not happening, I agree, but FIFA could reserve seeds for teams that finished first in their WCQ group (or first/second in 10-team CONMEBOL) - so no France, Portugal, Argentina or Mexico. Who else do we need to eliminate from our path?