2010 Seeding Formula: January 2008 update

No question. I'm pretty sure that no host team has ever failed to escape the group stages. I'm also pretty sure that South Africa will be the first - I can't fathom them finishing top two in a group, no matter who they get matched up with.

 

That is true no host team has ever not qualified for the knockout stage. Blatter even bashed the South African national team today. I'm a USA fan and I'm hoping we get put in group A with what would probably be a non seeded European team, an Asian team, and South Africa.

 

Actually, that's not necessarily true. FIFA hasn't decided yet how they're going to separate the confederations in the pots. CONCACAF & AFC in the same pot is the most likely result, but just because that's the way it was done in 2006 doesn't mean it will be the same way in 2010.

 

CONCACAF will be in a pot with an African or Asian team. They had them potted with an asian team last time because that's who they played in the play. This time they CONCACAF and CONMEBOL play in the plyoff but the numbers don't add up for pot dividing so we'll see. I tend to think they'll rotate it and pot them with Africa. Either way Pot A is the pot you want to be in. You only get one european team that way.

 

Oh, please! Put CONCACAF in a pot with Africa! That means we have a 1 in 3/4 chance of getting in Group A!

...I have that right, don't I?

 

No matter what Pot we get put in we'll have a 25% chance of getting in Group A

 

• The 7 seeded teams will have 0% chance of being in group A (assuming 5 UEFA and 2 CSF).
• Each of the teams in the UEFA Pot will have an 12.5% chance of being in group A.
• Whoever is in the pot with the 5 CAF teams will have a 33% chance of ending up in group A (one out of the three remaining teams).
• The last pot will be made of 5 AFC+OFC and 3 teams from CSF or CONCACAF (assuming CSF wins the playoff) each of these teams will also have a 12.5% chance of being in group A.

If CONCACAF and NZ win the playoffs then CONCACAF (4 teams) will be paired with AFC (4) and CAF (5) + CSF (2) + NZ will make the other pot. However if CONCACAF and AFC win the playoffs, FIFA might not have an nice combo since we'll have CAF (5), AFC (5), CONCACAF (4) and CSF (2, the other two are seeded). This might finally force FIFA to seed all teams and simply limit the number of countries of the same confederation in a group.

 

I don't know about you but I could almost bak on New Zealand winning the pot. I really don't think the CONCACAF 4th place team have a good cnance against the 5th place team from South America. But I think that's more likely if one of them were to happen, but I'd pick the Asian and the South Americans to win the playoffs. Making both pots that aren't european or seeded being 5+3

 

God I hope my country gets put in Group A.

 

Edgar,

As I understand it, the points based on the FIFA ranknigs over the three years prior to the World Cup are calculated by averaging the December Rankings from 2007, 2008, and 2009. Now, when you do your Seeding Formula, you use the December 2007 rankings, and the current month (November) for the 2008 and 2009 rankings, correct? So, going by current FIFA rankings to select the 32 teams, I get England to be ranked 11, 10, and 10 for their '07, '08, and '09 FIFA rankings (these rankings are their relative ranking to the other 32 "qualified" teams). This yields values of 22, 23, and 23 for an average of 22.7. You show a value of 22.0 for England. The only way I can account for this discrepency is if England is ranked 11 and 11 for '08 and '09, but they're tied with Portugal in the November '08 rankings at 10.

I get similar discrepencies for Mexico, USA, Nigeria, Uruguay, Egypt.

I have Egypt, Nigeria, Uruguay, USA, Mexcio ranked as 21, 22, 23,24, 25 by FIFA in Nov '08. This gives them a respective ranking among the 32 qualified WC teams of 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. I would need to give Egypt, Nigeria, USA, Mexico a Nov '08 FIFA ranking of 25, 21, 22, 23, 24 to reproduce your results for your 2010 FIFA World Cup seeding based on the latest FIFA Ranking.

 

There were some comments over in the US N&A forum about what effect a good run in the Confed Cup would have on the chances of the US nabbing a seed.

Now, I think it's incredibly unlikely. But I don't have the math to come up with an answer, and I am curious. I know that we'd have to do well enough to push ourselves up pretty high in the FIFA rankings.

In fact, now that I think about it, I can probably talk myself out of it without even getting the math. The Confed Cup would only influence the December '09 rankings. That's just 1/4 of the Rankings component. And with the way the timing works, the Confed Cup is in the summer. There will be Euro and S. American WCQs between the Confed Cup and when the December rankings are set, which will push up Euro and S. American teams in relation to the US.

Ah, well, I'll post anyway, to see if anyone feels like running the numbers out of curiosity.

 

oh, so the final seeding will use the November 2009 ranking and not the December 2009 ranking? I suppose the selection process takes place too early to use the December 2009 ranking.

 

any ideas on what FIFA uses as their tiebreaker for when two teams have the same amount of points in their ranking system? For instance, this month (December 08), France, Portugal, and Czech Republic are all ranked 11; but in the zonal (UEFA) ranking, France is ranked ahead of Portugal who is ranked ahead of Czech Republic.

The only thing I can see is that the +/- points from Nov. 08 to Dec. 08 are in that same order:

France: -28
Portugal: -51
Czech Reuplic: -55

Although, last month when Portugal and England had the same amount of points, and Portugal ended up with the higher rank, England had the higher +/- points from Oct. 08 to Nov. 08:

Portugal: -17
England: +76

 

In which language is probably the key question here that would answer your confusion.

And are you really posting from Iaşi, Romania?