The UEFA qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup are now almost over, but the overall situation in most groups remains rather complicated, so we we are bound to witness many dramatic encounters today and on Tuesday! State your predictions! Which national team is the most likely to get the short end of the stick by clinching second place in its group, but suffering elimination without going through the playoffs? The current rankings can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_(UEFA)#First_round
I know it's futile complaining about it, but that's just ridiculous eliminating a team like that automaticaly, surely there's another way. You're gonna need a flipping calcular and losts of charts just to work out who's elminated on the final day.. not looking too good for Bulgaria though unfortnately mate...
What do you suggest? The worst two second place teams could play each other for the right to play another team, but is it worth spending two matchdays on that?
@glennaldo_sf, thanks mate, I agree that it's quite likely that my team will be the one that won't participate in the playoffs, though we had it in our hands and personally I don't have any complaints regarding the regulations. On the plus side, I have to admit that by making everything rather complicated, UEFA has paved the way for a higher number of meaningful games - teams that have already secured second place in their group are discouraged from becoming too complacent by fielding too many reserve players, as they have to make sure that they are ahead of their rivals in the other qualifying groups to avoid last minute scares. @EvanJ, I like this idea, though it could indeed be a bit problematic due to the time constraints.. @slam_hua, thank you, Iceland and Slovenia will most likely battle it out for the last playoff spot. @BocaFan and @papermache16, indeed, though World Cup (final phase) groups could also be rather unbalanced. In any case teams like Armenia (great offensive players) deserve to be in pot 4 for the 2016 Euro qualifying draw.
Disband that 9th group and make 5 groups of 7 teams, 3 of six... both WC 2006 and Euro 2008 euro cup had 6-team groups... even euro 2008 qualifying had one group of EIGHT teams and they still managed! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2008_qualifying_Group_A Another solution would be pre-group qualifiers for some of the minnow nations to keep the groups down to six, but I don't see why they can't go back to 7 team groups. As someone already stated, this only punishes teams in more evenly matched groups...
How does this solve getting 13 teams? Best second place team goes in automatically? Kind of the same problem.
Oh yeah.... um but there is a solution 8 group winners + 2 best 2nd place teams qualifies automatically, the 6 remaining runners up playoff for final 3 spots. That makes 13 I think.
I guess it's a lot less harder a pill to swallow if two 2nd place teams go in automatically and 6 teams still have a chance as opposed to 1 team not being allowed to playoff due to a competitive group.
This is how it was done for the 2006 World Cup qualifiers. I don't know why they didn't continue to do it.