Forgive me if this has been posted before, but I haven't seen a discussion on it. What if 16 teams were seeded? Draw 1-8 into their own groups, then place 9-16 accordingly. 16 goes into a group with 1, etc. The rest would be drawn as they are now. I haven't really thought this through, so tell me why it wouldn't work. I guess this could be a way to lower the chances "group of death" scenerio (although the group with 8 and 9 would probably be pretty tough). Do you guys think something like this would make the draw more balanced? Would a more balanced draw make the WC better or worse?
If you were to seed 16 or all 32 teams you'd also have to scrap many of the rules involved with the current draws. For example, you would have to allow for non-european teams to be grouped with others from their own confederation.
Actually, I think you could get your geographic diversity and still seed all the teams... Here's the 2006 Seeding Table Pot 1 - Brazil, England, Spain, Germany, Mexico, France, Argentina, Italy Pot 2 - USA, Netherlands, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, Croatia, Paraguay, Czech Republic Pot 3 - Portugal, Costa Rica, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Iran, Tunisia, Ecuador, Serbia Pot 4 - Switzerland, Ukraine, Ivory Coast, Australia, Trinidad, Ghana, Angola, Togo Suppose the draw from the first pot goes just like it did... Group A - Germany Group B - England Group C - Argentina Group D - Mexico Group E - Italy Group F - Brazil Group G - France Group H - Spain Then from Pot 2 - the rules are that USA can't go into D, Paraguay can't go into C or F - btw, I did this mock draw using a random number generator - not preselecting anything. First draw, Czech Rep - goes into Group A Next, Paraguay - goes into Group B Next, Croatia - goes into Group C Next, South Korea - goes into Group D Next, Netherlands - goes into Group E Next, Japan - goes into Group F Next, Sweden - goes into Group G Finally, USA - goes into Group H So now we have... Group A - Germany, Czech Republic Group B - England, Paraguay Group C - Argentina, Croatia Group D - Mexico, South Korea Group E - Italy, Netherlands Group F - Brazil, Japan Group G - France, Sweden Group H - Spain, USA Then the Pot 3 draw - at this point, Costa Rica cannot go into Groups D or H. Saudi Arabia & Iran cannot go into groups D or F. Ecuador cannot go into groups B, C or F. Finally, Groups A, E & G already have 2 European teams, so Portugal, Poland Serbia cannot be drawn into them. So, now the draw... First draw, Costa Rica - goes to Group A Next, Saudia Arabia - goes to Group B Next, Iran - goes to Group C Next, Poland - goes to Group D Next, Portugal - they can't go in E - so they go to Group F Next, Tunisia - goes into Group E At this point, Serbia can only go into Group H So Ecuador goes into Group G So after Pot 3 is drawn, we have the following... Group A - Germany, Czech Republic, Costa Rica Group B - England, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia Group C - Argentina, Croatia, Iran Group D - Mexico, South Korea, Poland Group E - Italy, Netherlands, Tunisia Group F - Brazil, Japan, Portugal Group G - France, Sweden, Ecuador Group H - Spain, USA, Serbia Now, Pot 4 - Switzerland & Ukraine can only go in Groups C, D or F. Trinidad & Tobago can't go in Groups A, D or H. African teams can't go in E. Now the draw... First draw, Ghana - goes into Group A Next, Ivory Coast - goes into Group B Next, Trinidad & Tobago - goes into Group C Next, Australia - since we have 2 Euro teams left and only 2 pots to put them into, Australia cannot go into D. Australia gets put into Group E Next, Switzerland - goes into Group D Next, Ukraine - goes into Group F Next, Angola - goes into Group G Finally, Togo - goes into Group H And we wind up with ... Group A - Germany, Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Ghana Group B - England, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, Ivory Coast Group C - Argentina, Croatia, Iran, Trinidad & Tobago Group D - Mexico, South Korea, Poland, Switzerland Group E - Italy, Netherlands, Tunisia, Australia Group F - Brazil, Japan, Portugal, Ukraine Group G - France, Sweden, Ecuador, Angola Group H - Spain, USA, Serbia, Togo So whether you agree with their seeding formula or not - you can seed all 32 teams and still achieve the geographic balance desired.
That would be a pretty balanced group stage. This type of system would reward teams like Japan, USA, South Korea, Netherlands, etc. for good performance (though not good enough to warrant a top 8 seed). It would also ensure that each of the top 8 seeds has at least one serious challenger to win the group. It kind of bothers me that France and Spain have a cakewalk in the WC 06 group stage, just because they were seeded in the top 8 and were lucky in the draw. I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be seeded, just that they should face tougher competition (on paper) than Argentina in the group stage based on their lower relative seeds. I'm glad somebody smarter (and more motivated) than me added to this discussion. Thanks. (edit) I'm an idiot - France and Spain are not seeded lower relative to Argentina. Hopefully you still get the point I was trying to make: higher seed should = easier (on paper) draw.
Balanced draw...except for the fact that Germany could easily be out in the group stage. Not a chance FIFA allows that. Group A - Germany, Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Ghana vs. Real draw: Germany, Poland, Costa Rica, Ecuador I'd sure rather have the real draw. Czech > Poland Ghana > Ecuador Haven't really thought about it but perhaps 16 seeded = harder to fix the draw. Every seed would have to get a top 16 team.
You're right - the host nation (even if they are seeded top 8) could be put in a very tough group. I would agree that it makes the tournament better when the host nation does well, but I wonder if this should be done at the expense of overall balance.
Considering the draw kevbrunton did for the United States, I wish 16 teams were seeded. It also supports my belief that the real Group E is harder than Group C because the real Group C could have been drawn using kevbrunton's method but the real Group E has three of the top sixteen and could not have been drawn using kevbrunton's method. I gave kevbrunton good rep.
I know using FIFA's ranking will draw some scoffs. But in the absence of something better and quicker, I will use that. Using the same seeds FIFA did, but ranking them in order 1-8 as they appear on FIFA's ranking, then filling out the rest 9-32 also in order that they appear here, this is what I came up with. No geographic rules and no random draw were used. 1 Brazil 32 Angola 16 Croatia 17 Costa Rica 8 Germany 25 Ukraine 9 Czech Republic 24 Ecuador 4 Spain 29 Ghana 13 Sweden 20 Korea Republic 5 Mexico 28 Australia 12 Portugal 21 Paraguay 2 Argentina 31 Togo 15 Iran 18 Poland 7 Italy 26 Cote d' Ivoire 10 Netherlands 23 Switzerland 3 France 30 Trinidad and Tobago 14 Japan 19 Tunisia 6 England 27 Serbia-Montenegro 11 United States 22 Saudi Arabia Feel free to dissect it.
Your premise is fine - just seed them 1-32 - but why use the static FIFA rankings. Just use the same mechanism that FIFA used to seed them. They ranked all 32 teams here. Also, I'd group them teams according to the following groupings... 1, 16, 24, 25 2, 15, 23, 26 3, 14, 22, 27 4, 13, 21, 28 5, 12, 20, 29 6, 11, 19, 30 7, 10, 18, 31 8, 9, 17, 32 This balances the groups better than the way you laid it out. You'd wind up with the following groups. Note, the teams have been put in these groups to properly match up 1v8, 2v7, etc. should those teams all survive to the quarterfinals. Group A - Germany, Sweden, Iran, Australia Group B - England, Paraguay, Ecuador, Ukraine Group C - Mexico, Japan, Poland, Trinidad and Tobago Group D - Argentina, Netherlands, Costa Rica, Angola Group E - Brazil, Czech Republic, Serbia and Montenegro, Switzerland Group F - Spain, Croatia, Tunisia, Ivory Coast Group G - Italy, USA, Portugal, Togo Group H - France, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Ghana Interesting matchups here...
Seeding teams and placing those teams into pots is an excellent idea for generating pots of relative strengths for the WC draw. I like the notion of the draw, however, over the idea of simply lining teams up by seeds. This brings some randomness into the Group play where number 1 seed (Pot A) could get a tougher challenge by draing number 9 seed (Pot B). At least it would be more exciting as far as the WC draw goes.
I don't see how Spain and Mexico are seeded, but Portugal and Holland aren't. They may have done better in 2002, but the whole point of seeds is to keep the best teams apart in THIS world cup, not the last one. I know I'd rather have Spain and Mexico in our group than Portugal and Holland.
Anyway you slice it... Groups B, E, and F have 3 of the top 16 teams ranked by FIFA while A, D, and H only have 1... Just looking at that should say something about how unbalanced the groupings are and that the system needs to change. A: 4, 18, 20, 23 B: 2, 13, 15, 29 C: 7, 10, 24, 27 D: 5, 17, 21, 31 E: 8, 9, 16, 30 F: 1, 12, 14, 28 G: 6, 11, 25, 32 H: 3, 19, 22, 26 Looking at the numbers... the toughest groups according to FIFA are E, F, and B. Anybody have a problem with this? Brazil (F) has the "2nd toughest" group and we're not even sure which team deserves to advance. The easiest groups are A, D, and H.
I'd say the top 8 seeds should be: Brazil Argentina Italy England Germany Holland Portugal Czech Republic And the second seeds: America Spain Mexico Poland Sweden France Croatia Switzerland Hosts, if they otherwise aren't seeded, should go in the second pot not the first.