showing that this was indeed a tough and talented group. I feel Aus and/or Serbia would have qualified from Group C, Anyway good luck to the Group D Qualifiers as they progress throughout the tournament
its kind of a moot point by now but it is a shame that the WC had groups like D and G, and some truly terrible groups like the one Italy was LAST in . I think the seeding needs to be changed to be honest. I maintain that the worst team in this group is at least the equal of the best team in group C.
Simple solution: Maybe put everyone in pots base on rankings and just make sure no two teams from one confederation (except Europe) are together? Than i.e. Cote d'Ivoire would be in pot 2 with Portugal, France, Mexico and so on.
To be honest, there's no way of preventing these things. Rankings are never accurate, but even if we'd survey a team of experts before the tournament, who would have thought that Italy would turn out to be that bad? Of course one could see the writing on the wall regarding France (and I didn't think that they'd progress from group stage), but the way they imploded was still surprising. So even though Germany ended up in a very tough group this time around and was on the verge of an early exit, I still don't see any better system. Just using the FIFA rankings certainly won't help, rather the opposite. There is of course always room for improvement, some tweaking here and there, but overall, I see no perfect solution. It's just what it is: The World Cup. And you just have to beat the teams that are put in front of you.
No, CIV would have been in pot 3 in this case. Pot allocation based on FIFA rankings only (Host automatically in pot 1): Pot 1: South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England Pot 2: France, Portugal, USA, Switzerland, Cameroon, Greece, Chile, Mexico Pot 3: Côte d'Ivoire, Serbia, Paraguay, Australia, Uruguay, Denmark, Algeria, Nigeria Pot 4: Slovakia, Honduras, Ghana, Japan, Korea Republic, Slovenia, New Zealand, Korea DPR Group A would be impossible, either France or Mexico would be replaced by a pot 4 team. Group B would still be possible Group C would still be possible Group D would be impossible, either Serbia or Australia would be replaced by a pot 2 team Group E would still be possible Group F would be impossible, either NZ or Slovakia would be replace by a pot 2 team (e.g. France or Mexico) Group G would still be possible Group H would be impossible, Chile or Switzerland would be replaced by a pot 3 team. So based on FIFA rankings, you see that group A and group H are stronger and group F and funnily group D are weaker. Or rather you see that the FIFA ranking isn't that good. I think I should try ELO rankings and make new pots according to them.
Based on Elo rating: Pot 1: the same Pot 2: Mexico, France, Chile, Portugal, USA, Serbia, Uruguay, Switzerland Pot 3: Japan, Denmark, Paraguay, Australia, Cote d'Ivoire, Honduras, South Korea, Nigeria Pot 4: Greece, Ghana, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cameroon, Algeria, New Zealand, Korea DPR Group A: totally impossible two out of Uruguay, France and Mexico would be replaced with pot 3 and 4 teams Group B: Impossible, SK or Nigeria would be replaced with a pot 2 team Group C: Impossible, Algeria or Slovenia would be replaced with a pot 3 team Group D: Still possible Group E: Impossible, Denmark or Japan would be replaced with a pot 2 team Group F: Impossible, Slovakia or NZ would be replaced with a pot 2 team Group G: Still possible Group H: Impossible, Switzerland or Chile would be replaced with a pot 4 team.