After months and months performing mock draws for the various seeding threads, here is my final draw before Friday. Comments to follow. A Germany Switzerland Ecuador Trinidad&Tobago B Argentina Portugal Saudi Arabia Togo C Mexico Paraguay Serbia&Montenegro Czech Republic D Italy Ivory Coast Japan Ukraine E Spain USA Australia Croatia F Brazil Costa Rica Tunisia Poland G France Ghana Netherlands South Korea H England Iran Sweden Angola Comments: -the hosts are blessed with a favorable group and an interesting opening match against Switzerland -Mexico's seed appears to backfire here, creating a rather difficult group -USA's group isn't an easy one, but it could be worse too. HOWEVER, it would be paramount to win this group (an extremely tall order). Winning the group would probably mean avoiding Brazil in the knockout stage--and being paired against the weakest team to advance -Brazil blessed with a weak group
Working through the odds of teams meeting seems to bring up some strange results. Take, for example, the odds for the US (Trinidad and Costa Rica are identical) getting any other teams in their group. Teams from Pot 1 Chance of getting England, Italy, Spain or France is slightly more than 1 in 7 (~15.8% for each of team) Chance of getting Germany is exactly 1 in 7 (14.3%) Chance of getting Brazil is a bit less (~11.9%) and Chance of getting Argentina is less than that (~10.4%) Teams from Pot 2 Chance of getting Ecuador or Paraguay is slightly more than 1/8 (~12.8%) Chance of getting Australia or an African side is slightly less than 1/8 (~12.4%). This sort of seems odd as you can't get 2 SA teams, and you have about a 20% chance of getting BRA or ARG so that would seem to suggest you should be less likely to get ECU/PAR than the others. But, the other factors seem to actually give the opposite result. Teams from Pot 3 Chances are 1 in 8 for all J This was compiled from a 100,000 iteration model of the draw which converged on the correct share for all the odds I could work out easily. Which certainly doesn't means it's correct.
Using FIFA's pots Pot 1: Germany allocated to A1 Brazil allocated to F1 England - B1 Italy - C1 Mexico - D1 France - E1 Argentina - G1 Spain - H1 Special Pot: Serbia & Montenegro into group D, spot 2 Pot 4: Iran - A4 Saudi Arabia - B3 Korea Republic - C2 Costa Rica - E3 (group D filled by Serbia & Montenegro) USA - F2 Japan - G4 Trinidad & Tobago - H3 Pot 3: CONMEBOL teams are drawn first to avoid Brazil and Argentina: Ecuador is drawn, then group E, followed by spot 4 Group D is drawn so Paraguay is there as D3 Cote d'Ivoire - A2 Angola - B4 Tunisia - C4 Togo - F3 (D & E are taken) Ghana - G2 Australia - H2 To keep the suspense pot 2 was left for the end: Croatia - A (only spot 3 is left) Czech Republic - B2 Portugal - C3 Netherlands - D4 (the irony) Switzerland - E2 Poland - F4 Sweden - G3 Ukraine - H4 So we get: Code: [b]Group A Group B Group C Group D[/b] Germany England Italy Mexico Cote d'Ivoire Czech Republic Korea Republic Serbia & Montenegro Croatia Saudi Arabia Portugal Paraguay Iran Angola Tunisia Netherlands [b]Group E Group F Group G Group H[/b] France Brazil Argentina Spain Switzerland USA Ghana Australia Costa Rica Togo Sweden Trinidad & Tobago Ecuador Poland Japan Ukraine
OK, the one thing I don't understand is why our chance of getting into Germany's group is any less than that of England, Italy, Spain or France. There will be either 6 or 7 groups available for us to be drawn into, depending on whether Serbia is put with Mexico or with Brazil/Arg. Only the Brazil and Arg. chances are effected, right? The pot will still contain the Group A Germany ball as well as those of the other Euro countries no matter what. I think you're working off the "slide-down" model of the draw. Is that how it's going to be done? I thought we were going with the random Group draw from pots this time (?)
Yes it's "slide down" which would affect the draw - and give the Germany v roUEFA effect. Fifa site has "The eight chosen seeds will be placed in Pot 1, and drawn as the first teams in Groups A to H, from left to right. As mentioned above, it has already been decided that Germany will play in Group A." This is a bit old (and a bit contradictory. Are Germany and Brazil going to be in pots when we know their groups). It doesn't say anything about whether the other groups will be drawn A-H in order, only that a draw will be done straight after to decide position 1-4 in the group. J
I'm a little curious about how this works -- I was naively figuring that we had a 2/3 chance of an open slot in Mexico's group for our draw, 1/3 not (determined by where S&M is drawn), and then an equal chance of getting any of the available groups. I figured that any sort of "bump" system (if we drew Mexico, we would get shifted) would not favor anybody in particular because the non-Germany, non-Brazil seeds will be randomly distributed.
I'm still trying to get my head around it as well. However, today's meaningless number is my estimate of the <fanfare> Number of possible draws for the World Cup </fanfare> (This includes with the positions in the group as well - and is actually the number of possible ways the balls could be drawn out of their bowls - some orders will give the same result). Estimated number is 30 x 28 x 35 x 3 x 2! x 6! x 4! x 3! x 8! x 4! x (3!)^8 or 17,698,046,607,360,000 x 1,679,619 (where the first is the number of possible ways the teams can be grouped* and the second is the number of orders those teams could appear in spots 2-4). * - this is actually the number of ways the balls could come out of Pots 1,2,3,X and 4. J
Anyone else more than a little irritated by the lack of specific information regarding the draw? In 2002, the procedure was spelled out much more. This time it is extremely vague. (not to mention more than a bit unsporting with the whole special pot for Serbia & Montenegro thing). Funny how I expected it to be more specific this time--you know, German organization and whatnot...
The seeds will be in position 1 on the group, for definite. That's been fixed for ages, the match schedule takes it into account. The other pots will go to positions 2-4, randomly.
Yeah, that's actually in the formula (the 3!^8 at the end) just not clearly stated. And, while it seems like a lot of options, the restrictions already put in place eliminate about 99.9999999999887% of all possible draw combinations. J
Bravo Legia. You were the first to know it (at Nov 21). And despite that Ursula, Ombak, Sagy and MattBurlew quickly denied it you were right.
I confess I didn't really read *that* post. I'm a bit skeptical about calculations of probabilities and (less so) possibilities when we don't know the details of how the draw will be conducted. But don't let me hold you back
Livid! I expect some bits of the draw are going to be a bit 'Chinese'. If they were to tell us how it's going to happen now, we (and the media) would have a chance to start quibbling, but if they keep it a secret until the draw then any whining will be drowned by the news of the draw results.
The formula for how many ways the balls could be drawn is, I think, correct - assuming they draw from A-H as much as possible. It is not, however, the number of possible draws, as a number of the results are duplicated as balls are moved from one 'slot' to another to prevent clashes. I hope to have that number soon - there are 88,200 (30 x 28 x 3 x 35) 'fundamental' draws, and the duplications amongst these are what is crucial. Once that number of unique fundamental draws (F) is known, the total number of possible draws is F x 2! x 6! x 4! x 3! x 8! x 4! , and x (3!)^8 if you consider the order in the group as well. I think it will be interesting* to see that some outcomes might be many times more likely than others, just as it appears the US is more likely to meet a euro seed than it is Brazil, and even less likely to draw Argentina. J * - for a very interesting definition of 'interesting'
Assuming we're doing the "slide-down", A-H in-order draw (which I don't like as much as straight chance, because of the above variations): The reason Argentina is less likely than Brazil is because Brazil has a guaranteed spot toward the back half of the in-order, A-H draw. At F. Thus, if they don't get Serbia, Brazil could then act like a catcher's mit for a "bumped" US if Mexico is in Group E. In fact, it appears that the exact scenario that makes Brazil slightly more likely for the US is if Argentina heads Group B and Mexico heads Group E. Argentina would only, in that case, have the US in its group with a straight draw of the US, no chance for Mexico to be positioned one group ahead of them. Whereas, Brazil at F could not only draw the US directly but get the "bumped" US if it is drawn into a Mexico-headed Group E. *What I don't understand about this is the fact that Argentina would, by definition, have to have Serbia already assigned to them in Group B in order for a regional-based "bump" of the US out of Mexico's group into Brazil's to take place. So there couldn't have been a "bump" into Argentina's group anyway.
OK OK, I've been sucked into it... 11,374,715,146,862,600,000,000 possible draws ...is my (oops) second attempt. And it seems like most of them have been listed further up this thread
In case any of you could use a handy worksheet when filling out your mock draws -- or following along with Heidi's real one tomorrow -- I drew one up. You can find it and download it here (sorry to pimp): http://www.wecallitsoccer.com/archives/000625.html It even includes a place to set down your beer.
There is thread entitled something like "the 468 possible groups," in which USA can be placed, which I think is now 428 because of a realization about Serbia's placement. That thread also calculates Team USA's expectation of advancing from each group. The key is our unseeded Euro opponent. The identity of that opponent is more important than the identity of our seed opponent and "minnow" opponent combined.
Wow, I never thought I would use the phrase, "there are over 11 billion trillion possibilities." But now I have. Thank you, Timanfaya!
Don't know if this has been posted anywhere else, but FIFA has posted the detailed rules of the draw: http://eur.i1.yimg.com/eur.yimg.com/i/eu/fifa/proce.pdf You can get at it at the bottom of the Final Draw page at fifaworldcup.com
Nice find. FIFA is going to use the left to right selection rather than drawing group assigments. It also appears that they are drawing pots in numerical order. That means the USA draw will be at the end of the show.
My only mock draw (Teams are in no particular order within the group): Group A Germany Togo Croatia Trinidad & Tobago Group B France Angola Portugal Japan Group C Argentina Cote d'Ivoire Netherlands Costa Rica Group D England Ecuador Czech Republic Saudi Arabia Group E Spain Ghana Poland Korea Republic Group F Brazil Tunisia Sweden Serbia & Montenegro Group G Mexico Paraguay Ukraine Iran Group H Italy Australia Switzerland USA
Also interesting that if African sides and Australia are drawn first from Pot 2, they are slotted directly into Brazil or Argentina's Group (Argentina first if it's in B-E, Brazil first if Argentina is in G-H). This effectively means that, Mexico and the European seeds that are drawn earliest (B-D) will have the "best" statistical chance of drawing Paraguay and Ecuador. A similarly weird phenomenon applies to the Asian sides being drawn first into Mexico's group. A European seed drawn into B or C will have a slightly better chance of drawing the US, Costa Rica or T&T. Not as big of a deviation than the African/South American thing, though.
My mock draw: A- Germany, Angola, Poland, Korea B- England, Australia, Portugal, USA C- Mexico, Ghana, Netherlands, Serbia D- Italy, Ecuador, Switzerland, Costa Rica E- Spain, Paraguay, Croatia, Iran F- Brazil, Tunisia, Sweden, Japan G- Argentina, Togo, Ukraine, Saudi H- France, Ivory Coast, Czech Republic, Trinidad (not a good draw, fortunately its fake)