Thus, here then would be the groups: (sorry for all the spelling mistakes) GROUP A Brazil Russia Cameron Australia GROUP B Spain Croatia Niegira South Korea GROUP C Germany Bosnia Algeria Iran GROUP D Argentina Greece Ghana Japan GROUP E Colombia Portugal France Hondoras GROUP F Belgium England Ecuador Costa Rica GROUP G Uruguay Italy Ivery coast Mexico GROUP H Swiss Netherlands Chile USA
Yes, your distribution is skewed. And there is no randomness. A little randomness is good to make it interesting. See my post #1489. The attached spreadsheet visualizes my idea.
@Webo : The answer to most of your questions is: money. The FIFA draw is a big production watched by tens if not hundreds of millions of people. Not to mention the hype around the draw is a good way to hype the World Cup itself. IMO your idea sounds boring (no offense, just my opinion). I like the "luck" element as it adds drama. But also, you're not going to have a totally fair system no matter what since everyone has a different schedule. So no need to get carried-away with a boring, overly detailed seeding system. I guess you must really hate the FA Cup since the draw is totally random. But fact is most people prefer that system over, say, the Coppa Italia which is entirely based on how teams were ranked the previous season (*yawn*).
I tweaked the last two pots. Now a "blue" group or a "old" group can have a representative from any of the 5 confederations.
In previous posts the impact of friendlies on the FIFA ranking was questionned ... the same discussion can be found in the comments section on football-rankings.info. According to them this would be the top 30 of the October 2013 ranking if friendlies were completely excluded from the calculations (in parentheses the difference in position with the current October 2013 ranking). Regarding the seeds these would be the: - Winners: Holland, Italy and Chile - Losers: Switzerland, Colombia and Uruguay 1 Spain 2127 (-) 2 Brazil 2012 (+9) 3 Germany 1902 (-1) 4 Argentina 1727 (-1) 5 Netherlands 1652 (+3) 6 Italy 1641 (+2) 7 Belgium 1590 (-2) 8 Chile 1577 (+4) 9 Switzerland 1471 (-2) 10 Uruguay 1433 (-4) 11 USA 1419 (+2) 12 England 1398 (-2) 13 Portugal 1393 (+1) 14 Colombia 1378 (-10) 15 France 1255 (+6) 16 Denmark 1228 (+10) 17 Greece 1227 (-2) 18 Bosnia-Herzegovina 1199 (-2) 19 Ghana 1128 (+4) 20 Russia 1111 (-1) 21 Croatia 1103 (-3) 21 Mexico 1103 (+3) 23 Cote d'Ivoire 1078 (-6) 24 Sweden 1033 (+1) 24 Serbia 1033 (+4) 26 Slovenia 983 (+4) 27 Ecuador 967 (-5) 28 Venezuela 959 (+9) 29 Egypt 954 (+22) 30 Ukraine 937 (-10)
This: Belgium 0 Colombia 2 P.S. Switzerland losing to South Korea is funny. I'd like to see Blatter's face after this defeat. His shitty ranking sucks.
Supposing Croatia beat Iceland it looks lik Ukraine will be the 9th Euro seed... One potential group of death configuration avoided?
Guessing Croatia will grasp a WC berth at home and Greece should be able to defend their lead away from home ... defensively the Greeks are always a hard nut to crack and now they're in an excellent position. It's also hard to score against Portugal but at home Sweden could manage it ... still feel Portugal will be the favourite (greater number of goals scored away from home could even come into play). France got banged up by Ukraine ... I wouldn't discount them right away but the French have a huge task in front of them. So far it's looking as if all the 'play-off seeds' will claim their ticket.
Dude, it's Russia they never give a shit about friendlies. Last 3 years we haven't won a single friendly game. Loss to Iran 0-1, loss to Qatar 0-1, loss to Belgium 0-2, tie with USA 2-2, tie with Brazil 1-1, tie with Ivory Coast 1-1, tie with Uruguay 1-1, tie with Argentina 1-1. oh sorry. we have beaten Iceland 2-0. Plus it wasn't even a starter team today. Capello was trying some new faces as well.
I would like the World Cup to be based on the Elo Ratings which at least seem a bit better than the FIFA rankings. I would have four pots based solely on Elo Rating of the qualified teams. POT A is #1-#8, POT B is #9-#16, etc. http://eloratings.net/ When I drew them with only ensuring Brazil in position A1. There were only a few groups with more than their usual number of Confederation caps in previous World Cups. I like the more balanced groups that resulted. Group A ---------------- Group B ------------Group C -----------------Group D A1 #1 Brazil ------------- B1 #3 Germany ------ C1 #5 Netherlands ----- D1 #4 Argentina A2 #15 Ukraine --------- B2 #14 Swiss --------- C2 #9 Chile ------------ D2 #11 Portugal A3 #24 Costa Rica ------- B3 #19 Ivory Coast --- C3 #22 Mexico -------- D3 #21 Bosnia&H A4 #32 Algeria/BFaso --- B4 #28 Australia ------ C4 #29 South Korea --- D4 #27 Iran Group E ----------- Group F ----------- Group G ------------- Group H E1 #2 Spain -------- F1 #7 Uruguay ---- G1 #8 Colombia ----- H1 #6 England E2 #12 USA -------- F2 #16 Ecuador --- G2 #10 Italy -------- H2 #13 Belgium E3 #20 Croatia ----- F3 #23 Japan ----- G3 #18 Russia ------- H3 #17 Greece E4 #30 Honduras --- F4 #25 Ghana ---- G4 #31 Cameroon --- H4 #26 Nigeria But once again my USA would find a way to run into Ghana in the Round of 16 and lose.
Only issue I see with this is that you'd get two CONMEBOL teams in one group and another with 3 UEFA sides. Switch Uruguay with England or Ecuador with Greece and I think this would be a fine draw. EDIT: There also a group with two CONCACAF teams.
Other than UEFA, who with 13 allocations will definitely have several groups with more than 1 team, no group should have more than one team from any confederation. To violate that rule would be a big no no in my book and it would be utterly unfair. For instance, in the Group E above by Silicus, you have the US and Honduras in the same group. That is not right. Other than making sure the above rule was observed, I would not mind at all if the groups were decided based on the ranking of teams. In this regard, while ELO rankings might be better than FIFA's, it would be absurd for FIFA to employ another ranking over its own. The focus, therefore, should be for FIFA to fix its rankings so we can have a sensible system. When the ranking is fixed, groups can be chosen instead of based on "luck of the draw", based on rankings with adjustments made for the host as well as to segregate teams from the same confederation, with the first 8 groups decided by having A1 (host), B1-H1 (#1-#7), A2-H2 (#8-16), B3-H3, A3(weakest-strongest skipping teams that are from same confederation to next group), B4-H4, A4(strongest-weakest, skipping teams from same confederation to next group). In any case, even with the flaws in the current FIFA rankings, assuming Algeria, Portugal, Greece, Ukraine and Croatia qualify to round off the final 32 WC finalists, the groups would look as follows (to better follow the methodology I am using, Group A is listed out of sequence). Group B Spain (#1) Bosnia (#16) Ivory Coast (#17) Australia (#57) Group C Germany (#2) Greece (#15) Ghana (#23) South Korea (#56) Group D Argentina (#3) Portugal (#14) Croatia (#18) Cameroon (#59) Group E Colombia (#4) USA (#13) Russia (#19) Iran (#49) Group F Belgium (#5) Chile (#12) Ukraine (#20) Japan (#44) Group G Uruguay (#6) England (#10) Ecuador (#22) Honduras (#34) Group H Switzerland (#7) Italy (#8) Mexico (#24) Nigeria (#33) Group A (hosts) Brazil (#11) Netherlands (#8) Costa Rica (#31) Algeria (#32) P.S. I love Iran's group! Iran, the US and Russia in the mix, that group would be pretty interesting politically, while in footballing terms we had defeated the Russians in our last friendly match against one another and of course beat the US in WC98, while our top seed, Colombia, is not the most fearsome top seed we could get either. P.S.S Italicized names are countries who have been pushed to the next available group to avoid having teams from the same confederation together (or, in UEFA's case, avoid more than 2 UEFA sides in the same group).
Well, actually, Ecuador and Ghana would need switch places in the groups I listed to avoid having 2 CONMEBOL teams in any one group. Thus, the groups would be as follows: Group B Spain (#1) Bosnia (#16) Ivory Coast (#17) Australia (#57) Group C Germany (#2) Greece (#15) Ecuador (#22) South Korea (#56) Group D Argentina (#3) Portugal (#14) Croatia (#18) Cameroon (#59) Group E Colombia (#4) USA (#13) Russia (#19) Iran (#49) Group F Belgium (#5) Chile (#12) Ukraine (#20) Japan (#44) Group G Uruguay (#6) England (#10) Nigeria (#23) Honduras (#34) Group H Switzerland (#7) Italy (#8) Mexico (#24) Nigeria (#33) Group A (hosts) Brazil (#11) Netherlands (#8) Costa Rica (#31) Algeria (#32)
No, that's still not right, since somehow I have Nigeria in 2 groups. I don't know how that happened and I don't want to make a mess of this thread, posting the groups again. My main point is that we can have World Cup groups decided, not randomly, but by how teams rank even as we segregate teams from the same confederation.
By the ranking, he meant Ghana in Group G, in which case it would be interesting to have them play Uruguay once again.