UEFA qualifying playoffs are one week from today, October 6. Belgium (#19) vs. Portugal (#27). Intriguing matchup. Belgium have players who pose a more dangerous goal threat (Wullaert, Cayman, de Caigny) but Portugal showed well at Euro 2022 (aside from 5-0 thrashing to Sweden) and play a cohesive short-passing style. The Portuguese could struggle with Belgium's height on set pieces and crosses. I assumed the higher ranked team would host, but the match is in Vizela, Portugal. Last meeting was a 1-0 Belgium win at 2020 Algarve Cup, right before the global Covid-19 shutdown. Winner advances to play Iceland. Austria (#20) vs. Scotland (#23). I think Austria will take this one. They were excellent at Euro 2022. Defeated Northern Ireland and Norway, and only narrowly lost to the two finalists England and Germany. Even outplayed the Germans in my view and got unlucky hitting the posts/crossbar multiple times. Every time I've seen Scotland play lately it seems a cutting edge is missing. They aren't quite the same without Kim Little. Again the lower ranked team hosts; game is in Glasgow. Last meeting was a 3-1 Scotland win at 2017 Cyprus Cup. Winner advances to play Republic of Ireland. Wales (#30) vs. Bosnia & Herzegovina (#63): Wales with a stroke of good luck here. Group E, which Denmark won, was by far the weakest in qualifying. With Russia banned, Bosnia took 2nd place despite a mediocre 3-2-2 record and -8 goal differential. I think Wales could struggle to defeat the other playoff teams, but have enough quality players like Ladd, Ingle, Fishlock, Jones, Holland to beat Bosnia. Last meeting was a 0-0 draw in 2015 (at least according to Google!). Winner advances to play Switzerland. Second round features Iceland vs. Belgium/Portugal, Ireland vs. Austria/Scotland, and Switzerland vs. Wales/Bosnia. Of the three winners, the best two advance directly to World Cup, while the third goes to inter-confederation playoff tournament in New Zealand next February. Ranking depends on group results (excluding those against the minnow nations finishing 6th) and the second round playoff result. Quite a byzantine process.
Reports from Haiti 🇭🇹 suggest players request overhaul of technical staff@raffacarolina @DiarioFFeminino @rflalves @dnllopes0 @Karri_Kemyst @lawson_sv @RichJLavertyhttps://t.co/hU1MArQOec pic.twitter.com/9QGRJRwugo— Wosoworld (@karlyboy71) September 29, 2022
Draw for the Play-Off Tournament for the @FIFAWWC 2023 to take place on 14 October🗞️➡️ https://t.co/j3E5tWsU2d pic.twitter.com/6G2uNuM0Wi— FIFA Media (@fifamedia) October 10, 2022
Alright, so the playoff draw will be before the main draw. I don't think the logistics change that much, though: each playoff will have 3-4 confeds represented, so I imagine the 4th round of the main draw will take those playoff possibilities into account and probably not have a lot of randomness built in. Heck, even the 3rd round might be affected just to guarantee that there's a group than can account for the four-team playoff path.
Current Rankings of Intercontinental teams: 27. Portugal 38. Chinese Taipei 39. Chile 41. Thailand 49. Papua New Guinea 51. Paraguay 56. Haiti 57. Panama 59. Cameroon 84. Senegal
Everyone has to be hoping to be drawn into pot B. I would expect everyone but PNG to beat Chinese Taipei, and I think this shows some of the limitations of FIFA rankings particularly given COVID and limited number of matches. I predict the qualifiers to be Portugal, Chile, and whoever wins the pot B opener.
They very well might have! It'll be veeerry close, though. @kolabear did some calcs in the FIFA ranking thread and sixth through ninth are separated by less than 10pts in the back-of-the-envelope estimates.
I wouldn't bet on that; TPE certainly earned their place in the playoffs (even over THA) from the Asian qualifiers. There certainly are limitations to the FIFA rankings, but I don't think "a low number of matches due to COVID" is the issue. For example, TPE has been in the upper-30s area of the rankings for years now, including well before COVID. That alone puts them squarely in the range of deserving a seed in a playoff formatted this way. The bigger issue is simply the fact that teams in this range of the rankings don't often play outside their confederations, and no ranking system will do well in comparing disparate pools of teams. This new playoff format is honestly partially a move to increase the amount of important inter-confederation play outside of the top 20.
The draw regulations for the play-offs and the full draw The important bit: Seeded geographical allocation – play-off tournament placeholders The play-off tournament will consist of three groups in order to determine the winners of the three remaining slots of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™. Groups A and B will each include three teams, with only one seeded team per group. Group C will include four teams, with two seeded teams. Each of the three groups will be composed of teams from different qualification zones/confederations, with no group having more than one team from the same zone. Due to the multiple qualification zones represented in each of the three groups, the three play-off tournament placeholders in pot 4 will be identified only by the qualification zone/confederation of the seeded team(s) in that respective play-off tournament group. In play-off tournament group C, comprising four teams with two seeded teams, both seeded teams will be used to determine the geographical constraint. This geographical constraint per play-off tournament placeholder may result in a play-off tournament winner possibly being drawn in a group with a team from the same qualification zone/confederation. In order to avoid the highly unlikely event that three European teams are drawn into the same group, the European team in the play-off tournament will be allocated to pot 1 as one of the four seeded teams in the play-off tournament draw.
Pot 1: AUS(host,13), NZL(host,22), USA(1), SWE(2), GER(3), ENG(4), FRA(5), ESP(6) Pot 2: CAN(7), NED(8), BRA(9), JPN(11), NOR(12), ITA(14), CHN(15), KOR(17) Pot 3: DEN(18), SUI(21), IRL(24), COL(27), ARG(29), VIE(34), CRC(37), JAM(43) Pot 4: NGA(45), PHI(53), RSA(54), MAR(76), ZAM(81), IC A, IC B, IC C
So it´s possible that if Thailand, Haiti, Panama or Paraguay qualify they will play against a team of their own confederation.
Interesting draw procedure.... Not sure I agree with each playoff push functioning only as the seeded teams in terms of how they play into the main draw, but w/e. It certainly removes some of the restrictiveness I was talking about earlier Also, really not sure why they default put the UEFA team as seed A specifically - that is, with the above rule in place, they could have just said that the UEFA team would be seeded in general. Bit weird IMO
Denmark fell 16 minutes short of retaining their spot in pot 2, which they lost to South Korea after losing the game against Australia.
I can't understand the main draw occurs (oct 2022) before the results of the play off tournament (feb 2023 and the 3 winners of the playoff in the Pot 4). It 's more than possible that Portugal (rank 23) qualify and there is a big difference to have, for example, Ger./Jap./Den./Portugal instead of Ger/Jap/Den/Jamaique Not fair imo Why not wait the results of the playoff before doing the main draw? which reason ?
I would have included Thailand if drawn into a single group, as I don't think anyone wants to play Chile on the other side. I think the non-elite AFC teams are a lot weaker than the teams from CONCACAF, COMNEBOL, and CAF. Thinking about Haiti, they gave the US WMT a good game (3-0, but 2-0 for most of the game) in a meaningful match the US wanted to win and score lots of goals in, and beat Mexico in Mexico (the same team that nearly drew the US). I don't think either Chinese Taipei or Thailand could play at that level given results against better teams in Asia. Of course Haiti has a number of players playing professionally in France. Agree that the limited outside region play is a big problem, which I was trying to get at with limited competition.
Not the best example as three UEFA teams(GER,DEN,POR) in a group is not possible. It would have been worse if Netherlands had been in the inter-confederation play-offs.
Ticket selling logistics as well as accomodation for fans. Having everybody fight for tickets mid February is not great. Also qualified teams need to organise their stay too.
Yes, because if you replace Germany with USA you would have also to replace Jamaica. I doubt that you can construct an equally difficult group.
The other obvious reason is the play off are very late in the season unlike in previous scheduling qualifiers.
Okay, so while we don't know the three playoff winners yet, we know P1 will be treated as a UEFA team for the main draw, P2 will be treated as C'BOL, and P3 will be dual-treated as AFC/OFC. That then leaves us at: Pot 1 - AFC, C'CAF, OFC, UEFAx5 Pot 2 - AFCx3, C'BOL, C'CAF, UEFAx3 Pot 3 - AFC, C'BOLx2, C'CAFx2, UEFAx3 Pot 4 - AFCx1.5, CAFx4, C'BOL, OFCx0.5, UEFAx1 Anyone want to wager a mock draw before Saturday? I think the "worst" group of death you could possibly create(based solely on the rankings) is USA-BRA-DEN-POR, for a ranking total of just 51. The second-best team in the playoffs is CHI at #38 to POR's #23, plus the best non-UEFA team in Pot 3 is COL's #27 to DEN's #18, so to get the toughest possible group overall, you need to have no UEFA teams from Pots 1+2. The toughest group a higher-ranked UEFA team could face would be SWE+CAN+COL+POR or USA+NED+COL+POR for a ranking total of 59 each. Of course you can also treat groups of death as simply being the most even... So essentially the lowest ceiling and highest floor. Two possibilities there would then be NZL-KOR-DEN/SUI-POR, with a gap of just 6 between KOR #17 and POR #23, followed by AUS-ITA-COL-POR, with a gap of 14 from AUS #13 to COL #27. But these could also be considered groups of life I guess? Makes for some interesting possibilities that #22 is in pot 1 while #23 is (effectively) in pot 4!