For those of you who have been following the Fifa WC 2006 Seeding process, as has been calculated each month (when the Fifa rankings came out) by some loyal fellows, I have decided to have a similar thread for the WWC 2007. See the 2006 and 2010 point calculations in these threads: 2010 Seeding formula: December 2006 update https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=454994 The SEEDING Thread--updated October 19, 2005 https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=257766 Our calculations assume that the seeding process will mimic the WC 2006 process, so the short version is this: (A) the past two WWC's (1999, 2003) are rated, with points starting at 16 for the winner (teams finishing third and fourth in their groups are described below; teams which didn't qualify for a WWC are given zero for that year). This sub-total is based on [(2003 points)*2 + (1999 points)] all divided by three. (B) three editions of the Fifa rankings are computed: the December issue for two years, and the last issue before the seedings/drawings are done. For our purposes, we will use Dec 2005, Dec 2006, and the March/June 2007 rankings. Points each month go from 16 for the highest-ranked team, to one for the lowest ranked team. The three monthly values are added together and all divided by three. (C) the final rating is the sum of (A) and (B). (A) (explained further): for the men's WC, the third- and fourth-place teams in each group are given nearly identical points. For the sixteen teams that make the knockout stages, the points go from 32 to 17. For the non-advancers, instead of givings points from 16 to 1, they are sort of "averaged" where the third-place teams get 9 points, and the fourth-place teams get 8 points. So, for our calculations, the eight advancing teams get points from 16 to 9, the third-place teams get 5 points, and the fourth-place teams get 4 points.
So we now have enough information for some calculations: Right now, 14 teams in the WWC 2007 are known. The two open spots are the Oceania qualifiers, and a playoff between Japan and Mexico. In our calculations, we assume that the highest-ranked Oceania team qualifies; that would be New Zealand. This gives a "best-case" scenario for the seedings. After that, we can run two parrallel calculations: one based on Japan qualifying, one on Mexico. (In advance, I'll apologize for not knowing how to display numbers in columns.) So the first half of the calculation, the past two WWC finishes (again, the sub-total is computed by [(2003 points)*2 + (1999 points)] / 3 : Women's World Cup Sub-total Team, 1999, 2003, WWC_Subtot USA, 16, 14, 14.67 Germany, 9, 16, 13.67 Sweden, 11, 15, 13.67 Brazil, 14, 12, 12.67 China PR, 15, 11, 12.33 Norway, 13, 10, 11.00 Canada, 5, 13, 10.33 Nigeria, 10, 4, 6.00 Korea DPR, 5, 5, 5.00 Ghana, 4, 5, 4.67 Japan, 4, 5, 4.67 Australia, 5, 4, 4.33 Argentina, 0, 4, 2.67 Denmark, 4, 0, 1.33 Mexico, 4, 0, 1.33 (New Zealand), 0, 0, 0.00 England, 0, 0, 0.00 We now compute the second sub-total, add in the WWC subtotal, and see the potential seeds. Since the June 2007 rankings have not come out yet, we copy the December 2006 for that value; this gives how the seedings would look at "if the season ended today." Totals with Mexico Winning the Playoff Finish, Team, Dec_2005, Dec_2006, June_2007, WWC_Subtot, Rank_Subtot, Total 1, Germany, 16, 16, 16, 13.67, 16.00, 29.67 1, USA, 15, 15, 15, 14.67, 15.00, 29.67 3, Sweden, 12, 13, 13, 13.67, 12.67, 26.33 4, Norway, 14, 14, 14, 11.00, 14.00, 25.00 5, Brazil, 13, 11, 11, 12.67, 11.67, 24.33 6, China PR, 9, 9, 9, 12.33, 9.00, 21.33 7, Canada, 7, 8, 8, 10.33, 7.67, 18.00 8, Korea DPR, 11, 12, 12, 5.00, 11.67, 16.67 9, Denmark, 10, 10, 10, 1.33, 10.00, 11.33 10, Australia, 6, 6, 6, 4.33, 6.00, 10.33 11, Nigeria, 4, 3, 3, 6.00, 3.33, 9.33 12, England, 8, 7, 7, 0.00, 7.33, 7.33 13, Ghana, 1, 1, 1, 4.67, 1.00, 5.67 13, Mexico, 3, 5, 5, 1.33, 4.33, 5.67 15, Argentina, 2, 2, 2, 2.67, 2.00, 4.67 16, (New Zealand), 5, 4, 4, 0.00, 4.33, 4.33 Hypothetical Pots: #1 seeds: China PR, Germany, USA, Sweden #2 seeds: Norway, Brazil, Canada, Korea DPR #3 seeds: Denmark, Australia, Nigeria, England #4 seeds: Ghana, Mexico, Argentina, (New Zealand) Totals with Japan Winning the Playoff Finish, Team, Dec_2005, Dec_2006, June_2007, WWC_Subtot, Rank_Subtot, Total 1, Germany, 16, 16, 16, 13.67, 16.00, 29.67 1, USA, 15, 15, 15, 14.67, 15.00, 29.67 3, Sweden, 12, 13, 13, 13.67, 12.67, 26.33 4, Norway, 14, 14, 14, 11.00, 14.00, 25.00 5, Brazil, 13, 11, 11, 12.67, 11.67, 24.33 6, China PR, 9, 9, 9, 12.33, 9.00, 21.33 7, Canada, 6, 7, 7, 10.33, 6.67, 17.00 8, Korea DPR, 11, 12, 12, 5.00, 11.67, 16.67 9, Japan, 8, 8, 8, 4.67, 8.00, 12.67 10, Denmark, 10, 10, 10, 1.33, 10.00, 11.33 11, Australia, 5, 5, 5, 4.33, 5.00, 9.33 12, Nigeria, 3, 3, 3, 6.00, 3.00, 9.00 13, England, 7, 6, 6, 0.00, 6.33, 6.33 14, Ghana, 1, 1, 1, 4.67, 1.00, 5.67 15, Argentina, 2, 2, 2, 2.67, 2.00, 4.67 16, (New Zealand), 4, 4, 4, 0.00, 4.00, 4.00 Hypothetical Pots: #1 seeds: China PR, Germany, USA, Sweden #2 seeds: Norway, Brazil, Canada, Korea DPR #3 seeds: Japan, Denmark, Australia, Nigeria #4 seeds: England, Ghana, Argentina, (New Zealand) As you see in both cases, Germany and USA end up tied in seeding points: the USA gets one more point based on past WWC's, but Germany gets one more point by being ahead of the USA in the last two December rankings. Again, this is just something to mull over. Nothing is official until Fifa says it is.
FIFA has already decided not to use the seeding process you describe. According to this article, it was decided that world champions Germany and hosts China PR would be seeded (A1 and D1 respectively). The FIFA Women's World Ranking will be used to decide the other seeds. This means that Germany, China, USA and Norway (most likely) will be seeded in pot #1.
Has FIFA announced the dates for Mexico vs Japan series? Mexico comes to hte US every spring to play Notre DAme and I was hoping that it would not effect that date.
You should have added the preceeding phrase "With regard to the draw scheduled to take place in Wuhan next spring, " I wonder if spring means April, May, or June But I think the USA and Norway will be the B1 and C1 seeds
Those press releases aren't always accurate. Blatter made a similar comment in 2005 about seeding for the 2006 WC, and FIFA ended up using pretty much the same system from 2002. I doubt more than 3 people in FIFA even understand the seeding computation. In any case, we won't know for sure until after the groups are announced.
In case you haven't seen this, FIFA has another press release out with a little bit of information about the draw. Nothing really new, but they repeat that A1 and D1 are Germany and China, respectively, and that B1 and C1 will be determined by the March 2007 rankings.
Interesting to note that A1 and D1 just finished 8th & 10th respectively at the Algarve Cup. Right now it is looking like the U.S. is probably going to be the only country everyone else will be hoping to avoid in the draw.
Unless FIFA changes its 'mind', you are correct. Incidentally, these are the same four seeds from 2003. Also, unless Mexico overcomes Japan's two-goal advantage, the number of teams per confederation will be the same, so the draw should be very similar. The procedure used in 2003 is described here. If they follow that, the pots will probably look like this: A1: Germany D1: China Pot 1: USA, Norway Pot 2: Nigeria, Ghana, Argentina, Brazil Pot 3: Sweden, Denmark, England Pot 4: Canada, Australia, Korea DPR, Japan, New Zealand That's assuming Japan wins and New Zealand doesn't get the plague, of course.
So with this scenario could we end up with the USA, Brazil, Sweden, and North Korea all in the same group? Or how about Norway, Argentina, England, and New Zealand?
Both will be possible. I'd like see: Germany New Zealand Denmark North Korea or USA Sweden England Japan
Yes, there could be some seriously unbalanced groups. There have always been rumors that FIFA secretly fixes the draw to ensure the groups are somewhat balanced, though. And they may choose to group the pots differently this time. Looking at the teams, I think this may turn out to be the most competitive WWC to date. The line-up is similar to last time, but some of the teams have improved significantly since 2003.
I wrote a script last night that generates a draw using the 2003 procedure and FIFA's announcement of how this year's seeds are determined (A1 - Germany, D1 - China, B1/C1 - FIFA Rankings for March 2007). If you're like me and enjoy generating meaningless sample draws, I've posted the script here. It's not very fancy - clicking the link will take you to the page with your draw. To generate a new draw, just refresh your browser. Here's a sample: Group A ------- 1. Germany 2. Korea DPR 3. England 4. Argentina Group B ------- 1. USA 2. Japan 3. Sweden 4. Ghana Group C ------- 1. Norway 2. Canada 3. Australia 4. Brazil Group D ------- 1. China 2. Nigeria 3. New Zealand 4. Denmark
sweden gets kind of a raw deal in your draw. (i know it's a hypothetical, i'm not criticizing). but there's little that can be done except fifa takes away the hosts (china's) top seeding. group C is also your group of death.
Unless they get drawn into Group D with China, Sweden will likely get a raw deal in the draw. However, it could be a lot worse for Sweden if be some chance they ended up in a group with the USA, Brazil, and North Korea.
After what happened in the 2003 WC, I'm sure a lot of the Norwegian squad will be hoping that they don't end up in the same group with Brazil again. There are also several Norwegian National Team players on the Kolbotn squad who probably won't be very anxious to play against Marta again anytime soon after last November's UEFA Cup semifinals.
Group of Death Norway Sweden Canada Brazil Would be also interesting to see which three european teams will get the spots for the Olympic Games 2008.
I actually like that draw, I thinks work anyting like they should Sweden should beat both Japan and Ghana and having USA in the groups should mean they don't have to play them agian unless both reaches the Final. C is the group of Death and D the easy one in this scenario.
Yes, this would most definitely be a good candidate for "Group of Death," but wouldn't it even be a more challenging "Group of Death" if you substituted #1 ranked USA for #3 ranked Norway and #5 ranked North Korea for #10 ranked Canada?
USA - Sweden - Brazil - DPR Korea would be also nice. Can't wait until April to see the final groups.
Since, according to FIFA, "the FIFA Women's World Ranking will be used to decide the other seeds", Sweden, Brazil and Korea will all be in pot #2, so they cannot be drawn into the same group.