World Cup Qualifying - 2018 Russia
- Thread starter SoupInNYC
- Start date
Dang, do we have spoiler rules on this forum? Not trying to call you out ferrarinycfc , and maybe I shouldn't have clicked on a thread called "World Cup Qualifying 2018 Russia" this morning, but I watched the match 6 hours afterwards because it was at 4am my time and this bummed me out.
Yeah, we have an unwritten rule on spoilers in other threads, but honestly I think his was fine here considering the thread its in.
nah, I mean anyone from pot 2 is tough (except maybe denmark but really they are no slouch). Group of death comes from a tough pot 3/4 draw. if you get iceland and nigeria in your group your gonna feel like its a group of death with how icelands been in form and nigeria historically plays well representing the africa (or substitute south korea/japan who dominate the asia contingent) Toss spain in that and, yea ok, you really got a group of death (as i think there are rules about putting to many euros in a group you're getting Brazil or Argentina from pot 1). So if its Brazil/mex/iceland/nigeria is that tougher than brazil/spain/iran/australia? does spain make it the group of death or the 3/4 combo?
iceland is solid but thats it really...good defensively and gets you in set pieces....Nigeria you never know....they have a super talented team many times and then just fail on the big stage.....the team looked very good vs Argentina ( a friendly i know) and i was reading that that was not their main team. so this may be one where they get a good run
lets all simulate potential groups!!!
http://ultra.zone/2018-FIFA-World-Cup-Group-Stage-Draws
first sim, Spain group doesn't feel deadly to me. Actually to be honest, none do. maybe group H gets called group of death 2nd place maybe group D, but ha, pretty good distribution if you ask me.
Group A
Group A
- Russia
- Colombia
- Senegal
- Serbia
- Germany
- Peru
- Denmark
- Australia
- Belgium
- Spain
- Tunisia
- Panama
- Portugal
- England
- Costa Rica
- Saudi Arabia
- Poland
- Uruguay
- Iceland
- Morocco
- France
- Mexico
- Egypt
- Japan
- Brazil
- Croatia
- Iran
- Nigeria
- Argentina
- Switzerland
- Sweden
- Korea Rep.
First Sim;
Germany v Spain would be a good matchup in Group B, but the other two are lower teams. Group C looks interesting if Nigeria don't crumble and Colombia are as good as last WC. Group G could be tough too, Serbia shouldn't be under-looked.
Second Sim;
I like this just for Germany, in Group F. Group D looks legit with Croatia, Argentina, Serbia, and Costa Rica. Group H would be highly entertaining as well.
croatia vs serbia in a world cup? can you imagine? they gotta close down the city if those two supporter groups meet in the streets ...a hell of a game though
With the new seedings, I think it is less likely to see a true Group of Death.
Before this year, after the first set of seeded teams, the pots were arranged geographically. That meant that you'd often end up with a pot that had a seeded team, a good European team, and then a top team from Concacaf (USA, Mexico) and/or Africa or Asia (e.g. Ghana or Ivory Coast). Basically, any time a group drew a top Concacaf team or whichever team was really good out of Africa or Asia, it had a pretty good shot of being a Group of Death.
Our groups in 2006 and 2014 are good examples.
Before this year, after the first set of seeded teams, the pots were arranged geographically. That meant that you'd often end up with a pot that had a seeded team, a good European team, and then a top team from Concacaf (USA, Mexico) and/or Africa or Asia (e.g. Ghana or Ivory Coast). Basically, any time a group drew a top Concacaf team or whichever team was really good out of Africa or Asia, it had a pretty good shot of being a Group of Death.
Our groups in 2006 and 2014 are good examples.
That said, I think any group that ends up with Denmark, Iceland, Sweden or Costa Rica (one of the better teams from Pot 3) has a good shot at being a really tough group. I don't see anyone from Pot 4 that looks like it could be a really good "4th best team" in a group the way you often got in the past.
to me only Nigeria and Maaaaaybe morocco ( many of their players are french or dutch born players) they did not concede in the final round of their WCQ
10 teams ranked in the top 32 FIFA world wide did not qualify for World Cup.
https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/11/23/fifa-rankings-world-cup-draw-usmnt-senegal-mexico
https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/11/23/fifa-rankings-world-cup-draw-usmnt-senegal-mexico
What’s more interesting is that all 5 of Asia’s entries are outside of the top 32 rankings. Kinda begs the question if they deserve 5 spots?
If all of the top 32 sides came from Europe (or anywhere else, but picking Europe for example's sake), would that mean that no other continents should deserve any other places?
Catching up to this just now. That's a good catch. I think they get 4.5 spots, and Australia beat Honduras, which is fair enough for the odd team in. But they have 4.5 while CONCACAF has only 3.5. CONCACAF has 3 teams in the top 32 rankings. Asia has 1 (Iran, who didn't qualify). So to answer this:
I would say no, but there also is little justification at the moment that I can see for Asia to have one more guaranteed spot than CONCACAF. Which of course assumes the rankings are valid and I know there are lots of reasons to dispute them. But they are the official FIFA ranking and FIFA runs the World Cup so what other justification could there be? Did Asia have more higher ranked teams a few years ago than CONCACAF did?
That wasn’t my point. One would think that at least a *single* team from the Asian Confederation would have a ranking that puts them in the upper reaches of the hierarchy. The fact that none are and Asia has five slots is an indication that either their teams don’t branch out to play meaningful competition between Cups, this suppressing their rankings, or they’re getting an abundance of WC slots simply because they have the most member nations of any confederation. It’s just a semi-wild take, but if Concacaf was matched up against them with the best-vs-best, 2v2, 3v3, etc, I wouldn’t be surprised if Concacaf teams won every match. And yet, concacaf gets fewer spots simply because it’s a smaller confederation.
The thing is, the FIFA rankings are not what determines who plays in a World Cup. If they were, there wouldn't be qualification tournaments. UEFA historically gets a heavy weighting in terms of how many teams appear because when the Cup was in its infancy and the idea of qualification tournaments etc to determine who gets to come was first conceived, European teams dominated the world game and to have differently would have seemed like a mockery. Similarly, CONMEBOL gets more than half their members to each Cup now (excepting times when New Zealand humiliate one of their members in the play-offs) because when the Cup was expanded to 32 teams for the 1982 competition, South American teams were in the ascendancy.
However, in both of those instances decisions were made and places were set at a time when Africa, Asia, Oceania and (barring Mexico) North America were footballing non-entities. Inviting teams from those continents was throwing a bone to the little cousins who were really too young to play with the big boys. These days, the landscape is totally different. Sure, South Korea's semi-final appearance is still the exception not the rule, but the national leagues in those continents are now showing serious signs of promise (MLS a major example) and each competition one or more teams from those continents show the rest of the world that they have real talent. In the light of these circumstances if FIFA were to keep saying "well look, you may be getting better but until you're top 32 we're just not interested" then it would cause some pretty bitter fall-outs.
I would say that it's no coincidence that the numbers of qualifying teams per confederation for the 2026 World Cup have each of Asia, Africa and North America each getting almost exactly one place for every six members in their organisations. It's much more about showing inclusivity and giving every country a more equal chance of making it than it is about only having the top teams on the FIFA World Rankings.
Just to say, this isn't necessarily the way I advocate it being done. I'm actually kind of neutral - I'm no elitist so I don't favour giving Europe and South America 90% of the places but at the same time I also don't like the idea of giving confederations with lower-placed teams a much bigger chunk just because they can collectively argue louder. However, the point is that this is how it works now, and there's nothing that's going to change that. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if in another 20 years time Europe and South America have had their allocations reduced further (as an overall percentage).