FIFA World Cup 2014 Qualifying

[Gustaf]

Why did they pair Oceania v CONCACAF and CONMEBOL v Asia? They should have switched it around so the stronger teams qualify.

[Gustaf]

Why did they pair Oceania v CONCACAF and CONMEBOL v Asia? They should have switched it around so the stronger teams qualify.

I think they rotate every four years. And anyway I'm not really sure that Asia #5 is much better than Concacaf #4.

Sure is an abstract concept. But I would think so. CONCACAF, beyond Mexico and the US, always seem to be total crap. I think the more important thing is that OCF should get CONMEBOL so they don't have a chance. Otherwise I think it's a bit unfair.

[Gustaf]

Good game, gentlemen, good game.

[Gustaf]

Take that England.

Funny aside, Norwegian coach commented that the 4-2 goal was, quote, not difficult. Gotta love the Scandinavian rivalries.

[Gustaf]

I think Sweden is pretty fcked.

Also sad about Montenegro. I've been rooting for them for a while. Cool to see Belgium and Bosnia doing well though.

[Gustaf]

Colombia is through in every non-technical way. For them to miss out on qualifying Ecuador and Uruguay must tie and then both win their other games while Colombia loses both AND Ecuador making up 9 and Uruguay 13 goals in goal difference. The latter part is obviously not happening.

Belgium and Germany are other examples of teams that are through in reality. And Spain.

Sweden situation is looking bad. Bloody Irish. We have to beat Austria, since Austria will beat Faroe islands and we will lose against Germany and we're already behind on goal difference. Those sucky games against Kazakhstan and Faroe Islands are coming back to bite us now.

[Gustaf]

Colombia is through in every non-technical way. For them to miss out on qualifying Ecuador and Uruguay must tie and then both win their other games while Colombia loses both AND Ecuador making up 9 and Uruguay 13 goals in goal difference. The latter part is obviously not happening.

Belgium and Germany are other examples of teams that are through in reality. And Spain.

Sweden situation is looking bad. Bloody Irish. We have to beat Austria, since Austria will beat Faroe islands and we will lose against Germany and we're already behind on goal difference. Those sucky games against Kazakhstan and Faroe Islands are coming back to bite us now.

Let's put it like this: If you beat Austria, you deserve 2nd place, if not, then not. Don't blame the Irish.

I'm not sure why anything should be put in terms of deserving anything. And it was also a joke.

Confederation spots should definitely be revised.

I think it should be something like

UEFA: 18.5
CONMEBOL: 6.5
CONCACAF: 1.5
CAF: 3
AFC: 2
OFC: 0.5

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I've done some different calculations over time and they tend to come out to something like this.

[Gustaf]

Actually, scratch that, I have an almost scientific answer to this!

UEFA: 17.5
CONMEBOL: 7
CONCACAF: 2.5
AFC: 2.5
CAF: 2
OFC: 0.5

This is based on the following idea:

When teams reach the actual Cup they compete to make it out of the groups. Typically this sees a lot of matching sides from different confederations against each other. On average, this should reflect confederation strength. So, you can take the number a confederation puts into the round of 16 (on average) multiply by 2 and get how many spots they should have. That yields the above with one correction - OFC would be at 0, so I gave them the minimum of 0.5 and took away 0.5 from CONCACAF which I felt was most overrepresented under this.

Basically, my idea is that for each team which makes it out of the group a second team deserves to take part. This should generally work fine.

[Gustaf]

No. What needs to be done is much more intercontinental play-offs. Anyway, I see no evidence that, for example, Senegal or Iran is much worse than Greece or Austria.

So...
Hosts = 1
UEFA = 9 Automatically, 7 play-offs
CONMEBOL = 4 Automatically, 3 play-offs
CONCACAF = 2 Automatically, 3 play-offs
CAF = 3 Automatically, 5 play-offs
AFC = 2 Automatically, 3 play-offs
OFC = 1 play-offs

Though in practice CONEMBOL and CONCACAF should merge as too the AFC and OFC

That's not necessarily the point. I think the key point is more that  teams like say Croatia and the Czech Republic, if you go back a few years, would have to struggle hard and miss every once in a while to qualify while teams that are no better and probably worse like US or Japan would qualify by default every time. To me that's the main unfairness. Look at the link below (even though the numbers can be argued endlessly of course). Austria is given a 4% chance of qualifying, Iran already did. If they are roughly equal, how is that fair?

I mean, Holland missed the 2002 World Cup. A team that good would never miss in the competition in Asia, Africa or North America.

[Gustaf]

Yay!

I think Sweden deserved the win in the end but it was a very tense game. Otherwise, mostly disappointing results.

[Gustaf]

Fun fact: Sweden are the only team to be currently qualified for the European playoffs. Everybody else can still move on to first or down to third or become the worst second placed team (most of them only if a miracle happens: because Armenia lost one of their games to Malta, if they move on to second place a number of teams suddenly get to sweat again. Would take an Armenian win against Italy, a Czech-Bulgarian draw [or narrow Czech win in case Armenia trounces Italy] and a Danish draw or defeat against Malta though. Related fun fact: The Czech Republic can still finish in second place... but it cannot qualify anymore. If they take second they will, mathematically, certainly, be the weakest second.)

Yeah, for the longest time I thought the Wikipedia page had messed something up, before it dawned on me that Armenia had a loss against Malta.

But since that scenario isn't playing out, most of the runner-ups are actually set.

England may still miss a direct spot, as may Bosnia. And the battle for second place behind Switzerland is pretty alive as well. I think that's it for the Euro qualifiers though?

Seems Sweden still wants a point off of Germany, because then we have a shot at seeding for the playoffs. Seeding might actually make a big difference this time. Getting say Iceland or Ukraine is vastly preferable to Portugal or Croatia.

[Gustaf]

Turkey vs Romania for second behind the Dutch. Also can't rule out them both losing and thus Bulgaria slipping into the playoffs after all.

Ah, right forgot that group. I think a Romania which is this close will flatten Estonia though.

[Gustaf]

I would like to see Croatia, Iceland and Sweden qualify. And then...France I guess. I really don't want Greece or Portugal. Ugh.

I really hope we don't get Croatia. They always cause trouble for us. Portugal wouldn't necessarily be so bad. They're in decline and we typically do well against them. Last WCQ we tied them in both games even as we missed qualification.

[Gustaf]

Ukraine is responsible for one of the worst games in the history of the World Cup (Ukraine 0-0 Switzerland, 2006), so hopefully they lose to whoever they're drawn against.

True. They're also responsible for Greece making it to last European Championships.

EDIT: last World Cup I mean.

[Gustaf]

Well, that sort of sucked. Still prefer Portugal to Croatia though. We always do badly against the latter and decently against the former.

I think we have a non-negligible chance, but Portugal are clear favourites. Iceland could shock Croatia, but I wouldn't count on it. France should have no problem with Ukraine and Greece v Romania feels unpredictable. I have a sinking feeling Greece will slip by yet again by some weird chance.

[Gustaf]

It's the World Cup, not the Europe vs. South America Cup.

I think it makes sense to have a sports competition allow teams to participate based on merit and  equal opportunity rather than some sort of quota. Otherwise you could just do away with the competition altogether and let the title rotate between continents.

FIFA seems intent to do its best to destroy football every chance they get. Ah, well.

[Gustaf]

If you'd double the no. of European berths, you'd be letting weaker teams in than if you gave Africa 15 spots. That's just a fact. (It's what makes African qualifications results amazing to watch: Because the relatively few true minnows are weeded out before the final round, everybody else can play decent football, yet no one is playing at the constancy levels needed to ever break into the established top 10 teams in the world, everybody can beat everybody especially at home.)

Um, what? How is that "just a fact"? I'm inclined to disagree. Unless you're rating only by top performances, but I don't see why that should be the metric.

14-16 African teams are Zambia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. They're ranked 64th to 68th.

If we double the European spots Europe would have 26 spots. The 25-27 European teams are Wales, Iceland and Norway. They're ranked 44th to 47th in the world.

The Guinea squad has 1 player in a top league in Europe, Iceland has 3.

I see no reason to buy the assertion that these African teams are indisputably better than the European counterparts. 

[Gustaf]

It's not as if Ukraine, or Sweden minus Ibra, or let's face it France played any less clearly undeservant as Algeria or Burkina Faso.

The track record of African and European nations at the world cup indicates that this probably isn't true.