FIFA 2014 World Cup - Official Discussion Thread

[Gustaf]

How does Greece always get such easy groups? I mean, I know they're in the top seeding pot but STILL!

Anyway, not too bad for us. Russia is one of the best draws from the top seed and Austria is a pretty good one from the third. Montenegro obviously sucks to get but hopefully it won't matter.

[Gustaf]

I made an on the fly prediction. It came out as:

A:
Brazil
Cameroon

B:
Spain
Netherlands

C:
Colombia
Ivory Coast

D:
Uruguay
Italy

E:
Ecuador
Schweiz

F:
Argentina
Bosnia

G:
Germany
Portugal

H:
Belgium
Russia

----------------------

Brazil v Netherlands

Colombia v Italy

Ecuador v Bosnia

Germany v Russia

Spain v Cameroon

Uruguay v Ivory Coast

Argentina v Switzerland

Belgium v Portugal

----------------------------

Brazil v Colombia

Germany v Ecuador

Spain v Uruguay

Argentina v Belgium

----------------------------

Brazil v Germany

Spain v Argentina

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Brazil v Argentina

[Gustaf]

I'd say England has a worse squad than either Italy or Uruguay. It'd be silly to say they can't progress, it should be close, but I'd predict them 3rd right now.

I'm curious about the idea that they are better compared to 4 years ago. Just glancing now I'm not sure I buy that. Goalkeeper-wise, sure.  But then?

They lost both Cole and Terry in defence. Johnson and Cahill are the only English defenders from top teams this season.

In midfield I feel Lampard and Gerrard are past their prime even if they are experienced. The rest is pretty young and apart from Wilshere not too impressive.

In offence Rooney also feels less strong now compared to 4 years ago. Sturridge I could see putting above Crouch or Defoe.

Still, overall I feel the team had what it took in theory in 2010. This year I have a much harder time seeing them prevail, honestly.

[Gustaf]

Sucks for Colombia. Lol that Klose is Germany's only official forward. Hope he gets the record this time.

[Gustaf]

Sucks for Colombia. Lol that Klose is Germany's only official forward. Hope he gets the record this time.

He probably won't be playing much, either.

Yeah, "last 16" is a silly prediction. Portugal and Ghana are much easier to be eliminated by than anybody in the Belgian group, and Germany have never lost a last 16 match. Group stage or quarter final it will be.

Really? Why bring such an old player if you won't field him? :/ Besides it is mandatory to field him at least against the US so he can get his 2 goals.

[Gustaf]

The only tactical move I can see that might make sense would be for Germany to try to get second place. Since group H is so weak first or second makes no difference, and the way this is shaping up I'd much rather be on that half of the final tree (Netherlands will choke and Argentina is overrated, while Brazil and Italy are always deadly once they advance and France is looking stronger and stronger).

Also, I think Portugal is kind of screwed. They're 5 goals behind the US on goal difference, that's a lot to make up. Ghana is in a much better position, provided they can beat Portugal. Which is a big if. Wouldn't be surprised to see Portugal-Ghana end in a tie.

[Gustaf]

I think there has been a general pro-Germany shift in football because they have a young team playing fun football. Last few years it's been a clear trend. I say this as someone who supported them back in 2002.

[Gustaf]

FIFA rankings are generally worse than ELO rankings, as I recall.

Also, some of the hate comes from the fact that FIFA used to be really, really horrible. I think the classic example is Honduras being ranked number 1 about a decade ago.

Also, just recently Norway got put in the top seeding pot for Europe. WTF.

[Gustaf]

FIFA rankings are generally worse than ELO rankings, as I recall.

Agreed

Also, some of the hate comes from the fact that FIFA used to be really, really horrible. I think the classic example is Honduras being ranked number 1 about a decade ago.

Honduras's highest ever FIFA ranking was 20 (Sept 2001).

The list of #1 ranked sides is limited to Germany, Brazil, Italy, France, Argentina, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Hm, Wikipedia seems to agree with you. I wonder why I thought this.

[Gustaf]

I proposed my metric in the past and I think it is a decent proxy. If all qualifications are equally competitive you'd expect the marginal team from each confederation to be equally strong. If that's true then half of the teams should advance from the group stage from each confederation.

Since the seedings at the world cup is mostly based on confederation it works pretty well to apply this.

Based on that I'd do:

UEFA 17.5
CONMEBOL 7
CONCACAF 3
AFC + OFC 1.5
CAF 2

-------------------
31 + host nation

I agree with Gully that more play-offs would be good though so I'd gladly amend it in that direction.

------------------------

AFC/OFC has had 6 teams making the last 16 since 1986. That is an average of less than 1. There is just not much room for those teams at the top level.

[Gustaf]

Gully, that's only the two last world cups. I would argue both of those featured some anomalies working against Europe.

I also think the comparison you make is misleading.

For example: South Korea has played in the last 8 world cups. The only UEFA teams with a similar or better qualification record are Germany, Spain and Italy. Do you really think South Korea is better than Netherlands, France, England or Portugal? In fact, Mexico, the US and Japan fall into the same category of having longer streaks of world cup qualification  than all European nations but the above 3.

My point isn't that the best Asian teams can't compete with mid-level European teams. They can. My point is that it's unfair that a team of that quality is guaranteed world cup play if it qualifies from Asia and is far from it if it tries from Europe.

[Gustaf]

Holland missed the 2002 world cup, while making the semi of the euros in 2000 and 2004. The reason of course being that competition for spots is so stiff in Europe. I doubt Holland could ever miss qualifying if they played in any other confederation (save maybe CONMEBOL).

[Gustaf]

Holland missed the 2002 world cup, while making the semi of the euros in 2000 and 2004. The reason of course being that competition for spots is so stiff in Europe. I doubt Holland could ever miss qualifying if they played in any other confederation (save maybe CONMEBOL).

Holland missed that world cup because they were awful (and Louis 'genius' Van Gaal was coach then). I remember that because I remember Ireland easily beating them.

I mean on paper perhaps they were better but on paper France should easily have topped their 2002 group with Senegal, Uruguay and Denmark. Instead they got 1 point and 0 goals. (and people complained before the tournament 'Holland should be here instead of Senegal'... there's no way of knowing how these teams comparing without them, you know, playing against each other).

I still think you're missing my point. Mexico was awful in this qualifier but they still qualified, narrowly getting the play-off spot and winning a play-off against New Zealand. A team of Mexico's calibre performing as poorly as they did this qualifier would have missed it had they been in UEFA. I also feel like you ignored the other points I raised.

I agree that CONMEBOL is maybe more deserving of extra representation, but I still think it's safe to say that UEFA is underrepresented.

[Gustaf]

It seems to me that UEFA's number of places is about right (but in the binary, more likely slightly under-, rather than over-represented).

Actually I would agree with this.

I just don't see how UEFA should have 17 places when quite a few of its sides did rather badly. In both 2010 and 2014 only 6/13 have qualified from the group stages and has included some awful rubbish at the same level: Russia, Slovenia, France... Of course, this isn't to say there isn't rubbish from the other confeds.

I still think you're missing my point. Mexico was awful in this qualifier but they still qualified, narrowly getting the play-off spot and winning a play-off against New Zealand. A team of Mexico's calibre performing as poorly as they did this qualifier would have missed it had they been in UEFA. I also feel like you ignored the other points I raised.

Ah but under your proposal Mexico wouldn't have qualified either. CONCACAF top three was Costa Rica, USA and Honduras.

I don't know what other points I missed. I disagree that the confederations should be made equally difficult to qualify out of because we have no good way of measuring that except at the world cup itself.

Yeah, that's my point? I'm proposing to change the system because in the status quo I don't think it's fair that Mexico could qualify this time (for example). I think that if the CONCACAF group was 3 spots it would be more fair.

I am using the cup itself as my metric. I'm just not putting as much weight on the last to world cups as you are. The way the world cup is organized, imo, facilitates using it as a metric.

What I felt you ignored was the comparison between say Mexico and Japan versus England and  Portugal. Is it really fair that the best teams in Asia and North America are guaranteed spots when only the top 3 teams in Europe (roughly speaking) are?