Soundoff: How Would You Seed for the World Cup 2010 Draw?

I’d be tempted not to seed them. I know that means that England could come up with Brazil, Spain and Holland, but to hell with it. That’d be exciting. Although It would mean there was probably a horrible group somewhere else.

If I was having to sort them out instead of having an open draw, I’d just do it by the place they qualified in. So put all the African sides in one pot, the European ones in another etc. Just so your playing people you wouldn’t usually play against.

Pot 1
Argentina
Brazil
England
France
Germany
Netherlands
Spain
Italy

Pot 4
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
North Korea
New Zealand
Honduras
Japan
Switzerland

tough choice this one, omitting portugal and ivory coast from the pot 1. Not saying that Argentina is better, but with their history, they are bound to be seeded anyway.

One other rule, besides S. Africa having to be in Pot 1, is that to prevent teams from the same confederation from being in the same group. This means that the European teams must be split between only two pots, that all the CONCACAF teams should be in the same pot, etc.

Pot 1:
S. Africa
Brazil
Argentina
Spain
Netherlands
Italy
Portugal
Germany

Pot 2:
France
England
Greece
Serbia
Denmark
Switzerland
Slovenia
Slovakia

Pot 3:
USA
Mexico
Honduras
Australia
Japan
N. Korea
S. Korea
New Zealand

Pot 4:
Chile
Paraguay
Uruguay
Cote d’Ivoire
Algeria
Cameroon
Ghana
Nigeria

Reply Vespo: I think your pairings are pretty accurate. However, here in Mexico there is are a lot of complaints that they are going to be ranked in the weakest group (with Asia for example) while they are definitely not among the weakest teams in the tournament. Mexico feels certain that their grouping will result in them being a part of the “group of death”.

This is a different subject, but why don’t CONCACAF and CONMEBOL merge? Wouldn’t it increase the quality of teams by increased competition?

CONCACAF and CONMEBOL don’t merge because that defeats the purpose of a World Cup, having representation from every continent. They are separate continents with separate ways of life. That’s like saying, why don’t CAF and UEFA merge, that way it increases the quality of the competition. The distance between Africa and Europe and North America and South America are the same. If you merge one, why not merge the other

It just doesn’t work like that..

@Yellowostritch: the way I organized it, I was really only ranking the teams in Pot 1. Pot 2 is simply the rest of the UEFA teams. Pots 3 and 4 are organized the way they are simply so that teams from each confederation are in the same pot (where possible, ignoring the seeded teams) and have 8 teams per Pot.

@Mark: I agree, I don’t think CONCACAF and CONMEBOL could or would merge. But what about Asia and Oceania? Austalia has left for the Asian confederation…seems like a matter of time before the OFC folds completely.

“If the criteria to determine the seeded teams were to include, as in the past, the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, then it would be the October 2009 edition of this ranking which would be considered, and this for sporting reasons. In fact, using the November 2009 edition would create an uneven situation, specifically for the European Zone, where the play-offs involving the eight best runners-up led to an imbalance in the number of qualification matches played between the teams.”
http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/ranking/news/newsid=1137443.html#spain+regain+leadership+from+brazil

Based on the seeding for 2006 World Cup (shaky guess work?) here are the possible draws (based on October/November Rankings)
http://malawi.worldcupblog.org/team-news/fifa-world-cup-south-africa-2010-draw.html

While the draws for the 1998 and 2002 World Cups took into account performance in the three previous tournaments along with FIFA’s rankings, the formula was CHANGED SLIGHTLY for the 2006 World Cup draw and was based on the prior two World Cups and the rankings.

Got that?

“The detailed criteria to determine the seeded teams for the Final Draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ will be confirmed at the next meeting of the Organising Committee for the FIFA World Cup™ in Cape Town on 2 December 2009 (and announced at a press conference following the meeting).”
http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/ranking/news/newsid=1137443.html#spain+regain+leadership+from+brazil

What should we expect to be confirmed? Whether or not they will use November or October rankings. Also, whether or not there will be a special pot. World Cup 2006 Serbia-Montenegro was put in a special pot because of its low ranking(47th). To avoid having a group with three European nations, Serbia-Montenegro was placed in a group with Argentina, Brazil or Mexico. The teams that have qualified for 2010 World Cup include Korea REPUBLIC, ranked 52 and Korea DPR (North Korea?) ranked 84. Will there be a special pot or special pots?

World Cup 2006:

Pot One (seeded teams): Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain

Pot Two: Angola, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Tunisia (Africa); Ecuador, Paraguay (South America); Australia (Oceania)

Pot Three: Croatia, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine (Europe)

Pot Four: Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia South Korea (Asia); Costa Rica, United States, Trinidad and Tobago (North and Central America and Caribbean)

Special Pot: Serbia-Montenegro

I know it’s a mess with the old business of no more than two European teams in one group, but if there were no parameters like that, then subjectively…

Pot 1

South Africa
Italy
Spain
Brazil
England
Netherlands
Germany
Argentina

Pot 2

Portugal
France
Ivory Coast
Paraguay
Australia
Mexico
United States
Ghana

Pot 3

Greece
Cameroon
Serbia
Japan
South Korea
Chile
Denmark
Slovakia

Pot 4

Uruguay
Switzerland
Nigeria
Honduras
Algeria
Slovenia
North Korea
New Zealand

If France gets put in pot 1 then FIFA needs to be slapped upside the head. No reason they should be ahead of any Euro team who won their group.

all i know is that FIFA will place these teams away from each other, so they can at least face each other in the second/third round as seeded teams, brazil and spain on opposite sided either group “A or “H”

Argentina
Brazil
England
S.Africa
Germany
Netherlands
Spain
Italy

everything else is a toss up

PODS?Science fiction,anyone?Does any of this matter?By the quarterfinals,it will be same old teams:Argentina,Brazil,Germany,Italy,Netherlands,England,France,Spain.Maybe Portugal,Japan or one of the Koreas could pull an upset,Argentina or Spain might self destruct,Germany might lose players in the match fixing scandal and Brazil might have 11 egos getting in the way on the field,but,otherwise,same as last time and the time before.

Mexico in the seeded group? Keep smoking…ur almost there…lol

GLTTUSMNT

Who wrote that Mexico is in the seeded group for 2010 World Cup?

@CONCACAF and CONMEBOL don’t merge because that defeats the purpose of a World Cup, having representation from every continent. They are separate continents with separate ways of life. @

lol, you do know that for most people in the Americas (or rather, America), North and South America are one continent, right? There is no hugely separate history when you cross from Colombia to Panama… mostly only English speakers learn that there are two continents.

Most people (especially in Latin America) learn that there is one continent with four regions: North, Central, South and Caribbean. We don’t have @separate ways of life@.

Vespo is definitely correct. The only question is who the top European seeds will be.

Darly, I always love the pictures you use for your posts lol.

Pot 1:

Argentina
Brazil
England
Germany
Italy
Portugal
Spain
South Africa

And lol @ Ash placing S.Africa in pot 4. You fail at comprehension.

It seems to me that what they should do is have one seeded pot (I’d go with Argentina, Brazil,
England, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, South Africa), and then do the rest as an open draw. That is, just put the seeded teams into groups and then start drawing teams into those groups. Of course, you would obey the restrictions on teams from the same conference being in the same group (except Europe). Unless you are going to actually seed all the pots (like European qualifying), then it makes no sense to split the teams up by pots for the draw. As an American, I share the concern expressed about Mexico above that inevitably — insofar as there is a group of death it will almost certainly involve either the US or Mexico. But beyond that, it just seems odd that teams will go into the draw knowing that there are certain teams from other confederations that they will not be able to be drawn against. Assuming CAF and CONMEBOL are together, then Ivory Coast can’t play Paraguay — for no good reason at all. Assuming CONCACAF and AFC are together, then there is no possibility of the politically charged US versus North Korea matchup. Brazil can’t face two European teams. All for no particularly good reason. Anyway, there’s no reason to think that they will do this, but I don’t see why they shouldn’t.

I feel sorry for teams like Mexico, USA & Australia who are decent but likely to be in the weakest pot with the Asian & North-American teams (from what i’ve read elsewhere).

I belive a good idea would be to seed the 8 weakest teams in pot 4, and then split the other 3 pots by region as to involve a random factor. I think this would make it very interesting to see, and the maximum number of really good teams you could have in a “group of death” would be 3 rather than 4 (which would result in 2 good teams leaving the competition). The best 2 teams out of the 3 would be decided in the group anyway. I would still keep South Africa out of the weakest pot to increase the host nation’s chances of progressing in the competition.

I would split the pots like this:

Pot 4 – Slovenia, Slovakia, New Zealand, North Korea, Honduras, Japan, South Korea, Algeria

Europe/SouthAmerica Pot – Holland, Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, England, Greece, Denmark, Serbia, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile

Africa/NorthAmerica/Asia Pot – South Africa, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Mexico, USA, Australia

In this draw, 2 teams would be drawn from the European/SouthAmerican pot, followed by 1 team from the Africa/NorthAmerica/Asia pot and one team from Pot 4. The splitting of the Confeds does not add any advantage or disadvantage as there are good teams in both these pots, and with arguably the best teams in the European/SouthAmerican pot, well 2 would be drawn from this anyway so the teams in this pot can face each other as well. It seems alot fairer and keeps the random element, whilst splitting the Confeds up (with maximum 2 European teams being allowed in each group and 1 of the other Confeds). Drawing Pot 4 last would give Fifa the chance to keep apart the Confeds as you would know the other 3 teams in each group and could just draw between the possible teams who could go into that group before taking the drawn ball out of the equation and moving onto the next group. It should work.

I just did a mock draw to see what it could end like with this system:

A – South Africa, Germany, Uruguay, North Korea
B – Ivory Coast, Denmark, Spain, South Korea
C – USA, Portugal, Chile, Slovenia
D – Cameroon, Greece, Holland, Honduras
E – Nigeria, Paraguay, Serbia, Slovakia
F – Australia, France, Brazil, Algeria
G – Mexico, England, Argentina, New Zealand
H – Ghana, Italy, Switzerland, Japan

I think the draw looks quite balanced apart from group E being the only one that looks fairly easy. Group G is the inevitable group of death but with 3 good teams rather than 4, and there appears to be one favourite in every group bar group E. This draw would make some intriguing ties…

The only drawbacks to this method would be the possible confusion in keeping confeds apart when drawing Pot 4, and obviously the fans of the 8 countries in Pot 4 who may feel unfairly seeded as the “weakest” teams despite their well-earned place in the competition through their qualifying efforts.

Concerning the separation of CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, I agree with José, though maybe I wouldn’t say it quite as bluntly. The number of continents is not something which is universally accepted. I do not think that comparing Europe and Africa with North and South America is a very accurate analogy. Central America, Mexico and much of the Caribbean share much in common with South America. In fact, they are generally grouped together as Latin America. So, perhaps rather than asking why not merge them, perhaps it would be better to ask, why are they separate? It seems very Eurocentric to me. The U.S. and Mexico already send clubs to participate in South American tournaments such as the “Copa Libertadores.” If Australia can participate in the Asian qualifiers, why not join the Americas together in one group? Personally, I find it rather embarrassing that the U.S. must compete against the likes of Trinidad and Tobago in order to make it to world cup. No other countries have it as easy as the U.S. and Mexico when it comes to world cup qualifying. Competition improves quality, so if the U.S. really wishes to improve, in my opinion they should push for increased competition with the likes of Brazil and Argentina. I think this would also increase interest in the U.S. It would be a lot easier to get excited about a USA vs Brazil or Argentina match than it is to get people pumped up to watch the USA duke it out with El Salvador.

As far as seeding, I like Kris’ idea. Though I don’t think that FIFA will ever come up with something so creative and imparcial.

Pot 1: Australia, etc. I’ll get my coat.

All that matters is that Ireland is in the draw, or it will be a shameful, non-existent tournament

Shame Shame Shame

@ Kris, I like your draw, I agree that group G has only 3 good teams, Argentina, Mexico and New Zealand will fight it out for the the honors in that group.

Calm down unbelievable, that was the seeding of 2006.

I know you like to dismiss Mexico every chance you get, but relax and read a couple of lines first.

Kris, Your Mock draw scares me, if Brazil, France, and Algeria were in the same group. First of all, France is Brazil’s bogey. Second, France and Algeria in the same group would be like civil war in France.

Anyhow, I have a feeling it will be strictly by rankings. Which would make the first pot look like this:

Pot 1:
South Africa
Spain
Brazil
Netherlands
Italy
Portugal
Germany
France

I believe the other four pots will be divided by divisions such as AFC & CONCACAF in one pot, etc.

France not only handballs their way into the world cup, but they also get seeded?!

If France doesn’t win this one, it’ll would be such a shame!

Option 1 would be the same format they used in 2006 except this time they wouldn’t need a special pot because there will be 8 unseeded UEFA teams. Pot A would contain the seeded teams, Pot B the UEFA teams, Pot C the African and South American teams, but to avoid teams from the same confederation ending up in the same group South Africa would draw from South America and the two seeded South American teams would draw from the Africa before the South American and African teams would be placed into Pot C. Finally, Pot D would contain Asia, Oceania, and CONCACAF teams.

Pot A – South Africa, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Spain
Pot B – Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, Potugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland
Pot C – Algeria, Camerron, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Chile, Paraguay, Uruaguay
Pot D – Australia, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic, New Zealand, Honduras, Mexico, USA

Option 2 would be similar to option 1 but Pot C and Pot D would change. FIFA might use this since this time around the remianing unseeded South American teams have a lower combined ranking than the CONCACAF teams so they would group CONCACAF and Africa together to create a stronger pot C and a weaker Pot D creating the likelihood of more balanced groups. This would make Pot D Asia, Oceania, and South America. In this scenario South Africa would draw from CONCACAF before Pot C teams are placed in pot together and Argentina and Brazil would draw from Asia/Oceania before Pot D teams are drawn together. Again this is to avoid teams in same confederation to be put into same group.

Pot A – South Africa, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Spain
Pot B – Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland
Pot C – Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Honduras, Mexico, USA
Pot D – Australia, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay

Option 3 is a little different. You would still have four pots but not all pots would have 8 teams. Pots A and B would stay the same, but Pot C and Pot D would be difference and more based on geography. Pot C would conteain teams from Asia/Oceania and Africa, while Pot D would contain teams from the Americas. However Pot C would be split at first with teams from Asia/Oceania and Africa because in this scenario every group picks one team from each pot with the exception of the groups containing Argentiana dn Brazil as they would draw two teams from Pot C. One from the Asia/Oceania side and one from the African side.

Pot A – South Africa, Italy, Argentian, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Spain
Pot B – Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland
Pot C – Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Australia, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic, New Zealand
Pot D – Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Honduras, Mexico, USA

Option 4 is similar to the draw procedure used in the UEFA CHampions League. Teams would be ranked 1-32. Placed into 4 pots. However, still te teams from the same confederation cannot be drawn together would still apply much like teams from the same country can’t be drawn into the same group. Pot A would contain 1-8, Pot B 9-16, Pot C 17-24, and Pot D 25-32. I ranked the teams based on the seeding formula and not the FIFA rankings.

Pot A – South Africa, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Spain, England, France, Argentina
Pot B – Portugal, Netherlands, Mexico, USA, Switzerland, Paraguay, Ghana, Cameroon
Pot C- Korea Republic, Japan, Australia, Ivory Coast, Greece, Nigeria, Serbia, Uruguay
Pot D – Denmark, Chile, Slovenia, Honduras, Slovakia, Algeria, New Zealand, Korea DPR

Thank you very much,it’s helpful to me

I know a little about it, now i learn it,thanks!

My bet is that neither Portugal or Netherlands will be seeded due to previous WC’s where they have failed to qualify.

If you use the seeding formula’s used for the previous two world cups, these are the teams that will make it – which ever formula you use.

Pot 1:
South Africa
Brazil
Germany
Italy
Spain
England
Argentina
France

Pot 2:
Remaining european teams

Pot 3:
Remaining African and South American Teams

Pot 4:
Asian, Oceania, and North/Central American Teams

I also think fifa may have a couple of “special” pots to avoid having two african or south american teams in the same group.

the way to avoid special pots is teams containing African and South American teams in those pots the seeded teams from those respective regions draw out of the other half of the pot before teams actually get put into Pot C or Pot D. So there is actually a CONMEBOL pot a CAF pot, a CONCACAF pot, an OFC/Asia pot before being put into Pot C or Pot D. Hope that made sense or helped any of you out as far as draw procedure. That’s how they avoid teams from South America and Africa meeting teams from their same region.

In 2006 there were 9 unseeded European teams and that’s why they needed a special pot. The way they avoided Mexico who was seeded being drawn against another CONCACAF team is they had Mexico’s group draw from the other portion of Pot D the portion that contained Asian teams and not CONCACAF teams. They did the same with South America. As Brazil and Argentina drew from Pot B before Ecuador and Paraguay were put into it.

Seeded teams:

South Africa
Brasil
Spain
Germany
Italy
France
England
Argentina

Pot 2:

Denmark
Greece
Portugal
Netherlands
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Switzerland

Pots 3 and 4 can have different options, depending on whether the remaining South African teams are put together with the remaining teams of South America (Uruguay, Chile, and Paraguay) or with the teams of Concacaf (Mexico, USA, and Honduras). North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand will be in the same group and will be put either with the remainig South American teams or with Concacaf teams. Yet, the South African teams can be put in pot 3 or 4. The same can happen with the group of North Korea, South Korea, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand.

I don’t care about France’s ranking. A team that didn’t finish 1st in their group and hand-balled their way into the tournament had better not be seeded in the first group. If they are, FIFA will have adopted an absolute joke of a system.

Why not go strictly by ranking? Modified, of course, to elave out of Pot q

Honestly, no way is it fair that CONCACAF can’t face Asian teams and CONMEBOL can’t face African teams. It’s kind of silly.

My take on it (and I know this is late into the topic): why not just seed the top eight and make a free for all draw from then on, avoiding regional repeats. How? Bare with me (and balls balls balls… get the giggles out now).

Basically, make up a new bowl for every unseeded spot: 24 new bowls for every unseeded spot. This bowl will only have teams that aren’t already represented in the group, i.e. in a group with a CONMEBOL seed, a UEFA team, and a CONCACAF team, the final spot will be drawn from all non-represented confederations: Africa, Asia and Oceania.

To explore in more detail:

Have 24 bowls, one for each unseeded team. These bowls will have a ton of balls containing only that team’s balls, i.e. the Ghana bowl will only have Ghana balls.

First draw all the seeds into their respective groups, with South Africa in Group A, Italy Group F (or whatever it is), and the rest at random. Ok, now you have the group leaders, right?

So when you draw for the second spot in Group A, throw into a BIG BOWL all of the unseeded UEFA, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, and Asian teams (NOTE: no African teams into the BIG BOWL, as there is already an African team represented), collected from the previously mentioned 2 bowls. Draw from this BIG BOWL. Pick out, I don’t know, Slovenia. Throw out all the balls from the BIG BOWL.

Move on to Group B, where the seeded team is Brazil. Now throw into the BIG BOWL all the balls from the UEFA, CONCACAF, Asia and African regions. And draw from that. Simple enough, right?

Now later when you come back to Group A, which has South Africa and Slovenia… into the BIG BOWL go all the CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, and Asian ball (note, no UEFA or African teams).

It’s really pretty simple, has the advantage of making almost ANY match up possible, and makes sure that regions are spread out as much as possible! This just makes the most sense…

Jose48, that is basically the sameway they do it in the champions league with all the balls…..lol except they have teams seeded 9-16, 17-24, and 25-32 but I wouldn’t be against your idea at all. It actually seems the most fair.

Not quite sure why everyone is so keen to play the Asian teams. N.Korea might be one of the weaker teams, but Japan, S.Korea and Australia will all be tough opponents.

I don’t think Japan or South Korea are that good to be honest with you. Against big opponents, they mostly just counterattack. Australia is the only AFC team I want to avoid..

@ Pseudinho: yeah, CL is where I got the idea from… I was actually thinking that it’s possible FIFA might actually use this system this Friday. But maybe that’s just the wine talking.

@ Tom: to be honest, I think it’s more that people want every match up to be possible, not that everyone wants to be grouped with the Asian teams. Although it has to be said that from the bottom up the AFC/OFC has the weakest teams at the tournament. North Korea and New Zealand (with all respect) are due in for #31 and #32.* Japan is still suspect. Australia and South Korea are threats, no doubt about it, but I doubt you’ll find any team coach who’d want to avoid those two over USA and Mexico.**

* North Korea in particular, as they only got by through a combination of their defensive approach w/ quick counterattacks and some pretty terrible attacking from the other Middle Eastern teams (KSA, Iran, and UAE). They’ll be found out against any team outside their confederation.

** Honduras would be slight favorites against the bottom rung Asian teams as well, IMO.

Jose48, I like your idea but would just like to point out that up to 2 UEFA teams can be drawn in a group (as there are 13 teams from Europe). So when you go back to Group A which has South Africa and Slovenia in it, you would still be able to draw UEFA teams, just not African teams.

This is the kind of draw I would most like to see, a random one, but I don’t think FIFA are clever enough to use the 24 bowl system – or they would just be too lazy, cos tbh it is very simple. They would rather use an easy system which would mean splitting into 4 pots, and most likely regional, which is a shame for the confed which gets put with the AFC/OFC teams who to be fair, are the weakest confeds. I say this as New Zealand and North Korea are def the worst 2 teams in the tournament, and I would only put Slovenia, Algeria and Honduras behind South Korea & Japan from the entire teamlist from other confeds. Australia are alright, but not in the top half of the 32 imo anyway, whereas USA and Mexico would have a shout.

Kris, I believe it was two UEFA teams only when one of them was seeded. So only the groups with Spain, France, Italy, England and Germany would have another UEFA team.

I don’t know. I saw in a preview video released by FIFA how they were stressing that the draw should be “clear and easy to follow by anyone”… jaja, maybe that was their way of eliminating this type of approach.

Ok yeah i see your point.

I hope they use this kind of approach, but i can’t see it. Apparantly they are releasing the system they will use on Wednesday so we’ll have to wait and see til then.

Seedings and the draw system is something I have been thinking about.

I agree with Jose above. One thing I do not like with the system used recently is that confederations are paired together in the same point. I agree with the idea of preventing teams (other then UEFA where it cannot be avoided) from the same confederation being in the same group, but why group say African and South American teams together?

Here is what I would do.

Seeded teams – I know the most common system for deciding seeds (although not used for 2006) is a formula based on the last thre world cups. I do not know how it worked so I invented my own. The 7 highest scoring teams would be seeded along with the hosts South Africa. These 7 teams in alphabetical order are Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Oddly enough under my system had France lost their play off to Ireland the team that would have been seeded in their place would have been Paraguay.

How I would do the draw.

1) South Africa are in Group A. The other seeds drawn to groups B through to H.

2) Conveniently there are 8 unseeded UEFA (Europe) teams. Draw one to each group.

3) African teams. Have one pot with the 5 unseeded African teams and another pot with the 7 non African seeds. Draw an African team then draw a seed. The African team then goes in that seed’s group.

4) CONMEBOL (South America). The same again. One pot with the 3 unseeded CONMEBOL teams and another with the 6 non CONMEBOL seeds. Draw a South American team then draw the seed whose group they go into.

This helps to mix things up as it is possible a group may contain both an African and South American team (only for a UEFA seed), one or neither.

5) The final step of the draw would be a pot containing the North America, Asian and Oceanic teams to fill the remaining spaces. Groups may need 0, 1 or 2 teams from this pot. Obviously if a group needs 2 teams they would have to be from different confederations.

I have tried a sample draw with this system using a random number generator. Oddly enough this kept the unseeded African and South American teams apart. The two seeds to avoid an African team were England and Italy. The three that drew a South American team were England, Italy and South Africa.

The groups were.

-A-
South Africa
Paraguay
Netherlands
New Zealand

-B-
France
Nigeria
North Korea
Slovenia

-C-
England
Honduras
Denmark
Chile

-D-
Brazil
Serbia
South Korea
Cote d’Ivorie

-E-
Spain
Switzerland
Austalia
Algeria

-F-
Argentina
Slovakia
Ghana
United States

-G-
Italy
Uruguay
Greece
Mexico

-H-
Germany
Portugal
Cameroon
Japan

I think Korea, Japan and Australia stack up pretty well against the USA, personally.

Particularly with Bradley managing.

I quite like Jose’s system for picking the teams, though. Can’t see any real problems with it.

“I think Korea, Japan and Australia stack up pretty well against the USA, personally.”

It would definitely be a match, but I would put the US as slight favorites against Korea and Japan. But now we’re just getting too specific: what we’re seeing now won’t necessarily be what shows up in South Africa.

Oh, and ESPN has officially launched its World Cup site!! It has a basic run down on every team, a review of the venues, the draw, a “Pick the Best Team Ever” poll, and they even go WAY into depth on about half the countries (seemingly at random: Ghana, Brazil, North Korea, Italy, etc.) Soon enough they’ll even have a Bracket Competition up (after the draw). So. Effin’. Psyched.

There have been several interesting ideas on whether to organize the pots. But I think the best way is having the first pot with the seeded teams and the second pot with only European teams. This is to avoid more than two European teams in a group. It would not be fair to have three European teams in a group because they would eliminate each other. The point is to meet teams from other continents.

I think the weakest group are that from Asia toghether with New Zealand because of their soccer history. But no opponent will be easy and Australia, Japan and South Korea can surprise.

Another interesting situation is which seeded opponents are weakest. I would say South Africa, France, and Argentina. I have great respect for Argentina and I think that under normal circumstances it would be one of the favourits, but Maradona is a very bad coach. France is a weak first seeded team as well as South Africa.

I am sceptical about the high rating of Spain because it has been favourite several times before and never has performed in a World Cup according to the expectations. It is a great team and can win some matches with huge difference of goals, but I doubt of the team’s ability in adversity when beeing two or three goals under. Until now it has not shown the mental strength of Brasil or Germany to fight back. A World Cup is more than pure technical ability. At the last World Cup Brasil had apparently the best team man for man and were eliminated in the quarter finals because some of its players were in bad shape and overweight.

Here’s a novel approach: use the freaking rankings! Why reinvent the wheel? Use a standard 32 team bracket and apply the S curve (Big Dance fans know what this means). And you can still apply special confederation rules :
– no more than 2 UEFA teams in same group
– only one team from each of the other confederations in each group

I know the arguments against the FIFA ranking system (so use a better one; SPI anyone?) and realize that this approach lends itself towards teams “rigging” their rankings in the months coming up to the draw. But for goodness sake, the current draw system is broken, and putting USA in a pot with the dregs of OFC and AFC is just criminal.

So here is how one would applying a basic 32 team bracket with S-curve this time. Start by seeding all 32 teams according to the Oct09 FIFA rankings, regardless of region:

Team Rank Seed Order
———– —- —- —–
Spain 1 1 1
Brazil 2 2 2
Netherlands 3 3 3
Italy 4 4 4
Portugal 5 5 5
Germany 6 6 6
France 7 7 7
Argentina 8 8 8

England 9 9 16
Cameroon 11 10 15
Greece 12 11 14
USA 14 12 13
Mexico 15 13 12
Côte d’Ivoire 16 14 11
Chile 17 15 10
Switzerland 18 16 9

Uruguay 19 17 17
Serbia 20 18 18
Australia 21 19 19
Nigeria 22 20 20
Denmark 26 21 21
Algeria 28 22 22
Paraguay 30 23 23
Slovenia 33 24 24

Slovakia 34 25 32
Ghana 37 26 31
Honduras 38 27 30
Japan 43 28 29
South Korea 52 29 28
New Zealand 77 30 27
North Korea 84 31 26
South Africa 86 32 25

Then put teams in groups A-H,according to the S-curve order:
seeds 1-8 into groups A-H in ORDER
seeds 9-16 into groups A-H in REVERSE ORDER
seeds 17-24 into groups A-H in ORDER
seeds 25-32 into groups A-H in REVERSE ORDER

The “Order” column above reflects this placement. Here is what you get:
A
Spain -1
Switzerland -18
Uruguay -19
South Africa -86
B
Brazil -2
Chile -17 *
Serbia -20
North Korea -84
C
Netherlands -3
Côte d’Ivoire -16
Australia -21
New Zealand -77
D
Italy -4
Mexico -15
Nigeria -22
South Korea -52
E
Portugal -5
USA -14
Denmark -26
Japan -43
F
Germany -6
Greece -12
Algeria -28
Honduras -38
G
France -7
Cameroon -11
Paraguay -30
Ghana -37 *
H
Argentina -8
England -9
Slovenia -33
Slovakia -34 *

The teams marked with an asterisk break one of the two confederation rules, and therefore need to be shifted up or down one group to fix the problem. This is easily done, especially in groups G and H by swapping Ghana and Slovakia

The final result:

A
Spain -1
Chile -17
Uruguay -19
South Africa -86
B
Brazil -2
Switzerland -18
Serbia -20
North Korea -84
C
Netherlands -3
Côte d’Ivoire -16
Australia -21
New Zealand -77
D
Italy -4
Mexico -15
Nigeria -22
South Korea -52
E
Portugal -5
USA -14
Denmark -26
Japan -43
F
Germany -6
Greece -12
Algeria -28
Honduras -38
G
France -7
Cameroon -11
Paraguay -30
Slovakia -34
H
Argentina -8
England -9
Slovenia -33
Ghana -37

These groupings are MUCH fairer than anything we are likely to see tomorrow. Which means that FIFA, in its infinite stupidity and corruption, will never get anywhere near them.