I haven’t written a blog for a while,
mainly due to work and family commitments but I made a promise to myself in the
New Year that I would try to get into it again. I’ve read a lot of good stuff
over the last 6 months or so and it keeps inspiring me to write something only
for ‘normal life’ to get in the way!
As we approach the World Cup I wanted to
get into more topical issues so over the next few months my INTENTION is to
write a series of posts leading up to this. We’ll see how many of my ideas I
get through!
Previous
Seeding Process
For the 2010 World Cup it was determined
that the seeding process would be determined by the top 7 sides in the FIFARankings and the host nation.
This was continued for the 2014 World Cup. Whatever your thoughts on the
Rankings – my opinion is that it is a pretty decent way to rank sides, it at
least takes weightings of opposition and match importance into account – in
theory the best 8 sides at that
moment should be seeded.
However, for the 2006 World cup and in
previous tournaments FIFA also took into account performance at the 2previous World Cups, in fact
before 2006 they actually used the past 3 World Cups. Is this a better way to
do it? In theory this means that the teams that are better for longer periods
of time will be rewarded (so the top seeds will always be Brazil, Argentina –
even England who consistently get to the quarter finals).
2014
Seeding Process
So what made FIFA change and move away
from using historical performance at World Cups? You would have to ask the
powers at be that, but using the top 7 seeds plus hosts does favour teams who
have performed well over the last 2 years. However is this just a form guide
and in theory if they were a top seed in their World Cup group would they then
have an easier ride to the finals and a much higher chance of remaining in the
top 7 places. Take Switzerland as an example. A qualification group consisting
of Iceland, Slovenia and Norway is unlikely to strike fear into the hearts of
many teams.
Had they been judged on past world cup
performance (knocked out in first round in 2010, despite beating eventual
winner Spain and making the 2nd round in 2006) it’s unlikely they would have been held as a
top seed. While Italy (Group stage in 2010 but winners in 2006) would surely
have been seeded after being placed 9th at the time of the draw.
Current
Form
The graph attached shows the rank of the
seeded teams over the past 2 years, with the dotted line showing the 7th spot
needed to be achieved to be considered 1st seed.
You can see from the graph that there a
couple of notable teams who have peaked at the right time. While Germany, Spain
and Uruguay have been consistent over the past 2 years Belgium have really
climbed the rankings. While they have done extremely well over the last 2
years, climbing from 37th in October 2011 to a position of 5th two years later,
they have now dropped back down to 11th just 2 months later and have not
qualified for a World Cup since making the 2nd round in 2002.
I think the Belgium team is excellent
but are they really a stronger side than Netherlands, England (who despite poor
recent form beat Belgium as recently as June 2012) or Italy? Time will tell but
due to them peaking at the right time they can conceivably consider themselves
to be in an easy group then the aforementioned three teams
Switzerland provide a more static line
but again seem to have peaked at the right time, the only time they enter the
top 7 was as the seeds were being drawn – good timing!
Group
of Death
From the rankings we can propose which
groups look the toughest overall. It’s no surprise to find that England are in
the toughest group based on rankings with Uruguay, England and Italy all in the
top 10 at the time of the draw. Costa Rica’s position of 31 in November still
gives an average ranking position of 14 (overall group ranking actually climbs
to 18 for the past 2 years due to Costa Rica’s rise from 72 in October 2012 to
31 in October 2013) making the group the joint toughest
The other group which could be
considered the Group of Death is Group G, consisting of Germany, Portugal, USA
& Ghana. Ghana were very close to a World Cup semi-final place last time
out, Klinsmann’s USA have improved a lot over the last 2 years and have been a
nation on the brink of something impressive since the mid 90’s and Germany have
consistently been ranked in the top 3 for many years.
And then there’s Portugal. Probably the
team most harshly done to by taking the rankings at that exact month of October
2013, the Portuguese needed a fantastic win against Sweden in the play offs to
qualify but had been ranked in the top 10 of the rankings for the previous 2
years. Except for that month in which they dropped to 14th. Why in October did
they drop so low? In March 2013 they were ranked 7th so they must really have
nosedived?
There results were as follows:-
March 13 – 3-3 Israel (A) – World Cup
Qualifier
March 13 – 2-0 Azerbaijan (A) – World
Cup Qualifier
June 13 – 1-0 Russia (H) – World Cup
Qualifier
June 13 – 1-0 Croatia (H) – Friendly
August 13 – 1-1 Netherlands (H) –
Friendly
Sept 13 – 4-2 Northern Ireland (A) –
World Cup Qualifier
Sept 13 – 1-3 Brazil (A) - Friendly
So, 1 defeat (to Brazil who admittedly
were ranked below them) and 2 draws with Israel away and Netherlands at home –
and this has cost them a top seeding place?! The teams around them must have
some record for Portugal to drop as badly as they have. Bearing in mind they
have victories against 2 fellow World Cup qualifiers and a creditable draw with
the team that finished runners up in the last World Cup it seems incredibly
harsh on them that the group they have been drawn in contains 3 very good
opponents when they could have been drawn in Switzerland’s place and been
playing Ecuador & Honduras
Conclusion
Saying all this, there is the old adage
if you want to win the tournament you have to beat the best. That’s fair enough
but are every team’s hopes really to win? Surely Ecuador have a much greater
chance of getting through to the 2nd round or Quarter Finals – something I’m
sure they’d be happy with – when faced with Switzerland/France/Honduras than
they would if Portugal/Italy or Netherlands had been in their group?
While the Ranking system will always be
picked apart there is currently no better way of ordering the national teams.
Surely though, taking a single snapshot of these rankings is also not the best
way to seed teams for the biggest football tournament in the world?
Comments welcome!
