The FIFA World Cup seeding and draw system has consistently produced groups of death and groups comprised mainly of teams that fail to invoke passion or imagination from fans around the world, except perhaps for such teams' own fans. The latest edition is no exception -- and may even be the worst ever on this measure. An outline of the draw system can be seen here. We have one group which contains Switzerland, Ecuador and Honduras and another consisting of Russia, Algeria and South Korea!! And, on top of this, we have at least three, if not four or more, groups of death. Depending on one's perspective, esp. given the recent rise of African powerhouses, all of the rest of the groups may even be considered Groups of Death!! This is a disservice to football fans around the world, not to mention the skilled and enterprising teams that worked hard to get here.
To address this, I propose a simplified draw system :
- Randomize Pot 1 and assign to Groups
- Assign remaining Pots to Groups such that total group rank score is equitable (i.e. assign lowest ranked team from a Pot to the Group with the highest current combined rank, and so on.); break ties by assigning in order of Group number
The results of applying this method to the 2014 draw results in the following groups:
BRAZIL
|
SPAIN
|
GERMANY
|
ARGENTINA
|
COLOMBIA
|
BELGIUM
|
URUGUAY
|
SWITZERLAND
|
Chile
|
Cameroon
|
Nigeria
|
Algeria
|
Ghana
|
Ecuador
|
France
|
Ivory
Coast
|
Australia
|
United
States
|
Mexico
|
Costa
Rica
|
Honduras
|
Japan
|
Iran
|
South
Korea
|
Netherlands
|
Portugal
|
Russia
|
Bosnia
& Herzegovina
|
Croatia
|
Greece
|
England
|
Italy
|
The results seem to be much more pleasing, producing only one group of death, and promising a clash of a variety of styles in all the other groups.
The following image illustrates this methodology.
In an upcoming post, I discuss a complete re-organization of regional football governing bodies and a re-allotment of World Cup qualifying spots.
This algorithm is skewed against one lowly ranked country per group intimidated by the other 3 teams. A simpler method could be just create Groups based on ranking (1-4,5-8,9-13,...) and let them fight it out against themselves. Categorizing into Pots and working on that base doesn't seem justified. This way at every stage they are working out against their in and around equals making every group competitive at all times.
ReplyDeleteYes, in fact, that is the whole point -- groups with powerhouses and minnows; leading to an avoidance of groups of death. What you are suggesting is essentially the best way to achieve many groups of death. While that is great for the lower ranked teams, we lose many top-ranked teams in the earlier stages.
ReplyDeleteI am sure people's loyalties are not based on Rankings :) Take for eg. Brazil - ranked 11th. There is a lot of non tangible elements playing a role. Take Cameroon for eg. ranked 59th, your algorithm would feel it is good to give Cameroon less of a chance but I am sure many fans would beg to disagree. Ironically a better team should make use of lesser chances to justify their standing while it is obvious a low ranked team deserve something extra be it by rounds / matches
ReplyDeleteAdditionally all the best would have played against each other - a win win situation for the fans and game alike. No more concerns on what if Best team A faced Best team B etc.
ReplyDelete