World Cup Playoffs

[Ray de Galles]

Garcia's piece reminded me that my relative ignorance of Denmark's squad led to some confusion about a player called Thomas Delaney playing against Ireland. I've since found out about the American grandfather he is named after.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

With Italy out is Tim Cahill going to be the oldest player at the Finals?

[anton pulisov]

Yes, I'd go for that five man midfield also, but obviously Hoolahan will have to be replaced by somebody else. O'Kane or Hourihane might be possible, but I don't know much about them.

Arter, McCarthy and Hendrick in a diamond in the centre of a five man midfield would be good. The three of them are tidy midfielders who would be able to pass to each other. And Arter and McCarthy both have experience in doing defensive midfield work, so there would be no need to play Meyler.

[Kevin S]

Pottery info here - assume this is reliable?

http://www.footballseeding.com/inter...orld-cup-2018/

[ursus arctos]

Rogin, Egypt’s goalkeeper El-Hadary will be 45 by the time the tournament starts.

[Kevin S]

If Peru go through:

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
Russia	Spain	Denmark	Serbia
Germany	Peru	Iceland	Nigeria
Brazil	Switzerland	Costa Rica	Australia
Portugal	England	Sweden	Japan
Argentina	Colombia	Tunisia	Morocco
Belgium	Mexico	Egypt	Panama
Poland	Uruguay	Senegal	South Korea
France	Croatia	Iran	Saudi Arabia

If New Zealand go through

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
Russia	Spain	Iceland	Nigeria
Germany	Switzerland	Costa Rica	Australia
Brazil	England	Sweden	Japan
Portugal	Colombia	Tunisia	Morocco
Argentina	Mexico	Egypt	Panama
Belgium	Uruguay	Senegal	South Korea
Poland	Croatia	Iran	Saudi Arabia
France	Denmark	Serbia	New Zealand

One team from each of the four pots makes a group.
Maximum of two teams in black can be in the same group, but otherwise no two teams in the same colour can share a group.

[Kevin S]

Russia, Denmark, Iran, New Zealand.

[anton pulisov]

Pottery info here - assume this is reliable?

http://www.footballseeding.com/inter...orld-cup-2018/

How did Poland get into Pot 1??

[Kevin S]

Poland, FIFA ranking

[Kevin S]

Moved up from 15th at the start of the year to 6th, with five wins, one draw and no defeats in 2017.

edit - wrong column - five wins and one defeat.

[Kevin S]

Those 2017 results in full:

POLAND 4-2 MONTENEGRO
ARMENIA 1-6 POLAND
POLAND 3-0 KAZAKHSTAN
DENMARK 4-0 POLAND (err, ok then, sixth best team in the world...)
POLAND 3-1 ROMANIA
MONTENEGRO 1-2 POLAND

[anton pulisov]

it maketh no sense

[wittoner]

So the two most recent world champions could be drawn in the same group?

[Diable Rouge]

Certainly didn't happen, at any rate.

[Duncan Gardner]

Sorry lads. Couldn't resist an awful pun. 12:55 = five to one.

[Kevin S]

I'd quite like an acrostic group of

France
Uruguay
Costa Rica
Korea Rep

[Duncan Gardner]

Arse (Australia, Russia, Senegal, England)

Pigs (Peru, Iceland, Germany, Saudi)

Dung (Denmark, Uruguay, Nigeria, Germany)

[blameless]

My favourite was in 1978: Peru, Iran, Scotland, Holland - PISH, which was exactly how our performances against the first two turned out.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I have an overwhelming sense of foreboding that it's going to be Argentina, England, Sweden, Nigeria again

[Kevin S]

Costa Rica
Russia
Australia
Peru

[Ray de Galles]

I would object that this thread has become nothing more than acrostic groups but it gives me an excuse to dig this out ;

[Renart]

They're calling it by a different name, but...

The Alternative Facts World Cup!

[Renart]

The USA must be truly shit to have finished behind Panama and Honduras. CONCACAF seems to be going backwards. Their current allocation seems to be 1.5 too many, although I wouldn't say that anyone who was eliminated in the other federations necessarily deserves the place. The expansion to 48 will presumably solve Africa's tendency to not always send their best 5 teams. I don't think their record merits more than their 5/32 allocation.

When do FIFA announce the pots for the Draw? What would hypothetically be the strongest and weakest possible groups?

I don't know if that's quite right. The USA were indeed shit, but they also faced CONCACAF national teams that have improved over the past four to eight years. (Ironically, a big part of this is because players from the smaller CONCACAF countries have been able to play at a higher level than their domestic leagues allow...in MLS!) MLS has been a boon for players from the smaller CONCACAF nations, while also enabling US players to be more lazy and complacent than they should be by getting big contracts to play closer to home rather than in Europe or Mexico, where they'd have to play up to a higher level.

So even though the Yanks were definitely worse this qualifying campaign than in the last one, I think the overall level of CONCACAF play has probably improved.

[anton pulisov]

BBC:

"I thought there was an agreement. I'll speak to [FAI chief] John Delaney - I've not spoken to him since we spoke about the new contract," said O'Neill.

New contract might not actually haven been signed yet?

So MON hoping John Delaney is a man of his word....

[Satchmo Distel]

Portugal, England, Nigeria and Iran can call themselves the PENIs

Looking at Pot 3, there seems to be quite a drop in quality between the top and bottom four (Sweden 20 to Tunisia 21). You'd want to face one of the African teams or Iran, especially if you're England, who are not noticeably better than Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and Costa Rica. That's not to say that England are a shoe-in to beat, say, Egypt.