FIFA ease the path for the Big Guns
Roar Guru
By pothale, 20 Oct 2009 Pot Hale is a Roar Guru
- Tagged:
- FIFA, World Cup football, World Football
A small but important change was made to the qualification process for the World Cup by FIFA in recent weeks.
As the European Round games drew to a close, FIFA issued a directive stating that the qualifying stages for the second-placed teams in each of the 8 pools would be changed so that the top 4 FIFA ranked teams would be seeded.
This would ensure that teams like France, Portugal and Russia, who had been less than successful in their pool stages, would get an easy ride by not having to play each other to qualify.
Up to now, the qualification path has been very democratic – every team had an equal chance – over home and away legs – to qualify for South Africa.
Now it seems some teams are deemed more equal than others for FIFA’s purposes.
Lower ranked teams such as Ireland, Bosnia Herzogovina, Slovenia were not seeded, and following the draw today, the qualifying draw looks like this:
Ireland Vs France
Russa Vs Slovenia
Portugal Vs Bosnia-Herzogovina
Ukraine Vs Greece.
What a pity that lack of performance and laziness by what are star-studded teams gets rewarded instead of recognising honest endeavour by countries who have to make do with much smaller resources and talent
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Tom said | October 20th 2009 @ 8:35am | Report comment
“What a pity that lack of performance and laziness by what are star-studded teams gets rewarded instead of recognising honest endeavour by countries who have to make do with much smaller resources and talent”
Harsh call. Particularly for Russia. After a couple of years of very strong results they missed out on top spot against Germany, one of the best teams in the world. It would be a bit unfair if they were to draw France or Portugal after that. Mind you, they’d probably beat them.
On face value, the Greece-Ukraine qualifier looks the most even. I’d actually back the unseeded Ukrainians, for that one.
AndyRoo said | October 20th 2009 @ 9:07am | Report comment
What i find strange is that it seems they could change the draw/rules mid qualification.
Scary
Pippinu said | October 20th 2009 @ 9:18am | Report comment
It seems reasonable enough – afterall – pretty much everything works on the basis of seedings – but AndyRoo makes a good point that it’s not something you introduce midstream.
It’s also a reminder that worldwide participation is a wonderful thing – but at the end of the day, FIFA wants the big countries in the WC, and most importantly, wants them there at the pointy end.
Michael C said | October 20th 2009 @ 11:34am | Report comment
would ‘contrived’ be an appropriate description??
Just illustrates the business pragmatism out muscling the ‘romance’.
You’d just hate for Russia to miss out on a single freak beach ball style goal….
dasilva said | October 20th 2009 @ 9:50am | Report comment
THe only issue is that they introduced this midway in the qualification process
However there’s nothing wrong with seeding. After all, the World cup is about getting the best team to the tournament. Also if the small sides are good enough they can still make it so this ensure that it is meritocratic.
It is not unfair. It is unfair if we have let say Slovenia play Bosnia to qualified to the world cup. Whilst France had to play Portugal to qualify. This is because it is not meritocratic. Part of the job of organiser in planning out the world cup draw is to create the most meritocratic draw and seeding achieves that.
The world cup is not the FA cup, it’s about getting the elite from each confederation to compete with each other.
We seed in terms of what groups you are allocated with. Other confederation seeds in preliminary playoffs to qualify to the group stages. Europe is now just copying what the Asian and African and North American were doing for a long time.
Art Sapphire said | October 20th 2009 @ 10:51am | Report comment
Just look at Slovenia. They came 2nd from a very weak group. Czechs, Poland and Slovakia were seeded above them. Slovakia won the group and they came second.
You can imagine what would have happened to them if they were in the same group as Germany and Russia. I doubt they would have finished 2nd.
Seedings are not a true reflection of the current strenghth of a team as its based on past performances. Thats why the Czechs and Poles bombed out so badly. The Slovenes were lucky to be drawn with them and the Slovaks qualified for the WC.
For example, the Portuguese are a higher ranked team but they struggled through qualifying. However, Bosnias form has been excellent. This promises to be best match up of the four ties.
Rob said | October 20th 2009 @ 7:33pm | Report comment
So..are we all praying for a Slovenian win so we can get Guus back!
pothale said | October 21st 2009 @ 1:28am | Report comment
I accept the principle of seeding being used – but introducing it half-way when the pool outcomes start to look different than the expected outcome is unfair. the message it sends to other smaller teams is also quite clear – we like you to participate, but at the end of the day, we’ll do what we can to ensure the bigger names get through.
I’d also argue that if you’re going to use seeding and want it to be meritocratic, then you should seed all eight teams a la the Heineken Cup format. Thus the eight teams would be ranked on their performance in the pool stages since that’s all they’ve been playing for the last 18 months. The team with the highest points comes first, goal difference, etc being used to separate teams on same points. You could then choose to have 1 v 8, 2, 7, 3, 6, 4 v5. That would be meritocratic.
If a team such as Russia, France or Portugal struggled to qualify, why should they be rewarded with an easier qualifying process for their lack of endeavour or skill.
Ireland – a relatively rum team – had the WC holders, Italy, in their group – drew in the first match away , and were within a whisker of beating them at Croke Park. They didn’t lose a match in their group. And for their efforts, get landed with another WC winner, France, to try and qualify.
What’s done is done – we’ll just have to see how the two legs go.
Tom said | October 21st 2009 @ 8:06am | Report comment
As it happens, Ireland only barely qualified for the playoffs. If Norway had picked up just two more points (and their second last game was a draw against Iceland) then Ireland wouldn’t have made it all.
pothale said | October 21st 2009 @ 12:04pm | Report comment
That’s a circular argument. If Ireland had picked up two more points in their last match against Montenegro which was a dead rubber, they’d have more points than Portugal. Norway had less matches to play too and they only won two and lost two. Scotland who finished on the same points as them but won more matches might argue that it they hadn’t drawn one match they would have qualified, and so on……
Anyway, based on my suggestion above, the ranking would have been:
1. Russia
2. Ukraine
3. France
4. Slovenia
5. Greece
6. Bosnia Herzogovina
7. Portugal
8. Ireland
And the resulting draw would have been:
Russia v Ireland
Ukraine v Portugal
France v Bosnia Herzegovina
Slovenia v Greece
compared to:
Ireland Vs France
Russia Vs Slovenia
Portugal Vs Bosnia-Herzegovina
Ukraine Vs Greece.
As it turns out, the four seeded teams don’t meet each other under this method either, but I think it would have been seen to be fairer. Still the Irish record against the French isn’t too bad – 3 wins, 4 draws and 5 losses. Let’s hope we add another one or two to that. Allez les verts!
David V. said | October 21st 2009 @ 10:40am | Report comment
France’s ability to qualify, let alone perform when they get there, is severely diminished by having Domenech as coach.
Furthermore, chaos theory is the history of French football. The 50s and 80s Golden Generations were followed by long droughts, and then a new Golden Generation took shape in the mid-to-late 90s which is being exhausted now.
pothale said | October 26th 2009 @ 6:49am | Report comment
Domenech is also clearly a master of the French bon mot. After getting the news of the draw against Ireland, he described them as the England B team. Very funny. Obviously subtlety and psychology didn’t feature highly in the Domenech household.
Pippinu said | October 26th 2009 @ 7:09am | Report comment
I hope Ireland can shut his trap.
Unfortunately, it’s clear what FIFA prefers as its end result – and we all know what a poor deal lesser lights get from refs when it comes to the business end.
pothale said | October 26th 2009 @ 7:18am | Report comment
Maybe Trap can get Ireland to shut. He will if he beats France.
jw17 said | October 21st 2009 @ 12:43pm | Report comment
Back in Bosnia-Herzegovina to beat Portugal.. Edin Dzeko can’t stop scoring!
gazz said | October 24th 2009 @ 4:26pm | Report comment
Whatever about changing it midstream, its the right call. We want the best teams in the world at the World Cup. I just wish theyd changed NZ’s qualification process, cos what a joke it would be to have NZ at the WC not Portugal or France. Shane Smeltz or Cristiano Ronaldo?