I’m sure for most the FIFA World Cup draw is nothing more than an administrative formality, but for me it’s so much more.
Every four years I enthusiastically stay up until whatever deathly hour is required for the magic moment when a tournament encompassing a World of qualifiers is concentrated into the pitting of four nations against each other for the chance at international glory.
When the draw is made this year in the early morning of the seventh of December, I’ll be up again.
The draw creates controversy; think Iran against the United States in 1998.
The draw re-united old foes; Argentina and England were drawn together in 2002.
The draw creates David and Goliath stories; Trinidad and Tobago got a shot at England in 2006.
And of course, as Socceroos fans we also get to see our own fate.
Group of death? Bitter rival? Easy passage to the knock-out rounds? Anything is possible.
FIFA have not yet confirmed the pot system yet, other than the eight top-seeded teams and the fact that the other sides will be divided geographically.
Already there are some surprises, as FIFA is using its own World Rankings.
Any football fan will tell you the FIFA rankings are reliable only in their consistent unreliability, and that means a number of less heralded sides being seeded will traditionally stronger teams miss out.
Alongside hosts Brazil, a number of familiar faces fill the seeded pot.
No-one will expect an easy game against defending champion Spain or traditional powerhouses Germany and Argentina.
More mysterious is the presence of Belgium, Switzerland, Colombia and Uruguay among the top eight nations in the world ahead of the Netherlands, Italy, England and France.
Belgium are a real dark horse for the tournament, but the Swiss and Colombians won’t be giving most national team managers nightmares, while Uruguay struggled to qualify only sneaking through ahead of Jordan in a play-off.
Looking at the remaining breakdown, four of the seeds and European and four are South American.
It’s therefore likely that eight of the remaining nine European qualifiers will be put into a single pot, with the lowest ranked European team (France) dropped out next to the two unseeded South American nations and five African qualifiers.
The remaining pot will combine four Asian and four North American qualifiers.
Assuming this system is correct (and we are talking about FIFA, so don’t rule out a crazy three or five pot system to divide teams into four groups of eight) the pots will be as follows:
SEEDS: Brazil*, Spain, Germany, Argentina*, Colombia*, Belgium, Uruguay*, Switzerland
EURO: Netherlands, Italy, England, Portugal, Greece, Bosnia andamp; Herzegovina, Croatia, Russia
POT 3: France#, Chile*, Ecuador*, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Algeria, Nigeria, Cameroon
POT 4: USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Japan, Iran, South Korea, Australia
*expect FIFA to keep the South American seeds away from unseeded South American sides Chile and Ecuador
#similarly, France will be forced into a group with Brazil, Argentina, Colombia or Uruguay to prevent three European sides being drawn together
There’s plenty of scope for excitement in the draw. A group of death could contain Brazil, Italy and France.
Germany could be in with England.
There’d be heat if Belgium pairs with Netherlands or Spain with Portugal.
For Australia, any of Italy, England, Croatia and Greece would split loyalties within our most sizeable populations.
Looking closer at how Australia might fare, I’ll present four theoretical draws:
Group of Death: Brazil, Italy, France, Australia
Drawing a South American seed opens Australia up to getting France rather than one of the weaker African sides in our group, and given the recent 6-0 hiding they gave us that’s a far more unpleasant prospect than a dangerous Chile side from pot three.
Make the seed Brazil on home soil, and throw in any of Italy, Netherlands or England then avoiding humiliation would be the best realistic outcome Socceroos fans could expect.
Group of Life: Switzerland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Australia
Given the dangerous sides in both the seeded pot and European pot, Australia would be very happy to end up with modest Switzerland and debutant Bosnia and Herzegovina.
That’s not to say that they are bad sides, but certainly Australia could expect at least a draw against either especially in a neutral South American venue.
Cameroon are the only side in the draw ranked lower than Australia so we’d have to be relatively pleased to be drawn with them.
Realistic Group: Spain, Russia, Ivory Coast, Australia
This group is an example of the approximate standard we are most likely to have to come up against. As with 2006 and 2010, we should expect to face a genuine powerhouse side and personally I’d love for us to play defending champions Spain.
We’ve previously drawn with Croatia and beaten Serbia as unseeded European opponents, and saving for bad luck due to the unusual seeding system this time around Russia presents as a good side that we could still beat if we’re at our own best.
The final opponent is the most unpredictable, and as with Ghana last time it’ll be very hard to predict how we’d perform against Ivory Coast.
This group would see three reasonably even sides competing for a runners-up spot behind Spain, with Australia the slight underdog of the three.
Rivalry Group: Uruguay, England, Ghana, Australia
Admit it – you’d love a shot at England.
They’re our biggest rivals in most sports we play, but football is the one sport they consider their own and worry more about Germany or Argentina than us.
It’d be the ultimate shedding of our colonial heritage to top them at the game they love more than all others.
Unfortunately, most of our other main rivals are in the same pot as England (Italy, Croatia or Greece are nearly as exciting as potential opponents) or us (Japan are very much our footballing rivals and we still owe the USA one after their coach wrote us off in the lead-up to the 2006 draw).
We could still get excited about playing our traditional qualification rival Uruguay, though.
Also, a chance to redeem ourselves against Ghana after *that* penalty and red card decision four years ago would be an exciting prospect.
Who do you want us to play against?
Does it matter, given the current state of the team?
How much effect does the draw have on how Ange Postecoglou treats the tournament and selects his squad?
There’s only a week left to speculate, before the true diehards waste another night watching old man pull balls out of pots in front of the world.
Michael Bovell
Roar Rookie
So it's officially announced... unlike the 2006 World Cup when the lowest ranked Euro side (Serbia/Montenegro) was bumped into a different pot, this time it'll be a random side (I'm guessing because France is a strong and powerful nation that didn't want to have to risk playing for example both Brazil and Netherlands in the group stage). Since half the unseeded Euro nations are world powers anyway (Netherlands, Italy, France, England) it doesn't change much from Australia's perspective. BUT it does mean we could end up in a group with Uruguay AND TWO of England, Italy, Greece and Croatia! Increases our chances of a genuine rivalry round for sure. It does change our best or worst case scenarios though, as the best case would be to still avoid the Euro side and get an African side instead while the worst case would still involve getting a strong Euro side that has been bumped out combined with one that remains in the original Euro pot (any 2 of France, Italy, Holland or Portugal combined with Brazil or Argentina). Only a couple of sleeps to go everybody!!!
Greg
Guest
it has been pointed out above that most people were assuming France or Russia were going to be the "leftover" European team slotted into the 5 Africa/2 Sth American/Europe group when they have been talking about their Group Of Hope/Group of Death scenarios. FIFA has decided it will actually be a RANDOM draw of the 9 unseeded European teams so it could be Italy or the Netherlands, or Bosnia
SlickAs
Guest
Here is the way I read the FIFA document you linked to earlier: first they just draw the seeded teams to define the groups, then they draw one ball from the Euro group ... let's imagine it is Holland ... this is the team that will now be from the African / unseeded South American group, but they don't bother putting that ball in with the other African team balls, they continue to define where Holland goes. They then have this Pot X containing a ball each from Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia. They pull one ball from that Pot, let's say it is Colombia. So they place Holland into Colombia's group and continue with the draw pulling out the rest of the African / unseeded South American balls and adding them to groups A through H, skipping over Holland in Colombia's group once they get to it.
John Burns
Guest
Everyone was mentioning France, as they were the lowest ranked Euro team from the October Rankings to qualify from the playoffs.
John Burns
Guest
SlickAs, I wasn't speaking about a specific euro team, I was looking at the odds once it is moved into POT 2 from POT 4. The reason why is, which ever team it is, if Brazil is drawn out of POT X, then the Euro moved to POT 2 would them be place in Group A Team two, which would mean it would play Brazil in the opening game. HOWEVER, since the odd of this are 25% of Brazil being drawn out of POT X, what Group will this Euro team be moved into? Will we know what Groups Argentina, Columbia and Uruguay will be in when one of them are drawn from POT X? From what I see, that is not what will happen. You see, when it comes to FIFA they have a history of shoehorning non-seeded South American teams into groups. Now it looks like if Brazil is not drawn from POT X, then there might be a seeded South American team shoehorned into their Group.
Greg
Guest
I think most people were assuming France or Russia were going to be the "leftover" European team slotted into the 5 Africa/2 Sth American/Europe group when they have been talking about their Group Of Hope/Group of Death scenarios. FIFA has decided it will actually be a random draw of the 9 unseeded European teams so it could be Italy or the Netherlands, or Bosnia.
SlickAs
Guest
That is not how I understand it. My understanding is that the South American teams in Group A (seeded), will be put aside into "Group X", with one of them drawn against the European team that ends up in the African pot. Since there are 4 seeded South American teams (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay), that would indicate to me that the European team selected into the African pot will have a 1 in 4 chance ... 25% chance of meeting Brazil. So to be really thorough here, a team in the European pot has a 1 in 9 chance of being pulled into the African pot and then once there a 1 in 4 chance of being drawn with Brazil. If it is not drawn into the African pot (8 in 9 chance), then it gets a further 1 in 8 chance of drawing Brazil. So formally, a team in the Euro pot has (1/9 x 1/4) + (8/9 x 1/8) = 13.9% chance of drawing Brazil. This compared with Australia that has a 1 in 8 chance = 12.5%. Not that big a difference.
John Burns
Guest
http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/tournament/finaldraw/02/23/84/73/131203_finaldrawprocedures_neutral.pdf
AZ_RBB
Guest
Did anyone hear FIFA trying to explain the draw and pots this morning? Each group will consist of one team from each of four pots with Pot 1 featuring the top seeds: Brazil, the host nation, alongside Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Switzerland. The other pots will be based on geographical criteria so that countries from the same confederations are kept apart. Pot 2 will contain the five African teams, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Algeria, Nigeria and Cameroon, plus the non-seeded South American teams Chile and Ecuador and a European team to be moved out of Pot 4 in a pre-draw. Pot 3 will feature Japan, Iran, South Korea, Australia, United States, Mexico, Costa Rica and Honduras while nine European sides, Bosnia, Croatia, England, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia and France, will comprise Pot 4. FIFA revealed that a pre-draw will be held to move one of the nine European teams into Pot 2 where they would then be drawn against one of the four seeded South American teams to preserve the geographical balance of the draw. To complicate matters further, the four South American seeds would form a temporary Pot X and the three not drawn against the European team in Pot 2 will return to the main draw.
John Burns
Guest
More are questioning Switzerland and Uruguay being seeded. I doubt anyone expects Columbia to be easy to beat. Also, most comments regarding Australia are that they are not the class of the World Cup, but England has stumbled before, so perhaps Australia being drawn with England might be an unexpected benefit for Australia.
John Burns
Guest
With the European team being pulled out and then check against the seeded South American teams, the odds are 75% against that country ending up in Group A with Brazil. What seems unclear to me is, if they do not get Brazil and will not be placed in Group A, then where will it be placed? Group H? Group B? Also, whomever that country is, they will play against a seeded team first, a CAF-CONCACAF team second and another UEFA team last. http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/tournament/finaldraw/02/23/84/73/131203_finaldrawprocedures_neutral.pdf
Alejo
Guest
I hope Colombia gets Australia in the same group. We will show you guys that we are not in pot 1 by chance. Not only do we play in the hardest qualifier and came second after Argentina, but we haven't lost in a friendly game for quite some time now. I know we have been absent for the past 16 years, but the generation of players we have now is as strong as the top teams in the world. Just saying!
SlickAs
Guest
That is better. It made no sense to have G7 countries (the 7 richest and most industrialised) in all 4 pots (#1 & 2, USA and Japan in Asia/ Central America and France inexplicably in with the Africans). Ideally FIFA would like all G7 in a pot together so they do not eliminate each other if they could just find a rationale. Now they have a 3/9 = 33% that a G7 country will be drawn in Pot 2 which is better than 100% chance of France being in there. Ideally FIFA would want Bosnia and Herzegovina would be drawn into the pot with poor countries.
John Burns
Guest
We already knew that Brazil would be in Group A, team one. Looks like there will first be a draw to draw one of the nine non-seeded Euro teams to be 'added' to POT 2.
AZ_RBB
Guest
Whichever hour of the day gives FIFA the most amount of money and diamonds.
John Burns
Guest
Well, if it is to be believed, you could get England, Australia, one of the seeded teams, and a CAF team or France or Chile-Ecuador. Maybe you get a CAF-Belgium mix, or a Brazil-France one. Who knows? Anyone know what time GMT on December 3rd the POT's will be revealed?
Lags
Guest
Agreed. There are (obv) worse teams to draw from that pot than Bosnia, but I'm wary of a confident cohesive underdog. I feel they're more like 'o6 Roos. Whereas a Croatia are closer to '10 Roos.
Spillsy is Sky Blue
Guest
this is a very interesting site that delves into the whole drawing thing http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2297502/Vibrating-balls-fixed-Champions-League-draw--VIDEO.html get your tin hat out!
HardcorePrawn
Roar Guru
Agreed. It really irks me to see the rankings constantly get trotted out by the Australian media as a way of justifying a result or previewing a match too. It's just lazy journalism that smacks of an unwillingness to do any real research (it's very prevalent in the mainstream media and commercial FTA TV). Using rankings in this way always show up the inadequacies of the system when discussing friendlies where one or both teams may be blooding a few youngsters or trying experimental line-ups.
Eddy Bramley
Roar Pro
How good would a group with Australia and England be? As an England fan i'd obviously be backing the English, but it would be so good to see the likes of Tim Cahill take on England at a World Cup. I hate to say it but with England's history at recent World Cups, Australia would probably win!