Edit: The draw is done and I congratulate the Swiss. The possibly strongest team from the third second group got the worst team from the first seeding group, the worst team from the second seeding group, and as a little bonus, one of the worst teams from the fourth seeding group. That's how you fix an unfortunate slip in the rankings. Welcome to Brazil, Sepp.
####
Today the European qualifying groups for Brazil 2014 takes place.
I think there is something seriously wrong with the way the qualification campaigns are organized in Europe.
53 teams are competing for 13 spots. They will be split in nine groups with six teams in most. The nine winners qualify, the eight best runners-up are drawn in play-off pairs for the remaining spot. The runner-up obtaining the worst result in qualification (deducting the results against the worst placed team in each group) is out.
53 teams! Each team will play 10 games (8 for some) and possibly 2 play off games. Many of these games will be pretty lame as more then half of the teams know they will never qualify.
So what do we do? To me the obvious solution would be fewer groups, and fewer games. 13 is a difficult number but here is my suggestion:
The 21 best ranked teams are automatically qualified for the second phase of the qualification.
The other 32 start earlier, in a 1st qualification round. 8 groups with four teams in each. The group winners and the best runner-up qualify for the next round.
At the second stage, we then have six groups with six teams in each. The first two in each qualify, and the two best third placed go head to head in a play off for the last spot.
This way, all games would be somewhat meaningful. Instead of explaning why, let me just give an example of what is could look like
First stage
Group 1
1 Romania
2 Georgia
3Faroe Island
4 Wales
Group 2
1 Bulgaria
2 Lithuania
3 Azerbaijan
4 Liechtenstein
Group 3
1 Hungary
2 Albania
3 Macedonia
4 Iceland
Group 4
1 Ukraine
2 Scotland
3 Moldova
4 Kazakhstan
Group 5
1 Belarus
2 Northern Irland
3 Latvia
4 Luxembourg
Group 6
1 Bosnia
2 Austria
3 Cyprus
4 Malta
Group 7
1 Czech Republic
2 Poland
3 Estonia
4 Andorra
Group 8
1 Belgium
2 Armenia
3 Finland
4 San Marino
Lets say the teams in bold go through. In the main qualification we would then have for example:
Group 1
1 Spain
2 Russia
3 Sweden
4 Bosnia
5 Belarus
Group 2
1 Holland
2 Montenegro
3 Denmark
4 Czech Republic
5 Ukraine
Group 3
1 Germany
2 France
3 Slovenia
4 Belgium
5 Hungary
Group 4
1 England
2 Greece
3 Turkey
4 Ireland
5 Bulgaria
Group 5
1 Portugal
2 Norway
3 Serbia
4 Israel
5 Romania
Group 6
1 Italy
2 Croatia
3 Slovakia
4 Switzerland
5 Austria
More fun, no?
Instead we're stuck with this.
First seeded:
Spain
Holland
Germany
Italy
England
Portugal
Croatia
.Greece
Norway
Second seeded:
France
Russia
Sweden
Denmark
Turkey
Serbia
Slovakia
Montenegro
Slovenia
Third seeded:
Switzerland
Ukraine
Bosnia
Czech Republic
Belgium
Ireland
Hungary
Israel
Belarus
Fourth seeded:
Bulgaria
Romania
Scotland
Poland
Austria
Northern Ireland
Lithuania
Albania
Georgia
Fifth seeded:
Finland
Cyprus
Macedonia
Latvia
Estonia
Armenia
Moldova
Azerbaijan
Faroe Islands
Sixth seed:
Iceland
Wales
Kazakhstan
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malta
Andorra
San Marino
(I have ranked the teams in each group according to what I consider to be their strength).
Any draw where we get Norway or Greece is a good draw.
No comments:
Post a Comment