World Cup 2018 - the qualification group draw

These pots could lead to some very interesting groups...

Thats us fucked then

Presumably the pots are what you put the bungs in....

For comparison - if this was a European Championship draw (which uses UEFA's ranking system [not FIFA's]), the groups would be:

Pot 1: Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands, England, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Croatia

Pot 2: Switzerland, Bosnia, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania

Pot 3: Hungary, Greece, Poland, Iceland, Ireland, Turkey, Norway, Slovenia, Israel

Pot 4: Wales, Scotland, Serbia, Montenegro, Northern Ireland, Bulgaria, Armenia, Albania, Estonia

Pot 5: Finland, Lithuania, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Belarus, Cyprus, Georgia, Macedonia

Pot 6: Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Malta, Andorra, San Marino, (Gibraltar)


The question is - how can the two systems produce such different pots (19 [that’s 37% of] teams are in different pots under the UEFA calculation compared to the FIFA one)?

How on earth can England be seeded higher than Italy?

Tony P wrote:How on earth can England be seeded higher than Italy?

And look how many teams are beneath the Faroe Islands!!

daib0 wrote:
For comparison - if this was a European Championship draw (which uses UEFA's ranking system [not FIFA's]), the groups would be:

Pot 1: Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands, England, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Croatia

Pot 2: Switzerland, Bosnia, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania

Pot 3: Hungary, Greece, Poland, Iceland, Ireland, Turkey, Norway, Slovenia, Israel

Pot 4: Wales, Scotland, Serbia, Montenegro, Northern Ireland, Bulgaria, Armenia, Albania, Estonia

Pot 5: Finland, Lithuania, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Belarus, Cyprus, Georgia, Macedonia

Pot 6: Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Malta, Andorra, San Marino, (Gibraltar)


The question is - how can the two systems produce such different pots (19 [that’s 37% of] teams are in different pots under the UEFA calculation compared to the FIFA one)?

So the Taffy lot go from pot 1 (FIFA)
to pot 4 (UEFA)

How about we drop all the Wimbledon-esque seeding bollix and just put all the teams in a hat and pull 'em out one at a time?

Cos the system is designed to weed out the 'smaller' countries and leaves the top teams in the quarter and semi finals with one of a small group of expected teams winning the whole thing.

Put it all down to chance and have a final between the Faroes and Andorra...

SemiOldIron wrote:PPresumably the pots are what you put the bungs in....

Absolutely amazing