By Jerram Watts
The countdown is on for the 2010 FIFA World Cup: it is only 188 days away.
The venue is sorted, the 32 teams have been decided and now all that is left is to sort them into groups.
A complex process? Well, yes, it is a little bit.
The draw to decide who faces who in the group stage will ultimately be decided by the luck tomorrow, with a few geographical restrictions put in place.
The teams are seeded according to the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking System as at October 2009.
There are eight groups, A-H, and the top seven ranked teams (Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England) take the “Number One” spot in groups B-H.
This mitigates the chances of the best teams eliminating each other in the early stages.
South Africa, the host, takes the number one spot in group A.
The remaining 24 teams are then placed in three ‘pots’, which are geographically sensitive.
Pot Two is composed of teams from Asia (Australia, Japan, Korea DPR and Korea Republic), North Central America and the Caribbean (Honduras, Mexico and USA) and Oceania (New Zealand).
Pot Three is composed of Africa (Algeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria) and South America (Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay).
Pot Four holds the remaining European teams (Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland).
Geographical criteria is respected so no two teams from the same confederation will be drawn in the same group, except for European teams where a maximum of two teams will be in each group.
The World Ranking Schedule was introduced in August 1993 and was revised in 2005 after much criticism about its complexity.
The Ranking Schedule has an indiscriminate equation which it uses to allocate points to teams after each international match.
Points = M x I x T x C x 100
• M: Points for results (three for win, one for draw, zero for loss)
• I: Statues of match (One point for friendly, four for World Cup match)
• T: Strength of opponent ([200-position]/100)
• C: Strength of confederation (based on results in the last three FIFA World Cup tournaments; wins per confederation per match)
Only matches from the last four years are taken into account and the longer ago it was played, the fewer the points allocated. (E.g. played in 2009, 100 percent, played in 2008, 50 percent).
As an example, here is how the points were calculated for the 2006 World Cup Quarter-Final between Brazil and France.
|
Brazil |
France |
| Result |
0
|
1
|
Ranking position
|
1 |
6 |
M (Points for result)
|
0 |
3 |
I (Status of match)
|
4.0 |
4.0 |
T (Strength of opponent)
|
1.94 |
2.00 |
C (Strength of region)
|
0.995 |
0.995 |
Points = M x I x T x C x 100
|
0.0 |
2, 388
|
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