Looking Ahead to Russia

World Cup qualifying is wrapping up, and more than half the field for Russia is set.  After Tuesday, there will only be a handful of places remaining (three of the African spots and the six that go to the November playoff winners).  While it's not official yet, the United States, after a tumultuous final qualifying round, is all but assured to make its eighth consecutive World Cup appearance.

Argentina, on the other hand, isn't guaranteed anything.  They might not even make it to the playoff vs. New Zealand.  But if they do make the World Cup, they'll be seeded.  I don't have that much of a problem with that since it's Argentina, but there are a number of other countries that are going to be seeded at the World Cup and shouldn't be.  In fact, all 32 teams at the World Cup will be seeded.

FIFA tried to sneak that in there and hope nobody would notice, but they announced last week that, instead of only seeding seven teams and organizing the rest of the draw geographically, they're going to seed all four pots at December's draw.  And, of course, the seeds will be determined entirely by the FIFA World Rankings, which are incredibly flawed, yet used religiously anyway.

That's right.  In typical FIFA fashion, they took a system that wasn't broken and "fixed" it anyway.  I'm not gonna get into how stupid the FIFA rankings are.  I've made my feelings on that pretty clear a number of times.  But the idea to use those rankings alone for World Cup seeding without the geographical considerations is even dumber.  Especially since the African and Asian countries are all going to be the lowest-seeded teams anyway.    (There was also a chance Italy, which is currently No. 17, could've ended up in Pot 3, but that can no longer happen since Wales didn't qualify and only five of the six South American teams ahead of them can.)

As I noted earlier, Argentina might not even make the World Cup, but if they do, they'll be seeded.  That's not the issue.  Neither are three of the other countries joining Russia on the top line--Germany, Brazil and Portugal.  But you know who the other three top seeds are most likely going to be?  Belgium, Poland and Switzerland.  Does anyone actually believe those are three of seven best teams in the world?  And do they really deserve to be seeded over France and Chile (who are the next two in the FIFA rankings and better than all three of those nations)?

Here's the thing about the seeding 1-31 (I'm excluding Russia since the host automatically goes in position A1): it's totally unnecessary.  Because of the flaws in the FIFA rankings, the European and South American squads are going to be the highest-ranked teams in the World Cup anyway.  And, I'm assuming they're still going to want to keep the teams from the same continents separated, so why not guarantee that?

UEFA specifically wanted 16 teams when the World Cup expands to 48 for that exact reason.  There will be 16 groups, so each will have one European team.  In Russia, there will be 14 European teams, so six groups will have two and two will have only one.  Well, you know what?  Of those top seven seeds, five are European, which would make separating the European teams very easy (six seeded, eight in their own pot and separated one per group).  But because of this seeding everybody nonsense, you'll have European teams in all four pots and could, theoretically, end up with an all-European group.

This plan would make more sense if they were S-curving the teams so that the groups were 1-16-17-32, 2-15-18-31, etc.  That would still require some finagling to separate teams from the same continent, but it makes more sense than this mix-and-match draw that they're going to have.  Which, I'm 100 percent certain, will still have the geographical considerations factored in.

Using the nations that have either already qualified or appear likely to and their current world rankings an S-curve would look like this (for the European second-place finishers, I used the four-highest ranked teams.  Likewise, Australia is ranked higher than either Panama or Honduras, and New Zealand is ranked lower than all of the South American teams):

Group A: Russia, Italy, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast
Group B: Germany, Uruguay, Croatia, Saudi Arabia
Group C: Brazil, England, Northern Ireland, South Korea
Group D: Portugal, Mexico, Iceland, Australia
Group E: Argentina, Spain, Iran, Nigeria
Group F: Belgium, Colombia, United States, Senegal
Group G: Poland, Chile, Egypt, Serbia
Group H: Switzerland, France, Tunisia, Japan

Of course, one of FIFA's arguments for the change is that the groups will be "more balanced" and there's not going to be the proverbial "Group of Death."  But you know what?  What if you end up with a group of Brazil, France, Costa Rica and Senegal?  Or how about Germany, Spain, United States, Nigeria?  They'd all be in separate pots, so that would be possible.  And those still look like pretty formidable groups.

Likewise, you're not eliminating the "easy" group because Russia, which will be the lowest-ranked team in the tournament, has to be seeded.  If I'm in Pot 2 or especially Pot 3, I'm praying I get drawn into Group A.  Either Group A or whichever group Poland ends up the top seed in.  And, since it's still a draw, the chances of having the top seed in each pot end up together are just as good as the chances of the lowest seed in each pot ending up together.

My point is no matter what system you use, it's not going to be perfect.  Were there flaws doing it the old way?  Sure.  But there are plenty of problems with the new way, too.  Which is why changing the seeding procedure is just silly and unnecessary.  But this is FIFA we're talking about.  So we shouldn't really be surprised about it.