Gordopolis Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Still scratching my heed wi Wales being top seeds Yeah, at the end of the previous campaign they were still utter pump. It's just in this last year or so they've done well: http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/teams/wales/results ...though the only standout result fro that lot is the victory over Belgium. Fair play to them - if it was us we'd be lapping it right up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rory90 Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Never mind Wales, the fact that absolute diddies like the Faroes can be in Pot 4 out of 6 shows what an absolute farce the rankings system is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 Never mind Wales, the fact that absolute diddies like the Faroes can be in Pot 4 out of 6 shows what an absolute farce the rankings system is. The Faroes are currently 4th in their Euro 2016 group, ahead of Finland and Greece. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antiochas III Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 Never mind Wales, the fact that absolute diddies like the Faroes can be in Pot 4 out of 6 shows what an absolute farce the rankings system is. FIFA rankings are a form guide. They do the job just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 Never mind Wales, the fact that absolute diddies like the Faroes can be in Pot 4 out of 6 shows what an absolute farce the rankings system is. The Faroes are currently 4th in their Euro 2016 group, ahead of Finland and Greece. Aye, not really seeing anyone that they're outrageously ahead of on current form. I wonder if the SFA will still be claiming that there's little difference between Pots 2 & 3 when we inevitably draw Italy or France. That was Regan, wasn't it? I'd take Romania, Bosnia, Estonia, Finland and San Marino at the moment. We would definitely drop points against Wales. Strangely, none of the top seeds are setting the world afire right now. England probably have the best form, but when you look at their group... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpoonTon Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 FIFA rankings are a form guide. They do the job just fine. It's far too short-sighted as a form guide for this job though. Take, for example, our last WC qualifying group. Based on the July 2011 rankings the teams in our group were seeded: 1 - Croatia 2 - Serbia 3 - Belgium 4 - Scotland 5 - Macedonia 6 - Wales If the seedings were based on the September 2012 rankings, when qualifying started, the seedings would have been: 1 - Croatia 2 - 3 - Serbia, Belgium, Scotland, Wales 4 - 5 - Macedonia 6 - Lets take another example: Switzerland. 3rd seeds for qualifying, top seeds for the actual tournament. The top seed they faced in their qualifying group? Norway (who finished 4th in the group). Norway, Switzerland, and Slovenia all would have been 2nd seeds by the time qualifying started. Not only did the rankings skew the group itself, it also helped Switzerland become top seeds for the world cup (this was also helped by Holland winning a friendly against low ranked opposition). As a form guide it isn't fit for purpose, especially since the seedings are taken so far from the start of qualifying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 With a better ranking system. It's quite hilarious that a team that haven't qualified for a tournament in about 60 years, and haven't even been close to ever qualifying(apart from 2004 maybe) can be first seeds ahead of regular tournament quarter-finalists like Italy and France. They're going to become the new Greece. Get a ridiculously inflated seeding, then live off piss-easy qualifying draws. They've had a few near misses in that time, to be fair to them, and they were only really complete shite during that period in the Nineties after the players like Rush and Hughes retired. Y'know, the Vinnie Jones era. Certainly not arguing that they should be nowhere near top seeding, though. The rest of the seedings look reasonable, but that's a huge anomaly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpoonTon Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 The Faroes are currently 4th in their Euro 2016 group, ahead of Finland and Greece. Their place in the 4th seeding pot is solely based on 2 recent wins over the same team. If they manage to finish the group in that type of position then their seeding might have the slightest bit of legitimacy but they still have 4 games to go and could easily finish bottom of the group. The two recent wins over Greece have been great for the Faroes, certainly it should be enough to drag them out of the bottom group, but there are teams below them that have had a better record over the past 2 or 3 years, for example: Armenia have wins over Denmark, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Macedonia, and draws against Serbia and Italy in the last 4 years. Finland have wins over the Faroe Islands, Belarus, and Georgia, and draws against Spain and Greece. Cyprus have wins Bosnia and Iceland and draws against Switzerland and Albania. Macedonia have wins over Wales, Serbia, and Luxemburg and a draw against Scotland. Only San Marino and Andorra picked up less than the Faroes 1 point in the WC qualifiers. At the very least we should be waiting until the end of the current campaign before making the seedings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 At the very least we should be waiting until the end of the current campaign before making the seedings. Would definitely agree with that. There can be huge differences between the rankings at the end of qualifying, and those at the arbitrary cut-off point. Doesn't seem fair that countries can be penalised for having their best results towards the end of a qualifying campaign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enigma Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 Bosnia, N.Ireland, Faroes, Lithuania, Andorra. ^^^ England's group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enigma Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 Germany, Italy, Turkey, Finland, Kazakhstan. ^^^ Scotland's group Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpoonTon Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 Wales will draw France, Poland, and Norway. Scotland will draw Romania, Iceland, and Faroe Islands. England will draw Italy, Sweden, and Turkey. Northern Ireland will draw Croatia, Slovakia, and Montenegro. Ireland will draw Belgium, Austria, and Hungary. And the media will have a meltdown about seeding pots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 Wales will draw France, Poland, and Norway. Scotland will draw Romania, Iceland, and Faroe Islands. England will draw Italy, Sweden, and Turkey. Northern Ireland will draw Croatia, Slovakia, and Montenegro. Ireland will draw Belgium, Austria, and Hungary. And the media will have a meltdown about seeding pots. England's more sensible fans should be hoping for a tough draw. They regularly absolutely stroll through qualifying, because as top seeds the chances are they'll get a comfortable group. Then when they get to the tournament, they eventually shit themselves the first time they come up against some real quality. If they got the group you mention above, I imagine they'd qualify, perhaps through the playoff, with Italy. Then they'd be much better served in the actual tournament. Plus it'd be a nice change for us to get a better group, and them to get a tougher one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpoonTon Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 England's more sensible fans should be hoping for a tough draw. They regularly absolutely stroll through qualifying, because as top seeds the chances are they'll get a comfortable group. Then when they get to the tournament, they eventually shit themselves the first time they come up against some real quality. If they got the group you mention above, I imagine they'd qualify, perhaps through the playoff, with Italy. Then they'd be much better served in the actual tournament. Plus it'd be a nice change for us to get a better group, and them to get a tougher one. I'm not sure I buy that to be honest. England's last couple of WC qualifying groups haven't been that straight forward. They had Croatia and Ukraine before 2010 and then fell apart at the tournament. Holland got to the final in 2010 and had us (under Burley) and Norway to contend with in qualifying. I don't think there's really any connection between how difficult a group is and then performance in the final event. The bottom line for England is that they end up coming up against teams that are better than them (Italy, Uruguay, Germany, Portugal, Brazil). I suspect the biggest problem England have with regards to their qualifying group is their mentality. They should relish the opportunity of every challenge - whether that's ripping apart a minnow or dismantling one of the better opponents. The mentality sometimes seems to be that it's an inconvenience that they have to go out there and win a match. Weird. I suppose a tougher group could help to change that mentality, but I think the problem is deeper than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 I'm not sure I buy that to be honest. England's last couple of WC qualifying groups haven't been that straight forward. They had Croatia and Ukraine before 2010 and then fell apart at the tournament. Holland got to the final in 2010 and had us (under Burley) and Norway to contend with in qualifying. I don't think there's really any connection between how difficult a group is and then performance in the final event. The bottom line for England is that they end up coming up against teams that are better than them (Italy, Uruguay, Germany, Portugal, Brazil). I suspect the biggest problem England have with regards to their qualifying group is their mentality. They should relish the opportunity of every challenge - whether that's ripping apart a minnow or dismantling one of the better opponents. The mentality sometimes seems to be that it's an inconvenience that they have to go out there and win a match. Weird. I suppose a tougher group could help to change that mentality, but I think the problem is deeper than that. Yeah, I'm not saying it'd be a magic bullet and they'd go on and win a World Cup, but coming up against one of the more dangerous pot 2 teams would give them more of a kick up the arse than facing one of the weakest. Even if they did draw Italy though, you're still looking at four (or three) other sides that they should easily beat. The way I see it, apart from a few tough games, generally England get a pretty decent run at qualifying. They never look amazing, but always get the job done fairly professionally over the 18 month period. Then they get to a tournament, and suddenly have a three game shootout before they could possibly be out (or two as was the case in 2014). It's a very minor point, but I just think that if they had a few more tough games in the qualifying, and perhaps went into the last couple of games knowing they needed to win, they might be slightly better prepared for tournament football. They'd probably still muddle their way to a second round exit though, natch. Put it this way, I think Scotland might do OK at an actual tournament, particularly Euro 2016, in their current guise, as we regularly need to battle for the points we get. If we qualify, then we'll know we're not close to being the best side there, and go in expecting a battle. England, for the most part, go in thinking that they should go through the groups. Because they should. But at the risk of too much England pish, I would definitely agree that the problem is much deeper than that. And I hope Scotland expose said problems by beating them at Wembley and Hampden when we draw them in our group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparky88 Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 I genuinely don't think it matters who they may have played 18 months previously. In the case of England, the players play tough games week in week out and play pish. I just think they are comfortable qualifiers, but quite some distance from the best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AR851903 Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 Germany, Italy, Turkey, Finland, Kazakhstan. ^^^ Scotland's group Sounds about right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diamonds are Forever Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Yeah, I'm not saying it'd be a magic bullet and they'd go on and win a World Cup, but coming up against one of the more dangerous pot 2 teams would give them more of a kick up the arse than facing one of the weakest. Even if they did draw Italy though, you're still looking at four (or three) other sides that they should easily beat. The way I see it, apart from a few tough games, generally England get a pretty decent run at qualifying. They never look amazing, but always get the job done fairly professionally over the 18 month period. Then they get to a tournament, and suddenly have a three game shootout before they could possibly be out (or two as was the case in 2014). It's a very minor point, but I just think that if they had a few more tough games in the qualifying, and perhaps went into the last couple of games knowing they needed to win, they might be slightly better prepared for tournament football. They'd probably still muddle their way to a second round exit though, natch. Put it this way, I think Scotland might do OK at an actual tournament, particularly Euro 2016, in their current guise, as we regularly need to battle for the points we get. If we qualify, then we'll know we're not close to being the best side there, and go in expecting a battle. England, for the most part, go in thinking that they should go through the groups. Because they should. But at the risk of too much England pish, I would definitely agree that the problem is much deeper than that. And I hope Scotland expose said problems by beating them at Wembley and Hampden when we draw them in our group. I think a tougher group might help them, not quite for the reasons you suggest but more because it might highlight some areas that they need to work on. After every major tournament they are slated for 'not keeping the ball' but it's never really picked up on in qualifying because they don't need to keep the ball to beat the diddies they are playing, they can just play in their normal Premier League 100mph style and win at a cruise. Having to find a system to win more challenging games against good opposition would benefit them for when they reach a World Cup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 I think a tougher group might help them, not quite for the reasons you suggest but more because it might highlight some areas that they need to work on. After every major tournament they are slated for 'not keeping the ball' but it's never really picked up on in qualifying because they don't need to keep the ball to beat the diddies they are playing, they can just play in their normal Premier League 100mph style and win at a cruise. Having to find a system to win more challenging games against good opposition would benefit them for when they reach a World Cup. That's probably a much more succinct way of saying what I mean. Anyway, what time's the draw supposed to be on Saturday? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
La_Leyenda Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Apparently the European part of the draw (which is on last) is scheduled to start at 5.27pm exactly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.