World Cup 2018 - General discussion

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Samid

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A thread for general discussion in the build-up to the World Cup.

The draw takes place on Friday (3 PM GMT).


Following the approval of the draw procedures for the Final Draw for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in September 2017, the confirmation of the pots, and the announcement of the conductors and assistants, the scene is set for all 32 participating member associations to learn their paths to possible glory on 1 December (18:00 local time) in Moscow’s State Kremlin Palace.

As already communicated, the October 2017 edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking has been used to allocate all qualified teams to the four pots in descending order, with the best seven teams along with hosts Russia in pot 1.

The draw sequence will start with pot 1 and end with pot 4. Each pot will be completely emptied before moving on to the next. As per the standard procedure, a ball from a team pot will be drawn, followed by a ball from one of the group pots, thus determining the position in which the respective team will play.

It is worth remembering that the principle of drawing the teams into the groups will remain unchanged. This means that no teams from the same confederation, with the exception of UEFA, which could have up to two teams in the same group, will be drawn into the same group.

Further considerations

  1. In pot 1, Russia will have a red ball and will be pre-assigned the position of A1 as host.

  2. The remaining seven teams in pot 1 will automatically be drawn into position 1 of each group (B to H), whereas teams in pots 2, 3 and 4 will be drawn into positions randomly in their groups.

  3. FIFA’s general principle is to ensure that no group has more than one team from the same qualification zone drawn into it. This is applicable to all zones except Europe, which is represented by 14 teams. Each group must have at least one but no more than two European teams drawn into it. As such, six out of the eight groups will feature two European teams.
The distribution of the teams into the groups according to the geographic separation principle will be monitored by a system designed to take all parameters into account, which means that groups may be skipped. For example, Peru, Colombia and Uruguay, which are in pot 2, will not be drawn into the same group with Brazil or Argentina, which are in pot one. The same principle will apply to the teams from the other confederations with the exception of UEFA.
 

KirkDuyt

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Such a silly system, Poland in group 1 and Spain in group 2

I think these pots should be determined by a combination of the results in qualifying for this tournament and the results of the LAST edition of this tournament. Serbia won their poule and are rewarded with a spot in port 4. It's dumb. Meaningless friendlies deciding in what pot you end up. Friendly international matches arent a good indicator of your teams level. Tournaments and qualification matches are.
 

Peyroteo

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I'm already nervous for this as teams like us will have their tournament pretty much decided by the draw. More importantly than the teams that stay in our group are the teams that stay in the group next to ours that we'll be facing in the round of 16 in case we go past the group.

I'd rather get Spain, Costa Rica, Japan and stay next to a group of Russia, Peru, Iran and Morocco than a group of Peru, Iran, Morocco and stay next to a group of Brazil, Spain, Sweden and Japan as that would mean there would be no chance of getting to the quarters.

I've clearly given this too much thought. I've done about 50 draw simulations here :wenger:
http://ultra.zone/2018-FIFA-World-Cup-Group-Stage-Draws
 

Schneckerl

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Pots way better balanced than in previous cups. Guess you can always complain.
 

Schneckerl

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Such a silly system, Poland in group 1 and Spain in group 2

I think these pots should be determined by a combination of the results in qualifying for this tournament and the results of the LAST edition of this tournament. Serbia won their poule and are rewarded with a spot in port 4. It's dumb. Meaningless friendlies deciding in what pot you end up. Friendly international matches arent a good indicator of your teams level. Tournaments and qualification matches are.
Spain went out in the group stage so I doubt they would be pot 1 with your version. Where do you get the idea from that Poland earned their spot with dumb meaningless friendlies anyway?
 

whatwha

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Wouldn't it be more interesting if there was no seeding? :p
 

KirkDuyt

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Spain went out in the group stage so I doubt they would be pot 1 with your version. Where do you get the idea from that Poland earned their spot with dumb meaningless friendlies anyway?
I know they did, we beat then 5-1 :)

The pots are based on the ranking which is based in part on results in friendly matches, which I think is silly.
 

giorno

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Rubbish competition for rubbish people, means nothing, a big waste of money, a non-entertaining circus. This world cup malarkey should just be abolished

Should play the world cup of curling is instead, now that's a real competition everyone wants to watch
 

Ban

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Rubbish competition for rubbish people, means nothing, a big waste of money, a non-entertaining circus. This world cup malarkey should just be abolished

Should play the world cup of curling is instead, now that's a real competition everyone wants to watch
:lol:

What the
 

giorno

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They seem to take the cup seriously when they win... not sure what this guy's on about. :)
It's a pointless competition nobody cares about. Should just get rid of it now. No point playing it next year really. Let's all do something else
 

FootballHQ

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Hosts usually get a soft draw don't they?

Russia will get something like Peru, Costa Rica and Saudi Arabia.

They'll probably struggle to get out of that group but obviously means harder teams from pot 2 and 3 are going in with another big hitter from pot 1.
 

Acole9

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Doesn't matter who England get, even it's an easy draw they'll find a way of messing it up.
 

JustFootballFan

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Rubbish competition for rubbish people, means nothing, a big waste of money, a non-entertaining circus. This world cup malarkey should just be abolished

Should play the world cup of curling is instead, now that's a real competition everyone wants to watch
I don´t know how to tell you this, but the Italian Men´s national team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Championships five days ago. :lol:
 

sammsky1

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Am going to follow Belgium this time around. Love the team that have, the most talented of all teams entered.
 

Classical Mechanic

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Spain went out in the group stage so I doubt they would be pot 1 with your version. Where do you get the idea from that Poland earned their spot with dumb meaningless friendlies anyway?
According to one of the Polish posters on here (I can’t remember which) Poland have taken loads of easy friendlies which resulted in their high ranking.
 

giorno

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I don´t know how to tell you this, but the Italian Men´s national team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Championships five days ago. :lol:
SERIOUSLY?!?! What the....

:(:(:( allright, World Cup of Drinking and long distance pissing. Who's up for it? Doesn't that sound better than Saudi Arabia-Morocco?
 

Lagger

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It's a pointless competition nobody cares about. Should just get rid of it now. No point playing it next year really. Let's all do something else
You're just saying that cos we won last time. :P
 

Lagger

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@giorno is just taking piss, Italy failed to qualify and he is acting like World Cup does not matter.:D
Oh, yes... that's right. I heard about that. It looked more like the papers were on about Buffon retiring, but I figured there must be a reason why he's retiring. It does feel weird, doesn't it? Going to the tournament of the best national teams and Italy not being in it. It's almost as if... wow, this could be it. Italy has always and will always be our achilles heel. Now that they're out. We might be able to defend the title! Hype!
 

Sarni

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According to one of the Polish posters on here (I can’t remember which) Poland have taken loads of easy friendlies which resulted in their high ranking.
It's not true. We have barely played any extra friendlies since 2015, we've actually avoided friendlies.

We played two friendlies in 2015, against Iceland and Czech Republic which are not really easy friendlies. We played Serbia, Finland in March 2016, and then before Euro we played Netherlands and Lithuania (which we didn't even win). We played Uruguay and Mexico recently but this was already after seedings had been announced.

During same time Spain have played Korea, Bosnia, Belgium, Romania, Italy, Georgia. It's not really a hugely tougher set of games.

We got a very good seed because we absolutely cruised through our last two qualifiers and didn't even lose a single game at the last Euro.
 

JustFootballFan

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Oh, yes... that's right. I heard about that. It looked more like the papers were on about Buffon retiring, but I figured there must be a reason why he's retiring. It does feel weird, doesn't it? Going to the tournament of the best national teams and Italy not being in it. It's almost as if... wow, this could be it. Italy has always and will always be our achilles heel. Now that they're out. We might be able to defend the title! Hype!
Yeah while failing to qualify for the Curling World Championships with an abysmal 2-7 record, Italy still managed to beat Germany. :lol:
 

ROFLUTION

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Hosts usually get a soft draw don't they?

Russia will get something like Peru, Costa Rica and Saudi Arabia.

They'll probably struggle to get out of that group but obviously means harder teams from pot 2 and 3 are going in with another big hitter from pot 1.
I was thinking the same too - if there was something a bit shady about them always getting the easy draws.

So I went back and checked out the last 4 World Cups. Hosts are in bold, and I've ranked them after what place in the group they ended up:

Brazil
Mexico
Croatia
Cameroun

Uruguay
Mexico
South Africa
France

Germany
Poland
Ecuador
Costa Rica

South Korea
USA
Portugal
Poland

Japan
Belgium
Russia
Tunesia

3/5 have been easy - the other 2 kind of standard I'd say. France in 2010 when South Africa drew them were in a bad state and finished last. Japan / South Korea 2002 has later been busted in being pretty fecked up with the corruption. I don't see how Russia 2018 should be any different.

By the way: Whichever team from Europe who draws Russia or Poland from group 1 are almost sure to have a nice group, since there can only be 2 european teams in one group - and only normal/average teams from South America are therefore left. Hopefully that country to have the lucky Poland/Russia draw will be Denmark :D
 

SCP

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World Cup draw, Porto-Benfica and Napoli-Juve. Not bad for a Friday.
The most important one is absolutely Sporting vs Belenenses :lol: more seriously, I want Spain in our group just to start with excuses for our elimination from the group stage, "strong team", "bad luck", the portuguese way, I have a bad feeling related to this next WC.
 

Lagger

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Yeah while failing to qualify for the Curling World Championships with an abysmal 2-7 record, Italy still managed to beat Germany. :lol:
They always do. I've never been afraid of Brazil or Spain (although they soundly beat us a couple of times, too). But Italy? When we meet them in tourneys, they always feck us up. Always. And I never know quite how they do it.
 

diarm

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Just did one of those simulations and got England in group H with Germany, Iran and Nigeria. Brazil and Spain were in group G!

Guess that's pretty much nightmare scenario number 1?
 

Tuvok

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Iran football fans' advice for presenter's dress
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42107916

"I urge you avoid to wearing a sexy dress during the draw so it is possible for us to watch the draw completely. We cannot watch when you wear revealing clothes."
"This is very important. We would like see you live without censor and this matter depends on your dress."

 

Lougie86

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Wouldn't it be more interesting if there was no seeding? :p
If only!! Would love to see a proper group of death! They should do away with seeding in all competitions but it will never happen.
 
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