Friday, August 21, 2009

2010 WCQ: Second place standings (21 August 2009)

A discussion with jonny63 made me curious about Norway's chances of reaching the play-offs. I generated the probable results for the remaining qualifiers and here's the ranking of second placed teams (with the games against the 6th team in the group removed):

Rank - Team - Group - Goals for - Goals against - Points - Goal difference
1 Russia              4 13 3 19 10
2 Serbia 7 11 5 15 6
3 Croatia 6 12 8 14 4
4 Israel 2 9 7 13 2
5 Norway 9 8 5 12 3
6 Republic of Ireland 8 5 3 12 2
7 Poland 3 8 7 12 1
8 Portugal 1 5 4 11 1
----------------------------------
9 Turkey 5 5 5 10 0
Probable results for these 9 teams:

H (home), A (away), W (win), D (draw), L (loss).

Russia

Liechtenstein (H-W)
Wales (A-W)
Germany (H-D)
Azerbaijan (A-W)

Serbia

France (H-D)
Romania (H-D)
Lithuania (A-D)

Croatia

Belarus (H-W)
England (A-L)
Kazakhstan (A-W)

Israel

Latvia (H-W)
Luxembourg (H-W)
Moldova (H-W)
Switzerland (A-D)

Norway

Iceland (A-W)
FYR Macedonia (H-W)

Poland

Northern Ireland (H-W)
Slovenia (A-D)
Czech Republic (A-D)
Slovakia (H-W)

Republic of Ireland

Cyprus (A-D)
Italy (H-D)
Montenegro (H-W)

Portugal

Denmark (A-D)
Hungary (A-D)
Hungary (H-W)
Malta (H-W)

Turkey

Estonia (H-W)
Bosnia-Herzegovina (A-D)
Belgium (A-D)
Armenia (H-W)

About me:

Christian, husband, father x 3, programmer, Romanian. Started the blog in March 2007. Quit in April 2018. You can find me on LinkedIn.

4 comments:

  1. I don't think Norway is going to be among the 8 best second placed teams. I'm Norwegian, and I'm saying this based on how our team plays in the last 5 years. Maybe we are going to win away against Iceland and HOME against Macedonia, but that won't be enough. You also have some "weird" results, by underestimating Serbia (don't mind anyway, they are in front us), Portugal and especially Turkey. And I don't think Croatai and Israel are going to be the second placed team in their group. But I do respect your opinion :)

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  2. Hi!
    I know you're Romanian (where from Romania actually?) and you maybe don't like Serbia or Serbs, but do you really think Serbia is going to get a draw against France (fair enough), Romania (you are good, but not that good!:)) and Lithuania (no comment!)? I believe France will get the 2nd place in Group 7. I also count on help from Romania on 5th September in Paris :)

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  3. Group 5 current situation:

    Bosnia 12 points
    Turkey 8 points

    You say Turkey will gain an additional 8 points, leaving them with 16. You say Bosnia will draw with Turkey, and it's fair to assume they'll lose to Spain.

    So that leaves Bosnia to get 4 points from two games at Estonia and Armenia to surpass Turkey and their 16 points. I think they'll easily make it, considering they beat the two minnows by 7-0 (Estonia) and 4-1 (Armenia) last fall.

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  4. I'm not sure 12 points would be enough, unless no one breaks out of the pack in group 3. Teams are probably going to need 13 points after the 6th place results are removed. I don't know even know if Scotland could avoid missing the playoffs with 13 points, because their goal differential is awful.

    At this point all teams in group 8 need to hope for the right results in the other groups. I think you're being conservative with your likely results. Ireland should beat Cyprus and Portugal should beat Hungary, and I don't see Israel and Turkey finishing second in their groups.

    ReplyDelete