Friday, October 14, 2011

EURO 2012: How the play-offs affect the pots

France will root for Bosnia-Herzegovina... Isn't that something :)

Sure to be in pot 4 if they qualify: Czech Republic, Republic of Ireland, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Estonia.

That leaves Croatia and Portugal as the ones that could push teams to a lower pot.

Teams that could be affected: Russia, Denmark and France.

So who's safe?

Pot 1: Poland, Ukraine, Spain, Netherlands
Pot 2: Germany, Italy, England
Pot 3: Greece, Sweden
Pot 4: All play-off teams, bar Croatia and Portugal

Russia

Pot 2: If Croatia don't get two wins against Turkey
Pot 3: If Croatia qualify with two wins against Turkey

Croatia

Pot 2: If they qualify with two wins against Turkey
Pot 3: If they qualify but not with two wins against Turkey

Denmark

Pot 3: If Croatia don't qualify or Portugal don't get a win against Bosnia-Herzegovina
Pot 4: If Croatia qualify and Portugal qualify with at least one win

Portugal

Pot 3: If they get at least one win or (they qualify with two draws and Croatia don't qualify)
Pot 4: If they qualify with two draws and Croatia qualify

France

Pot 3: If Croatia and Portugal don't qualify
Pot 4: If Croatia or Portugal qualify

And here's the table with possible coefficient values - goals scored in the play-offs not taken into account since they won't affect the pots.

D - draw, W - win - L - loss, Q - qualified team, P - play-off team

Team - 2D - 1W1L - 1W1D - 2W


Spain (Q) 43116 43116 43116 43116
Netherlands (Q) 40860 40860 40860 40860
Germany (Q) 40446 40446 40446 40446
Italy (Q) 34357 34357 34357 34357
England (Q) 33563 33563 33563 33563
Russia (Q) 33212 33212 33212 33212
Greece (Q) 32455 32455 32455 32455
Croatia (P) 32286 32620 32953 33620
Sweden (Q) 31675 31675 31675 31675
Denmark (Q) 31205 31205 31205 31205
Portugal (P) 30837 31237 31637 32437
France (Q) 30508 30508 30508 30508
Czech Republic (P) 27942 28342 28742 29542
Ireland (P) 27843 28176 28510 29176
Turkey (P) 27528 27861 28195 28861
Bosnia-Herzegovina (P) 26902 27235 27568 28235
Montenegro (P) 21976 22476 22976 23976
Estonia (P) 20351 20684 21018 21684

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.

21 comments:

  1. Good work Edgar.

    I doubt that Croatia will win both matches against Turkey, but if they do they deserve the pot2 seeding.

    I though believe that Portugal will qualify and go past Denmark for a place in seeding pot3.

    My guess is that the pot4 in the end will contain the following teams: Denmark, France, Ireland, Czech Republic.

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  2. I think it's kind of unfair, that Portugal can overtake Denmark. In my opinion Play-Offs shouldn't count at all for the coefficients.

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  3. Is this right? I thought goals counted for something (specifically 501 points for a goal scored)? Could two big Czech Republic wins take them above France? Or would they have to be so massive as to be not worth considering (after averaging)?

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  4. Anon at 19.04: you got it right in your last sentence.

    Each goal difference in the play-offs, for the Czech Republic, is worth 20 points (slightly less for Croatia because they played more games). So anything more than a 160-point lead (eight goals) is essentially impossible to catch up.

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  5. I was wondering if my England could be threatened in pot 2. Glad to see we're safe. It will hopefully help us survive the group stage without Rooney. If we take him that is. Both options carry pros and cons.

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  6. @ Anonymous 2

    I THINK the Czechs would have to win the playoff by twenty goals to do that.

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  7. I'd like to see England do something like that to San Marino in WCQ and pick up a cheap 1,000 pts :)

    The goals thing should be scrapped from this system if you ask me. Bonus points should also be awarded depending on what pot the team you beat/tied came out of.

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  8. @ Anonymous 2

    ignore me. I see where I went wrong.

    guess that would be about 400pts for England then with banging in goals against San Marino.

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  9. @Lorric

    I did promise you I would revisit this San Marino thing.

    So, with 2 10-0 wins against San Marino, England's coefficient would have been 34504, 941 more than now. Still pot 2 though.

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  10. Portugal will finish above Denmark if their second leg goes to penalties. It will add an extra 400 points to their coefficent - just pipping Denmark by 32 points!

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  11. @ Edgar

    Looks like I missed this message of yours (not the one in the link, the one here.)

    I guess it will soon be time for the re-visit then! :)

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  12. Anonymous said: "I think it's kind of unfair, that Portugal can overtake Denmark. In my opinion Play-Offs shouldn't count at all for the coefficients."

    You're absolutely right. The same shit happenend in 2010. Denmark won the qualification, but Portugal ended up in the better pot thanks to the extra games.

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  13. Why shouldn't the playoffs count? The World Cup playoffs are also included. The coefficient values are not based on Euro 2012 qualifiers alone.

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  14. @Soccer-DB.info

    Remember they don't count the World Cup playoffs in the World Cup seeding though. They should do the same for the Euros. Unless you crush your group, it's likely to give you an advantage to qualify through the playoffs. Especially with bonus points for the playoffs too.

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  15. It's especially pertinant as Jota says with Denmark. Denmark have bested Portugal for the second straight time in qualifying, and yet...

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  16. Lorric, that's true, but...

    What about the fact that each goal scored against San Marino weighs the same as scoring against Germany or Spain? Doesn't that inflate the UEFA Ranking of the countries with San Marino in the group a bit too much?

    England, for instance, will have San Marino in WC 2014 qualifying group and they had Andorra in the WC 2010 qualifying... while the last time Portugal caught a minnow was in WC 2010 qualifying (Malta), and even that opponent isn't as weak as Andorra or San Marino.

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  17. Sure Portugal will have Luxembourg for WC 2014 qualifying too, but it's still a harder team to score on than San Marino or Andorra.

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  18. @ Ivan

    Yes, I think that silly goals rule should be scrapped. I'm going to enjoy England having San Marino though. Keep in mind England didn't get a pot 6 for Euro qualifying and pot 5 was the much better than pot 5 Montenegro who we couldn't defeat, so that should balance things out. Andorra have tightened up a lot in recent times too. We layed a 6-0 on them, but it was only 2-0 in the other game. Check out their results on the ELO site, you might be surprised. They're basically 6pts, but they don't get crushed often at all now. 4 goal average against the pot F side isn't excessive.

    These days San Marino are the only team left in Europe that are regularly hammered.

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  19. @Graham

    Penalties are not included in the play-offs as UEFA announced in Circular Letter n°4 / 2011. That info can be found at the end of the EURO 2012 regulations.

    @Lorric

    That's was the re-visit :) 941 extra points for England with 2 10-0 wins against San Marino.

    @Ivan and Lorric

    It's 501 points for a goal scored and 500 points for a goal conceded. Compared with 10000/20000/40000 points for a loss/draw/win... I don't remember when it goal difference actually made a ... difference in the UEFA coefficient.

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  20. Croatia 0-0 Turkey (Agg. 3-0)
    That was the result after the match on November 15, 2011..

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  21. @world cup brazil

    I won't delete your comments, but please don't push it.

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