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Friday, April 24, 2015

2018 FIFA World Cup (AFC): Minimum travel groups

Some AFC teams are worried about the travel they will face in the group stage.

I dusted off my minimum travel groups code used for the EURO 2016 draw and here's what came out.



Group A: Australia, Vietnam, Philippines, Timor-Leste, Guam
Group B: China PR, Saudi Arabia, India, Singapore, Malaysia
Group C: Uzbekistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Myanmar, Cambodia
Group D: Korea Republic, Qatar, Maldives, Indonesia, Hong Kong
Group E: Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh
Group F: Iran, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Laos
Group G: Japan, Oman, Thailand, Korea DPR, Chinese Taipei
Group H: United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Palestine, Turkmenistan, Yemen

The actual groups are these:

Group A: United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Timor-Leste, Malaysia
Group B: Australia, Jordan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh
Group C: China PR, Qatar, Maldives, Bhutan, Hong Kong
Group D: Iran, Oman, India, Turkmenistan, Guam
Group E: Japan, Syria, Afghanistan, Singapore, Cambodia
Group F: Iraq, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Chinese Taipei
Group G: Korea Republic, Kuwait, Lebanon, Myanmar, Laos
Group H: Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Philippines, Korea DPR, Yemen

The travel distances (in kilometers) for a team are computer as the sum of the distances from the capital city to the capital city of the opponents as the crow flies.

Australia would have gained the most, as the distance would have dropped by 22830 km. Here's the top 10:

-22830 - Australia
-18931 - Guam
-18444 - Iraq
-17746 - Timor-Leste
-15985 - Jordan
-13810 - Yemen
-13670 - Palestine
-13227 - Bahrain
-12202 - Lebanon
-11482 - United Arab Emirates

Of course, not all teams would have benefited from such a change:

10988 - Oman
5805 - Vietnam
4865 - Saudi Arabia
4086 - Qatar
3533 - Thailand
2419 - China PR
2296 - Indonesia
1486 - Maldives
1190 - India
882 - Hong Kong

Cambodia (797) and Laos (103) are the other teams whose travel distance would have increased.

Rank - Normal distance - Minimum travel distance - Difference

1 Australia 46150 23320 -22830
2 Guam 34397 15466 -18931
3 Timor-Leste 31373 13627 -17746
4 Iraq 27498 9054 -18444
5 Syria 27183 19376 -7807
6 Jordan 25984 10000 -15985
7 Japan 24968 15744 -9224
8 Philippines 24122 13250 -10872
9 Korea DPR 22711 13109 -9602
10 Malaysia 22528 14866 -7662
11 Lebanon 22181 9979 -12202
12 Korea Republic 21905 21074 -831
13 Palestine 21600 7930 -13670
14 Yemen 21580 7770 -13810
15 Bangladesh 19619 17968 -1651
16 Qatar 19606 23692 4086
17 Singapore 19504 15617 -3887
18 Kuwait 19081 12578 -6503
19 Afghanistan 18885 9586 -9299
20 Kyrgyzstan 18380 12524 -5856
21 Bahrain 18150 4923 -13227
22 Tajikistan 18024 11298 -6726
23 Saudi Arabia 17813 22678 4865
24 Cambodia 17320 18117 797
25 Maldives 17108 18594 1486
26 Indonesia 17104 19400 2296
27 United Arab Emirates 16973 5490 -11482
28 China PR 16805 19224 2419
29 Uzbekistan 16669 11614 -5055
30 Laos 16433 16536 103
31 Hong Kong 15634 16516 882
32 Chinese Taipei 15434 12571 -2863
33 Myanmar 15381 14223 -1158
34 Iran 14171 11497 -2674
35 Oman 14089 25077 10988
36 India 13647 14838 1190
37 Turkmenistan 13084 8140 -4944
38 Bhutan 12256 11574 -681
39 Thailand 11913 15447 3533
40 Vietnam 11851 17656 5805

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.

1 comment:

  1. for illustration i have created a map with your minimum travel groups:
    http://oi61.tinypic.com/qswkdu.jpg

    ReplyDelete