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Friday, October 30, 2015

2018 FIFA World Cup seeding (CAF): 10000 simulations (30 October 2015)

The draw for Round 3 is yet unknown.

The draw date, location and procedure for Round Three will be confirmed by the end of Round Two by the Organising Committee for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™.

But since some of my African readers have been very insistent, I've run 10000 simulations assuming the draw takes place in December, using the December FIFA ranking.


As usual with competition/pot sims, I used ClubElo's expected goals formula. Games up to and including 29 October 2015.

Qualification chances

First column sorted descending - the opponent's chances are in the second column.

99.48% - Ghana 0.52% - Comoros
92.29% - Algeria 7.71% - Tanzania
92.29% - Nigeria 7.71% - Swaziland
92.05% - Côte d'Ivoire 7.95% - Liberia
91.92% - Senegal 8.08% - Madagascar
91.56% - Egypt 8.44% - Chad
87.02% - Cameroon 12.98% - Niger
80.44% - Mali 19.56% - Botswana
79.82% - Tunisia 20.18% - Mauritania
74.59% - Morocco 25.41% - Equatorial Guinea
72.69% - Gabon 27.31% - Mozambique
72.59% - Zambia 27.41% - Sudan
72.48% - Cape Verde Islands 27.52% - Kenya
68.29% - Congo DR 31.71% - Burundi
66.84% - Congo 33.16% - Ethiopia
63.79% - Guinea 36.21% - Namibia
63.05% - South Africa 36.95% - Angola
58.42% - Uganda 41.58% - Togo
57.27% - Burkina Faso 42.73% - Benin
51.50% - Rwanda 48.50% - Libya

Assuming the teams in the first column advance, these would be the pots (sorted by average pot over 10000 simulations):

Pot 1: Côte d'Ivoire, Algeria, Ghana, Cape Verde Islands, Tunisia
Pot 2: Senegal, Egypt, Congo, Congo DR, Guinea
Pot 3: Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria, Uganda, Morocco
Pot 4: Zambia, Gabon, South Africa, Rwanda, Burkina Faso

Remember, only the group winner goes to the World Cup.

There could be a Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal/Egypt, Nigeria/Cameroon, South Africa/Zambia group and one with Tunisia/Cape Verde Islands, Congo, Uganda, Rwanda.

Broken down by pot (assuming qualification to the next stage):

Pot 4

100.00% - Comoros
99.74% - Swaziland
99.16% - Mozambique
98.64% - Madagascar
98.22% - Chad
96.91% - Namibia
96.89% - Tanzania
94.99% - Botswana
94.43% - Libya
91.11% - Burundi
90.55% - Kenya
90.47% - Burkina Faso
87.94% - Ethiopia
85.30% - Angola
83.59% - Rwanda
80.72% - Mauritania
75.04% - Niger
62.68% - Sudan
44.00% - South Africa
26.37% - Gabon
22.49% - Benin
17.19% - Zambia
14.02% - Togo
13.84% - Liberia
10.86% - Morocco
7.02% - Uganda
3.23% - Equatorial Guinea

Pot 3

84.53% - Equatorial Guinea
83.76% - Uganda
80.96% - Zambia
76.43% - Morocco
72.02% - Gabon
67.39% - Togo
60.88% - Liberia
60.17% - Nigeria
55.59% - South Africa
50.22% - Benin
39.66% - Mali
35.61% - Sudan
26.45% - Cameroon
24.96% - Niger
19.28% - Mauritania
16.31% - Rwanda
14.70% - Angola
12.06% - Ethiopia
9.53% - Burkina Faso
9.45% - Kenya
8.89% - Burundi
7.51% - Guinea
5.53% - Libya
5.01% - Botswana
4.36% - Congo DR
3.11% - Tanzania
3.09% - Namibia
2.02% - Congo
1.78% - Chad
1.52% - Egypt
1.36% - Madagascar
0.84% - Mozambique
0.26% - Swaziland

Pot 2

92.90% - Congo DR
90.37% - Guinea
89.35% - Egypt
88.38% - Congo
72.09% - Cameroon
60.09% - Mali
39.78% - Nigeria
34.69% - Senegal
27.01% - Benin
22.64% - Liberia
20.05% - Tunisia
18.59% - Togo
12.71% - Morocco
12.24% - Equatorial Guinea
9.23% - Uganda
1.85% - Zambia
1.71% - Sudan
1.61% - Gabon
0.41% - South Africa
0.10% - Rwanda
0.04% - Libya

Pot 1

100.00% - Côte d'Ivoire
100.00% - Algeria
100.00% - Ghana
100.00% - Cape Verde Islands
79.95% - Tunisia
65.31% - Senegal
9.61% - Congo
9.13% - Egypt
2.74% - Congo DR
2.64% - Liberia
2.12% - Guinea
1.46% - Cameroon
0.28% - Benin
0.25% - Mali
0.05% - Nigeria

Min/Max points assuming qualification

Côte d'Ivoire 856 950
Algeria 822 868
Ghana 766 813
Cape Verde Islands 725 805
Tunisia 656 711
Senegal 636 686
Congo 577 670
Congo DR 572 622
Guinea 571 621
Egypt 565 643
Mali 538 592
Cameroon 530 610
Nigeria 514 568
Equatorial Guinea 478 557
Zambia 466 498
Uganda 463 550
Gabon 458 498
South Africa 447 487
Morocco 442 553
Togo 433 574
Liberia 422 613
Benin 415 597
Rwanda 379 461
Burkina Faso 366 429
Niger 364 483
Mauritania 353 466
Angola 352 458
Sudan 350 533
Ethiopia 346 456
Botswana 343 426
Burundi 335 449
Libya 329 427
Kenya 312 442
Namibia 312 403
Madagascar 300 414
Mozambique 294 384
Tanzania 293 407
Swaziland 288 381
Chad 263 416
Comoros 165 349

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.

15 comments:

  1. What will be the clasament with points? to see if there is any chance for the teams to climb from one pot to higher pot?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Added. Egypt can only climb to pot 1 (assuming 2 wins vs. Chad) only if at least one of Côte d'Ivoire, Algeria, Ghana, Cape Verde Islands and Tunisia fail to qualify.

      Also, by the looks of it, you need Senegal and Congo to either miss out or qualify with 2 draws.

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    4. Congo loss against Cameroon in CHAN qualifiers,,, what is the classment now ?

      Delete
  2. Thank you for the effort.

    There is no informations about the date of the draw?
    Can it be later than Taking into account that FIFA days in march are already taken for CAN17 qualifiers

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. all are waiting for date of the draw,,, hoping to be later as possible as they can,,

      Delete
    2. yes later as possible, ideally after qualification afcon 2017 it's important to have a real idea of fifa ranking at this time

      Delete
  3. Do you know when the drawing will take place?

    ReplyDelete
  4. There is some sort of mistake in the stats in the Pot 1 scenario. How can Senegal have a 60% chance of making Pot 1, if Tunisia has an 80% chance? There is only one slot for grab, so the percentages should add up to 100%.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the author said those %s are for IF the team wins their playoff so you need to adjust for whether they will make it or not as per the first set of head to head %s

      Pot 1 percentages would then be calculated as follows
      99.48%*100% - Ghana
      92.29%*100% - Algeria
      92.29%*0.05% - Nigeria
      92.05%*100% - Côte d'Ivoire
      7.95%*2.64% - Liberia
      91.92%*65.31% - Senegal
      91.56%*9.13% - Egypt
      87.02%*1.46% - Cameroon
      80.44%*0.25% - Mali
      79.82%*79.95% - Tunisia
      72.48%*100% - Cape Verde Islands
      68.29%*2.74% - Congo DR
      66.84%*9.61% - Congo
      63.79%*2.12% - Guinea
      42.73%*0.28% - Benin

      Delete
    2. ie
      99.48% - Ghana
      92.29% - Algeria
      92.05% - Côte d'Ivoire
      72.48% - Cape Verde Islands
      63.82% - Tunisia
      60.03% - Senegal

      8.36% - Egypt
      6.42% - Congo
      1.87% - Congo DR
      1.35% - Guinea
      1.24% - Cameroon
      0.20% - Mali
      0.20% - Liberia
      0.12% - Benin
      0.05% - Nigeria

      Delete
  5. The third round of African qualifying is a group stage with 5 groups of 4 countries and the first matches are scheduled for October 2016. The draw date for this stage is June 24th 2016 and the 4 seeding pots of 5 countries will be ranked according to the June 2016 FIFA-ranking. Ranking date of this ranking is June 2nd 2016, so for African teams only the CHAN Cup 2016 in January (counting as friendlies for ranking purposes), two matchdays of Africa Cup 2017 Qualifying late March and the occasional friendly will offer opportunities to improve their ranking.
    These are the elo-predicted points and positions in the June 2016 ranking, based on the currently scheduled matches:

    1 Algeria 821 (33)
    2 Cote d'Ivoire 806 (36)
    3 Cape Verde Islands 786 (37)
    4 Ghana 768 (38)
    5 Senegal 697 (42)
    --
    6 Tunisia 644 (47)
    7 Cameroon 628 (49)
    8 Nigeria 623 (50)
    9 Guinea 594 (59)
    10 Uganda 568.2 (61)
    --
    11 Egypt 568.1 (61)
    12 Congo 557 (64)
    13 Mali 552 (65)
    14 Congo DR 549 (66)
    15 South Africa 509 (70)
    --
    16 Zambia 467 (74)
    17 Burkina Faso 415 (83)
    18 Morocco 411 (85)
    19 Gabon 405 (88)
    20 Libya 338 (100)

    ReplyDelete