Monday, February 18, 2019

2019 CAF Nations Cup: 10000 simulations

Next month the last match day of qualifying for the CAF Nations Cup 2019 (Egypt this Summer) will be played. Already 14 teams are qualified, another 10 berths to play for. Here are the results of 10000 simulations of this match day. The results will also determine the seeding for the draw of the final tournament, based on the CAF NT ranking. 


For this ranking the results in the following tournaments (weights in parentheses) are added:
- qualification CAF Nations Cup 2019 (2x)
- CAF Nations Cup 2017 (3x)
- qualification CAF Nations Cup 2017 (1x)
- CAF Nations Cup 2015 (2x)
- qualification CAF Nations Cup 2015 (0.5x)
- CAF Nations Cup 2013 (1x)
- World Cup 2018 (2x)
- qualification World Cup 2018 (1x)

The result in each tournament gives the following points
CAF Nations Cup:
8 - winner
6 - final
4 - semifinal
3 - quarterfinal
2 - 3rd in group
1 - 4th in group

qualification CAF Nations Cup:
4 - groupwinner
3 - 2nd in group
2 - 3rd in group
1 - 4th in group

World Cup:
20 - winner
12 - final
10 - semi final
8 - quarterfinal
6 - round of 16
4 - 3rd in group
3 - 4th in group

qualification World Cup:
7 - 1st in group and qualified
3 - 2nd in group
2 - 3rd in group
1 - 4th in group

Probability (in %) to qualify for the CAF Nations Cup 2019 and to land in each of the 4 pots of 6 teams for the draw of the final tournament.

team           Q      pot 1      pot 2      pot 3      pot 4
Cote d'Ivoire 100,00 100,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Egypt 100,00 100,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Ghana 100,00 100,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Senegal 100,00 100,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Tunisia 100,00 100,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Morocco 100,00 1,32 98,68 0,00 0,00
Algeria 100,00 0,00 100,00 0,00 0,00
Mali 100,00 0,00 100,00 0,00 0,00
Nigeria 100,00 0,00 100,00 0,00 0,00
Guinea 100,00 0,00 30,91 69,09 0,00
Uganda 100,00 0,00 5,16 94,84 0,00
Mauritania 100,00 0,00 0,00 56,87 43,13
Kenya 100,00 0,00 0,00 2,61 97,39
Madagascar 100,00 0,00 0,00 0,51 99,49
Cameroon 98,68 98,68 0,00 0,00 0,00
Guinea-Bissau 87,78 0,00 0,00 83,90 3,88
Namibia 84,00 0,00 0,00 6,13 77,87
Zimbabwe 79,27 0,00 0,00 77,10 2,17
Congo DR 74,51 0,00 74,51 0,00 0,00
Benin 73,81 0,00 0,00 0,98 72,83
Burundi 66,62 0,00 0,00 7,41 59,21
South Africa 58,14 0,00 0,06 58,08 0,00
Burkina Faso 52,11 0,00 52,11 0,00 0,00
Angola 47,89 0,00 0,00 30,64 17,25
Libya 41,86 0,00 0,00 16,07 25,79
Cape Verde Islands 35,68 0,00 16,40 19,28 0,00
Gabon 33,38 0,00 20,09 13,29 0,00
Tanzania 32,84 0,00 0,00 0,00 32,84
Lesotho 31,48 0,00 0,00 0,00 31,48
Mozambique 28,22 0,00 0,00 18,97 9,25
Liberia 25,49 0,00 0,00 2,49 23,00
Togo 23,22 0,00 0,01 23,08 0,13
Congo 20,73 0,00 2,07 18,66 0,00
Gambia 2,97 0,00 0,00 0,00 2,97
Comoros 1,32 0,00 0,00 0,00 1,32


The FIFA-ranking of July shall probably be used to seed the draw for the CAF qualification for the World Cup 2022 in Qatar. Not very much other matches with CAF-teams involved are scheduled yet between March and July, but the COSAFA Cup 2019, (probably) the first round of qualification for the African Nations Championship 2020 and of course the CAF Nations Cup 2019 itself will be scheduled and will count for the July ranking. 

Although, a slight problem has been created when the Egyptian organisation decided to postpone the dates of the AFCON 2019 with a week, supposedly to give the teams more proper preparation time after the end of the Ramadan (June 4th). But the tournament's final is now on Friday July 19th while the July FIFA ranking is published on Thursday July 18th with a normal deadline of July 15th. I'm curious to see how FIFA and CAF will solve this scheduling problem.

Anyhow, here is a first glimpse of the July ranking for African teams (but keep in mind that a lot of matches need to be scheduled yet). Teams are sorted by their average ranking position amongst African teams. As the qualification format for 2022 is not yet known in detail, the pots are according to the qualification format for the last WC in Russia. This format was:
- round 1: 14 home-and-away play-offs
- round 2: 20 home-and-away play-offs
- round 3: 5 groups of 4 teams. 
Group winners qualify for the World Cup.


round 2: pot 1 - seeded against 14 winners round 1         avg
Senegal 1,08
Tunisia 1,92
Morocco 3,33
Nigeria 3,87
Congo DR 5,10
Ghana 5,90
Cameroon 7,24
Egypt 7,71
Burkina Faso 9,35
Mali 9,84
Cote d'Ivoire 11,13
Guinea 12,14
Algeria 12,50
Cape Verde Islands 14,63
round 2: pot 2 - seeded against pot 3
South Africa 14,80
Uganda 15,46
Zambia 17,20
Congo 18,56
Gabon 18,73
Benin 19,51
round 2: pot 3 - unseeded against pot 2
Libya 21,84
Mauritania 22,00
Madagascar 23,67
Kenya 23,96
Niger 24,13
Namibia 26,35
round 1: pot 4 - seeded against pot 5
Central African Republic 27,29
Zimbabwe 27,73
Sierra Leone 28,70
Mozambique 29,89
Guinea-Bissau 30,51
Togo 32,51
Angola 33,29
Sudan 33,81
Malawi 34,41
Tanzania 37,03
Rwanda 37,41
Burundi 37,56
Botswana 39,57
Swatini 40,13
round 1: pot 5 - unseeded against pot 4
Comoros 41,28
Lesotho 41,46
Equatorial Guinea 41,76
Ethiopia 44,31
Liberia 44,41
Mauritius 46,01
South Sudan 47,27
Gambia 47,72
Chad 49,00
Sao Tomé e Príncipe 50,01
Seychelles 50,99
Djibouti 52,00
Somalia 53,00
Eritrea 54,00

About me:

Software engineer, happily unmarried and non-religious. You won't find me on Twitter or other so called social media. Dutchman, joined the blog in March 2018.

7 comments:

  1. Hi Ed,

    Can you please tell us the final pots for the 24 qualified teams?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Fan, here are the pots for the draw of the AFCON 2019 on April 12th in Cairo:

    pot 1
    Egypt (host)
    Tunisia
    Ghana
    Senegal
    Cameroon
    Cote d'Ivoire

    pot 2
    Morocco
    Nigeria
    Congo DR
    Mali
    Algeria
    Guinea

    pot 3
    Uganda
    South Africa
    Zimbabwe
    Guinea-Bissau
    Angola
    Burundi

    pot 4
    Mauritania
    Benin
    Namibia
    Tanzania
    Kenya
    Madagascar

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Why Burundi pot 3
      Same points Mauritania pot 4 (10 points)
      CAF will decides the standings for Mauritania because they got more points (12 points) in the final qualifiers and Burundi (10 points)
      thanke Ed

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. R Team Draw of CAN 2019 EGYPT Total
      2019 2017 2017 2015 2015 2013 2018 2018
      AFCON AFCON AFCON AFCON AFCON AFCON FWC FWC
      Q Q Q Q
      ×2 × 3 × 1 × 2 × 0.5 × 1 × 2 × 1
      1  Tunisia 8 9 4 6 2 2 8 7 46
      2  Ghana 8 12 4 12 2 4 2 44
      3  Egypt (H) 6 18 4 0 1 0 6 7 42
      4  Senegal 8 9 4 4 1.5 0 8 7 41.5
      5  Cameroon 6 24 4 2 2 0 2 40
      6  Ivory Coast 6 6 4 16 1.5 3 3 39.5
      7  Morocco 8 9 4 0 0 2 6 7 36
      8  Nigeria 8 0 3 0 1 8 8 7 35
      9  DR Congo 6 9 4 8 1 2 3 33
      10  Mali 8 6 4 4 1.5 4 1 28.5
      11  Algeria 8 6 4 6 2 1 1 28
      12  Guinea 8 0 2 6 1.5 0 1 18.5
      13  Uganda 8 3 3 0 1 0 3 18
      14  Guinea-Bissau 8 3 4 0 0 0 1 16
      15  South Africa 6 0 2 2 2 3 1 16
      16  Zimbabwe 8 3 4 0 0 0 0 15
      17  Angola 8 0 2 0 1 1 1 13
      18  Mauritania 6 0 3 0 0 0 1 10
      19  Benin 6 0 3 0 0 0 1 10
      20  Burundi 6 0 3 0 0 0 1 10
      21  Tanzania 6 0 2 0 0 0 1 9
      22  Namibia 6 0 2 0 0 0 1 9
      23  Kenya 6 0 1 0 0 0 1 8
      24  Madagascar 6 0 1 0 0 0 1 8

      Delete
    4. Biggest problem here is that there is no official documentation about the calculation method of the CAF-ranking. My assumption about the seeding ranking for AFCON 2019 is already a logical adaptation of the calculation of the seeding ranking for the AFCON 2019 qualifying tournament. So there is also no clear description of the tiebreaker rules in case of same points.
      In the wiki-page of the AFCON 2019 a pot-distribution is presented. Their source was a newspaper article in Sport Ivoire from yesterday. I have some slight doubts about it, because even the non-existant March 2019 FIFA ranking is mentioned as part of the calculation...
      My own points-calculation however results in the same order of teams. So I decided to not invent new extra tiebreaker rules for the 3 teams (Burundi, Mauritania and Benin) with the same points in my calculation, but instead use the same pot-distribution. I think an accompanying note about this specific case would indeed have been more accurate.

      Delete
    5. I expect exciting game.

      I discovered the movie.
      Zidane play at Bordeaux. His pass is cool!
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr0T8ewE83Y

      King regards

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