2014 FIFA World Cup seeding update (1 July 2011)

Next update: 5 August 2011

See more info in the original 2014 FIFA World Cup seeding post.

This is the top 20 of the intermediate October 2013 FIFA ranking:

1	Spain	320
2	Netherlands	308
3	Germany	262
4	Japan	247
5	Mexico	231
6	Portugal	211
7	Argentina	210
8	Australia	207
9	Korea Republic	203
10	England	196
11	Uruguay	189
11	Jamaica	189
13	Egypt	183
14	Côte d'Ivoire	180
14	USA	180
16	Brazil	179
17	Norway	170
18	Italy	167
18	Croatia	167
20	Ghana	165

France are 21st.

Right now, the seeds for the 2014 World Cup would be: Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Portugal and Argentina.

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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.

The Samoas will be unlisted in September

OFC's 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying format has been changed recently. Thanks Soccer-db.Net for the info!

With Round 1 scheduled for 21 - 26 November 2011, Samoa and American Samoa will be dropped from the FIFA ranking in September 2011 for lack of matches in the last 48 months.

As mentioned before, Papua New Guinea will be dropped in July for the same reason.

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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.

CAF seeding: Namibia update (1 July 2011)

Malawi will play against hosts to Namibia on July 6 to celebrate their Independence Day. Namibia could climb to the fourth pot and be seeded for the preliminary round with a win against Malawi, while their hosts are safe in the second pot.

2014 FIFA World Cup seeding: CAF pots (10 June 2011)

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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.

FIFA "A" match status: Double standard?

As you know, Mexico and Costa Rica will participate in the Copa America as guests. They won't be sending full strength squads however.

FMF's website uses the term "Selection Sub-22" for their team. Same thing for Costa Rica: they will send their "Seleccion Preolimpica" to the Copa America.

FIFA have recently removed Mexico's pre-Copa America friendlies from their list of results. However, the Copa America matches involving Mexico and Costa Rica are still on FIFA.com.

When Côte d'Ivoire sent their CHAN team to the 2010 CECAFA Cup, their matches weren't included in the FIFA Ranking. Same for South Africa (Developmental XI) and Angola (U-20) in the 2008 and 2009 COSAFA Cup.

So I assume FIFA are including Mexico's and Costa Rica's games because Copa America is a continental championship, while the CECAFA and COSAFA cups are only regional tournaments of little international importance.

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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.

Great minds at STV Sports

And other Scottish media outlets as you'll see.

On 26 June - 2 days after I posted the final UEFA pots, STV Sport came up with this fine piece of journalism:

Scotland fall into pot four for 2014 World Cup draw

I wrote them asking them nicely to include the source. Here's what Mr. Robert Dawson Scott replied:

"Our story was compiled without reference to your site which, until your e-mail, we had never heard of. The information and coefficients are available to anyone to work out."

I then asked them to explain why they have Wales in pot 6 and Faroe Islands in pot 5 - just to show me they really did compute the rankings themselves. As you guessed, there were no further replies from the talented Mr. Scott.

My traffic stats tell me I've been getting a lot of visits from Glasgow, through the "Stv Plc" internet service provider. I also have a STV journalist following me on Twitter. I find it really hard to believe Mr. Scott's claims.

That's something Scottish media keep on doing lately. The Scotsman and Daily Record constantly use data from my blog and then don't reply to my e-mails when I write them about this issue. What's sad (for me) is that a journalist from the Daily Record actually asked me for information regarding Scotland's ranking and then the Daily Record published articles about this very subject but forgot to mention the source.

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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.

UEFA seeding: Wales vs. Faroe Islands

I've been getting quite a lot of visits from the Faroe Islands in the last week and even two e-mails, besides all the Wales/Faroe Islands related comments. So here are the detailed point totals for Wales and Faroe Islands. They are valid for both June and July, since there won't be any changes. I always sort teams tied for the same spot using their unrounded totals.

Wales

The columns are as follows: Match date, Opponents' FIFA trigramme, FIFA match points for Wales.

"0.2 time frame"

22-Aug-2007	BUL	513
08-Sep-2007	GER	0
12-Sep-2007	SVK	1207.5
13-Oct-2007	CYP	0
17-Oct-2007	SMR	375
17-Nov-2007	IRL	420
21-Nov-2007	GER	487.5
06-Feb-2008	NOR	513
26-Mar-2008	LUX	150
28-May-2008	ISL	345
01-Jun-2008	NED	0

"0.3 time frame"

20-Aug-2008	GEO	0
06-Sep-2008	AZE	465
10-Sep-2008	RUS	0
11-Oct-2008	LIE	487.5
15-Oct-2008	GER	0
19-Nov-2008	DEN	498
11-Feb-2009	POL	0
28-Mar-2009	FIN	0
01-Apr-2009	GER	0
29-May-2009	EST	261
06-Jun-2009	AZE	450

"0.5 time frame"

12-Aug-2009	MNE	0
09-Sep-2009	RUS	0
10-Oct-2009	FIN	0
14-Oct-2009	LIE	375
14-Nov-2009	SCO	462
03-Mar-2010	SWE	0
23-May-2010	CRO	0

"1.0 time frame"

11-Aug-2010	LUX	249
03-Sep-2010	MNE	0
08-Oct-2010	BUL	0
12-Oct-2010	SUI	0
08-Feb-2011	IRL	0
26-Mar-2011	ENG	0
25-May-2011	SCO	0
27-May-2011	NIR	405

Adding it up:

Year - Points - Matches - Multiplier - Total

-4	4011	11	0.2	72.927
-3	2161.5	11	0.3	58.950
-2	837	7	0.5	59.786
-1	654	8	1	81.750

Total: 273.412987, rounded down to 273.

Faroe Islands

The columns are as follows: Match date, Opponents' FIFA trigramme, FIFA match points for Faroe Islands.

"0.2 time frame"

12-Sep-2007	LTU	0
13-Oct-2007	FRA	0
17-Oct-2007	UKR	0
21-Nov-2007	ITA	0
16-Mar-2008	ISL	0
04-Jun-2008	EST	0

"0.3 time frame"

20-Aug-2008	POR	0
06-Sep-2008	SRB	0
10-Sep-2008	ROU	0
11-Oct-2008	AUT	295
15-Oct-2008	LTU	0
22-Mar-2009	ISL	375
10-Jun-2009	SRB	0

"0.5 time frame"

12-Aug-2009	FRA	0
05-Sep-2009	AUT	0
09-Sep-2009	LTU	1035
10-Oct-2009	FRA	0
14-Oct-2009	ROU	0
21-Mar-2010	ISL	0
04-Jun-2010	LUX	73

"1.0 time frame"

11-Aug-2010	EST	0
03-Sep-2010	SRB	0
07-Sep-2010	ITA	0
08-Oct-2010	SVN	0
12-Oct-2010	NIR	387.5
16-Nov-2010	SCO	0
03-Jun-2011	SVN	0
07-Jun-2011	EST	937.5

Adding it up:

Year - Points - Matches - Multiplier - Total

-4	0	6	0.2	0.000
-3	670	7	0.3	28.714
-2	1108	7	0.5	79.143
-1	1325	8	1	165.625

Total: 273.4821429, rounded down to 273.

So, according to my calculations, Faroe Islands should be above Wales in the ranking. I think FIFA are simply sorting them by rounded total points first, then by their database ID and I suspect Wales have a smaller ID than Faroe Islands.

See for instance the December 2008 FIFA ranking. France, Portugal and Czech Republic are tied for 11th place. Their totals are as follows (confirmed by FIFA by e-mail): Czech Republic 1007.4, Portugal 1007.07, France 1006.87 - exactly in the reverse order.

If you want an official explanation, feel free to contact FIFA.

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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.

CONCACAF seeding: March vs. July

CONCACAF will use the March ranking to seed the teams. These are the pots:

Pot 1: USA, Mexico, Honduras
Pot 2: Jamaica, Costa Rica, Cuba
Pot 3: Panama, Canada, El Salvador, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti
Pot 4: Antigua and Barbuda, Guyana, Suriname, St. Kitts and Nevis, Guatemala, Dominica
Pot 5: Puerto Rico, Barbados, Curaçao, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Cayman Islands, Nicaragua
Pot 6: Bermuda + 5 winners from the first round.

Now, let's look at the July ranking (with three losses added for Mexico and Costa Rica for their Copa America matches).

Pot 1: Mexico, USA, Jamaica
Pot 2: Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica
Pot 3: El Salvador, Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, Canada, Antigua and Barbuda, Suriname
Pot 4: Guyana, Guatemala, Haiti, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica
Pot 5: Puerto Rico, Barbados, Curaçao, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Cayman Islands, Nicaragua
Pot 6: Bermuda + 5 winners from the first round.

Jamaica, Panama, Antigua and Barbuda, Suriname would all climb one pot.
Honduras, Cuba, Haiti and Grenada would drop one pot.

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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.