If The World Cup Draw Were Held Today (March 2017)
We are less than 9 months away from the draw for the 2018 World Cup, and we just completed another weekend of World Cup Qualifying-- and it was a big one. Thus, it's time for another mock World Cup Draw! For comparison purposes, here was the mock draw from November. And to refresh your memory, here's how I conducted the draw:
The Qualified Teams
To determine the 31 squads (in addition to hosts Russia) who would qualify, I mostly went by their current standings in their qualifying groups. This resulted in some pretty major exclusions, perhaps unsurprisingly. But good news! The USA is back in the mix!
In cases of tiebreakers within groups, or determine playoff results, I relied on the March FIFA Rankings, which are far from a perfect determination of quality, but hey, it's what they use, so what else can I do?
One major exception: even though they're the defending European champions and currently in 2nd place in their group, I excluded Portugal. Here's why:
The last time a European nation hosted the World Cup (Germany 2006), the Euro Cup title holders didn't qualify. There were many parallels drawn between that Greece team of 2004 and 2016's Portugal.
Here's actually why: the thought of Ronaldo and co. missing the World Cup makes me laugh, and the team that currently stands to gain the most from their absence is lovable Iceland.
The Seeding
For Pot 1, Russia was seeded first (per tradition), and the next 7 spots were allocated in order based on the FIFA Rankings of the qualified teams
Here's where it gets funky: because there were so many South American teams seeded in Pot 1, and Europe gets 13 qualifying spots, there were not enough and too many, respectively, to make up a usual Pot size of 8 teams. So:
Going off a similar system used in the 2014 Cup Draw, I set up a "Special" pot, consisting of the only non-seeded South American team, and the two lowest-ranked European sides
To ensure that there wouldn't be 3 European nations in one group (which would be against FIFA rules), I would automatically draw Uruguay into the first European seeded team's group, besides Russia, and Northern Ireland and Serbia into the first two South American seeds' groups
Pots 2, 3 and 4 respectively consisted of African teams, Asian and North American teams, and European teams
Here were the spots for the final draw:
The Draw
To simulate the draw process, I used a number generator from www.random.org
With Pot A, I generated a random integer 1-8 to distribute the seeded teams to the tops of their respective groups
For the remaining Pots, I used the 1-8 range to randomly generate the teams' group, and a 2-4 range to determine their position in said group-- with the aforementioned exception of Northern Ireland, Serbia and Uruguay.
Here was how the final draw played out:
The Ramifications
Man, there are some delicious matchups in this hypothetical Group Stage. Group G is the Group Of Death to end all Groups of Death-- who do you even pick to lose in those matches? Croatia and Nigeria have some of the best talent, but are chronic underachievers. But can Colombia perform outside of South America? Looking elsewhere, Brazil-Spain, France-Uruguay, and Argentina-Italy are all blockbuster matches for a World Cup Opening Round. And the US and Russia in the same group?! Oh, the storylines. Who would Trump and Putin even cheer for? Ultimately, this is how I see the elimination stages shaking out:
Quarterfinals
Ivory Coast vs. Italy
Brazil vs. Mexico
France vs. Argentina
Germany vs. Colombia
Semifinals
Italy vs. Brazil
France vs. Germany
Final
Brazil vs. France