If The World Cup Draw Were Held Today (Sep. 2017)
We are getting mighty close from the draw for the 2018 World Cup, and we just completed another major weekend of World Cup Qualifying!. Thus, it's time for another, likely the penultimate, mock World Cup Draw (TM). For comparison purposes, here was the mock draw from June. 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. The USA is in a precarious situation after a lackluster weekend, and they aren't the only ones. You will surely notice a couple conspicuous absences.
In cases of tiebreakers within groups, or to determine playoff results, I relied on the August FIFA Rankings, which are far from a perfect determination of quality, but hey, it's what they use, so what else can I do?
There are several teams that have officially qualified at this point. Those teams have been italicized throughout the draw.
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 slightly funky: because Europe gets 13 qualifying spots and only 4 of them were seeded, there were 9 unseeded European teams, one more than the 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 lowest-ranked European sides
To ensure that there wouldn't be confederation overload in a single group (which would be against FIFA rules), I would automatically draw Northern Ireland into the first South American seed's group; similarly, I would draw Peru and Uruguay into the first European seeds' groups.
Pots 2, 3 and 4 respectively consisted of African and South American 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, Peru and Uruguay
Here was how the final draw played out:
The Ramifications
There are quite a few things to dissect here. First and foremost- Group E. That group, headed by the Cup holders would perhaps be the biggest Group of Death of all time: 7 World Cup titles and 12 World Cup Final appearances between them. Oh, and also Mexico, titans of CONCACAF. Mexico got jobbed in our last draw, too! What does random.org have against Mexico?
As a result of that group being so absurdly stacked, most others have a pretty clear-cut 1 and 2, at least on the surface. A few of the countries that may be expected to progress with this draw, though, should (hypothetically) be wary.
If the US plays in Russia the way they've been playing recently, I see both Iceland and Northern Ireland playing them level or beating them (*ducks to avoid angry US fans*). The hosts may be expected to beat saudi Arabia, but would almost surely drop points to Croatia, and would likely have their hands full with a talent-laden Nigeria side. England might be expected to break their dry spell of tournament knockout stage success looking at the other names in their group, but if I'm a betting man, I'm actually expecting a ridiculously tough Costa Rica team to progress over the Brits yet again. And finally- though Serbia has played some fine football, I think 2018 will likely be the year the Ivorians finally get over the hump.
Anyways, here's how I see this draw going down:
Quarterfinals
Iceland (!) vs. Belgium
Germany vs. Italy
Argentina vs. Brazil (!!)
France vs. Colombia
Semifinals
Belgium vs. Germany
Brazil vs. France
Final
Germany vs. France
(Spoiler alert for future draws: if possible, all roads would lead to Brazil vs. France for yours truly. Sadly, in this scenario, only a semifinal date would await them).