If The World Cup Draw Were Held Today (Nov. 2016)
We are just a little over a year away from the draw for the 2018 World Cup, and if you're anything like the International Fútbol-obsessed-nut that I am, you're already excited to learn which teams will line up against which, which nation will be the one that dishes England their quadrennial humiliation, and how absurdly difficult the United States' group will be. After the most recent weekend of World Cup Qualifiers, I thought it might be a fun project to simulate the World Cup Draw as if qualifying had concluded. This was a multi-step process; not quite the ordeal the actual draw is, but representative of it.
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 (like, uh, the US), thanks to surprising results in qualifiers thus far.
In cases of tiebreakers within groups, or determine playoff results, I relied on the November 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 my beloved Hungary-- who are in a close 3rd place --would stand to benefit the most from their exclusion.
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 Ecuador into the first European seeded team's group, besides Russia, and Hungary and Ukraine 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 Ecuador, Hungary and Ukraine.
Here was how the final draw played out:
The Ramifications
Obviously, this draw sets up pretty harshly for the hosts, and ridiculously easy for teams like Chile and Uruguay. But all in all, the powerful sides seem fairly evenly-distributed. Were this the draw, I think it would play out as such:
Quarterfinals
Belgium vs. France
Argentina vs. Germany
Italy vs. Brazil
Uruguay vs. Chile
Semifinals
France vs. Germany
Brazil vs. Chile
Final
France vs. Brazil