If The World Cup Draw Were Held Today (Final Simulation)
The final whistle on the final qualifier has just gone, and all 32 places are sealed! Peru booked the last spot in the World Cup by edging Oceanic representatives New Zealand in a playoff.
As we are a matter of weeks away from the real thing, this will be the final draw, and obviously, the only one that features the field you will actually see in the Cup. It's been well-advertised that the US will miss the tournament next year, but they were far from the biggest absences, as soccer mammoths Italy also fell in stunning fashion, joining the long list of "Teams we'll be sad to not see next June." Anyways, with those noteworthy inclusions and exclusions in mind, here's how the draw might play out on December 1:
The Seeding
FIFA has confirmed that this is how the pots will be seeded for the draw.
A reminder of how FIFA's recent ruling changed things: typically, World Cups have seeded the pots by Confederations-- the previous installments of this exercise have done the same thing. However, FIFA recently decided to instead seed all 4 pots by FIFA ranking. Thus, all 4 pots pictured were listed from top to bottom by their October rankings.
It was still important, though, to ensure that there wouldn't be confederation overload in a single group-- which would be against FIFA rules, so to avoid having more than 1 of any confederation in a group (or in Europe's case, more than 2), I would occasionally have to re-draw a team until they found a group they could legally be in.
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 needing to re-draw for confederations' sake.
Here was how the final draw played out:
The Ramifications
Similar to the last draw, there's a fair amount of parity across these hypothetical groups, with no bona fide Group of Death.
There are a number of tough groups, though, and therefore, it would make for a very entertaining Group Stage. Which two progress out of Brazil, Croatia and Nigeria? Out of France, Peru, and Denmark? Of Poland, Sweden, and Mexico?
And in fact, probably the toughest group, not in terms of high-quality teams, but in terms of top-to-bottom competitiveness, would have to be Russia's. Uruguay would be favored to take Group A, but often play down to their competition, and between the hosts, an unusually strong Costa Rica side, and a talented Japan team, it's not hard to see lots of 0-0 or 1-1 results transpiring around the group.
Anyways, here's how I see this draw going down-- by and large, I think the European nations will perform better on European soil:
Quarterfinals
Uruguay vs. Germany
Portugal vs. England
Brazil vs. France
Poland vs. Argentina
Semifinals
Germany vs. Portugal
Argentina vs. Brazil
Final
Germany vs. Brazil
(For the record, if possible, all roads would lead to Brazil vs. France for yours truly. Sadly, in this scenario, they meet in the quarters. Damn shame.)