World Cup Draw
- Thread starter Jeff Van GULLY
- Start date
Grant Wahl had a great article on the travel disparity between the seeds. Unlike South Africa, Brazil features soccer stadiums that are separated by a quite a long distance and could potentially affect the national teams.
Also, each since national team has a home city where they train and will be flying from for each game, this can be a major factor as well. This table just shows the distance between the soccer stadiums.
São Paulo is the USMNT training ground and their home base for the World Cup so it would certainly be favorable to play a game there. Thus, I've labeled each of these games in green.
I've labeled Manuas red, I'll let Wahl explain:
So not only should we be looking at who we are facing but which seed we get as well. Also, I've redone (and improved) Wahl's table for SoSH and will put it on the OP as well.
[tablegrid= Travel Distance by Seed ]Draw Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Travel Miles E2 Brasília Curitiba Rio de Janeiro 1946 H2 Belo Horizonte Porto Alegre Curitiba 2084 B3 Cuiabá Rio de Janeiro São Paulo 2088 H3 Cuiabá Rio de Janeiro Curitiba 2508 H4 Cuiabá Porto Alegre São Paulo 2704 F3 Curitiba Belo Horizonte Salvador 2830 B2 Salvador Porto Alegre São Paulo 2862 B4 Cuiabá Porto Alegre Curitiba 3124 F4 Curitiba Cuiabá Porto Alegre 3124 E3 Porto Alegre Salvador Rio de Janeiro 3304 F2 Rio de Janeiro Cuiabá Salvador 3892 D3 Manaus São Paulo Belo Horizonte 3946 E4 Porto Alegre Curitiba Manaus 4818 A2 São Paulo Manaus Recife 5984 D2 Fortaleza Recife Belo Horizonte 6192 G2 Salvador Manaus Brasília 6228 C2 Belo Horizonte Natal Fortaleza 6430 C3 Recife Brasília Fortaleza 6670 G3 Natal Fortaleza Brasília 6908 C4 Recife Natal Cuiabá 7172 A4 Natal Manaus Brasília 7306 A3 Natal Fortaleza Recife 8468 D4 Manaus Recife Natal 8866 G4 Natal Manaus Recife 8866 Average Travel 4930 Median Travel 4382
As Wahl correctly concludes, B3 is the most favorable seed for the US in terms of travel and D4 and G4 are seeds to absolutely avoid. Here's a map of all the stadiums too. Manaus in red and São Paulo is green.
Also, each since national team has a home city where they train and will be flying from for each game, this can be a major factor as well. This table just shows the distance between the soccer stadiums.
São Paulo is the USMNT training ground and their home base for the World Cup so it would certainly be favorable to play a game there. Thus, I've labeled each of these games in green.
I've labeled Manuas red, I'll let Wahl explain:
So not only should we be looking at who we are facing but which seed we get as well. Also, I've redone (and improved) Wahl's table for SoSH and will put it on the OP as well.
[tablegrid= Travel Distance by Seed ]
As Wahl correctly concludes, B3 is the most favorable seed for the US in terms of travel and D4 and G4 are seeds to absolutely avoid. Here's a map of all the stadiums too. Manaus in red and São Paulo is green.
Mr. Wednesday said:
That's likely due to the pairings of the intercontinental playoffs: CONCACAF vs Oceania and CONMEBOL vs Asia. If they were seeded it really lined up as 2 vs 4 and 1 vs 3, where 3 isn't that close to 2 and 4 is miles away (good as NZ played in 2010, they got in by beating Bahrain.) There weren't any outliers like NZ or Saudi Arabia in years past. Also helps that the host country as a strong team.
I'm figuring the rotation for 2018 would be CONCACAF vs Asia and CONMEBOL vs Oceania, which should end up strong again.
Jeff Van GULLY said:
I'm not sure I agree with this. Yes the travel to Manaus would suck, but it would also suck for the other teams playing there. The U.S. may have an advantage in that a) the MLS-based players will be fresher since they won't be coming off the end of a long European season, b) the U.S. team is much more used to crazy travel for international matches than the European teams and might handle 7-hour flights and time zone changes better.
It's certainly terrible for fans though.
Nate Silver to be involved with ESPN's coverage of draw: http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2013/december/espn-s-world-cup-draw-plans-include-nate-silver.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
The downside for Manaus is the travel.
The upside is that if we're playing the right team there (northern European), I think the climate is a big advantage for us. D3 might be particularly favorable, where the long travel would be gotten out of the way quickly, and our opponent in game two would also have a somewhat lengthy trip back to Sao Paolo from their first game.
The upside is that if we're playing the right team there (northern European), I think the climate is a big advantage for us. D3 might be particularly favorable, where the long travel would be gotten out of the way quickly, and our opponent in game two would also have a somewhat lengthy trip back to Sao Paolo from their first game.
Does being in pot 3 mean that you get one of the seeds that ends with "3"?
Seems to me that the B group would be nice to avoid, since it likely means playing Brazil in the round of 16, even if the team advances -- unless it were to win its group.
Seems to me that the B group would be nice to avoid, since it likely means playing Brazil in the round of 16, even if the team advances -- unless it were to win its group.
DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
No, the draw actually consists of 2 parts. Once a country is drawn, there is a second ball drawn that determines your place in the group. All the seeded teams are given position 1, so the US could end up in position 2, 3, or 4. Those positions determine what order you play the other teams in your group.
For example, in 2010 the US was drawn into Group C, then drew spot C2 within the group. Since it had been determined in advance that 1 played 2 in the first match, the US started out group play by playing England (C1).
If they do it like previous years, the seeded teams get the 1 spot in each group, and spots 2-4 are drawn when the teams are drawn. So they'd pull a team from Pot 2 for Group A, then go to Pot A and select one of three balls holding 2, 3, and 4.
Or what SFiC said.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6vHRJ_i-PA[/media]
Or what SFiC said.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6vHRJ_i-PA[/media]
coremiller said:
This is an excellent point. There is no doubt that US mainstays like Howard, Dempsey and Bradley are FAR more accustomed to arduous travel for NT duty than any European player. Heck, most MLS USMNT players are more used to long travel than most Europeans (excepting the Russians?).
Of course, the Brazilians will have homefield AND this advantage, as any Europe-based Brazilians also are used to travel for NT duty and probably additional travel issues for them to get "home" once arriving back in country from overseas.
Thus, another reason to want to end up in any group other than Brazil's group.
Playing England in Manaus would be nice, they have to travel even farther, and the weather should effect them more.
I also think D3 wouldn't be so bad. The USMNT should easily handle the 4 hour flight to Manaus from Sao Paulo. And then go right back to the training camp Sao Paulo.
Infield Infidel said:
It's only 1 hour during your DST. RIght now it's 3 for most of the country, since ours DST starts just as yours end. And since DST is the portuguese acronym for STDs, that was a rather awkward phrase to write...
I listen to the BBC Radio 5 World Football Phone-In show every week via podcast. Whenever MLS comes up, the callers and British presenters are baffled at how the players can handle traveling all over the continent on a weekly basis. What they see as almost superhuman is standard for almost all American professional athletes.soxfan121 said:
Kilnsmann doesn't want Manaus.
Also, Deadspin came out with a fun article with a scenario of seeding the world cup like the NCAA playoffs. Pretty interesting as they grouped all the teams. I was fooling with something like that yesterday but just left them in pots. The only issue is upholding the geographic rules but since they already do that for CONMEBOL and UEFA teams, but it wouldn't be too hard.
[tablegrid= What if pots were by rank? ]Pot 1 Pot 2 Pot 3 Pot 4 Brazil 11 Italy 8 Côte d'Ivoire 17 Algeria 32 Spain 1 Netherlands 8 Croatia 18 Nigeria 33 Germany 2 England 10 Russia 19 Honduras 34 Argentina 3 Chile 12 France 21 Japan 44 Colombia 4 Portugal 14 Ecuador 22 Iran 49 Belgium 5 USA 13 Ghana 23 Korea Republic 56 Uruguay 6 Greece 15 Mexico 24 Australia 57 Switzerland 7 Bosnia-Herzegovina 16 Costa Rica 31 Cameroon 59 average rank 4.875 12 21.875 45.5 median rank 4.5 12.5 21.5 46.5 4 UEFA, 4 CONMEBOL 6 UEFA, 1 CONMEBOL, 1 CONCACAF 3 UEFA, 2 CAF, 2 CONCACAF, 1 CONMEBOL 4 AFC, 3 CAF, 1 CONCACAF
Unlike Deadspin I kept the 'random' draw and came up with this:
[tablegrid= 'Random' Selection ]GROUP A rank B rank C rank D rank E rank F rank G rank H rank Brazil 11 Argentina 3 Colombia 4 Uruguay 6 Belgium 5 Germany 2 Spain 1 Switzerland 7 Portugal 14 Netherlands 8 Italy 8 Greece 15 USA 13 Chile 12 England 10 Bosnia-Herzegovina 16 Costa Rica 31 Mexico 24 France 21 Côte d'Ivoire 17 Croatia 18 Russia 19 Ecuador 22 Ghana 23 Australia 57 Cameroon 59 Algeria 32 Iran 49 Nigeria 33 Honduras 34 Korea Republic 56 Japan 44 average 28.25 23.5 16.25 21.75 17.25 16.75 22.25 22.5 median 22.5 16 14.5 16 15.5 15.5 16 19.5
The average ranking of the WC teams is 21 and the median is 16.5. So not too bad a seeding considering the geographic limitations.
“Everyone wants to avoid Manaus, there’s no doubt about it,” Klinsmann said in the lobby of his hotel. “It’s an unlucky decision to have a location like that in a World Cup, because of the [lengthy] flight, because of the [weather] circumstances there. I think it shouldn’t have been a location for the World Cup.”
Also, Deadspin came out with a fun article with a scenario of seeding the world cup like the NCAA playoffs. Pretty interesting as they grouped all the teams. I was fooling with something like that yesterday but just left them in pots. The only issue is upholding the geographic rules but since they already do that for CONMEBOL and UEFA teams, but it wouldn't be too hard.
[tablegrid= What if pots were by rank? ]
Unlike Deadspin I kept the 'random' draw and came up with this:
[tablegrid= 'Random' Selection ]
The average ranking of the WC teams is 21 and the median is 16.5. So not too bad a seeding considering the geographic limitations.
I'm brazilian, but Klinsmann is completely right about Manaus. Playing a football game there in the afternoon is fucking inhuman, nevermind the travel distance. I don't think there's a single team in Brazil even that wouldn't groan about having to play there, nevermind an european/north american squad.
You guys must be watching ESPN2. The live feed is so much worse, you really owe it to yourself to watch it.
See....you've been missing the dance routines for the last hour. I got to see the mascot break dance with Marta.
