World Cup

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

Did you know that with 31 teams quailfing for the world cup and the amount of teams in the world we could just have 31 groups of 6/7 teams with winners through if they did a straight seeded draw, that way we wouldn't get loads of players off to play about 30 qualifers in South America and poxy countries like Australia would have to qualify properly unlike from now when they will qualify every time and we'd see less crappy asian teams at the expense of european teams. During a rather quiet moment at work I've just drawn the next world cup based on current seeding pots, there is a lot of inter-continetal trevelling which is nice!

 

Group

1 France China Burkina Faso St. Kitts Luxembourg Belize -

2 Romania Quatar Albania Uzbekistan Mauritius Mauritania -

3 Japan Israel El Salvador N. Ireland Litchinstien Niger -

4 Uruguay Iran Kenya Malta Maldives Eritrea -

5 Portugal Morocco Syria Bahrain Palatine Cayman Islands -

6 Sweden Honduras Peru Armenia Antigua Bangladesh -

7 Cameroon Wales Georgia Kasikstain Grenada British Virgin Islands -

8 Ecuador Jamaica Belarus Mozambique Tanzania Kyrgyzstan -

9 Mexico Estonia Chile Barbados St. Vincent Papa New Guinea -

10 Paraguay Tunisia Cyprus Indonesia Cape Verde Islands Cen. African Republic -

11 Senegal Poland Ivory Coast Sudan Burundi Tonga -

12 Rep. Ireland Austria D R Congo Moldova Malaysia Philippines -

13 Argentina Zimbabwe Jordan Lebanon Benin Pakistan -

14 Nigeria Saudi Arabia Angola Singapore Lesotho Bermuda -

15 Russia Iraq Algeria Gabon Vanuatu Bahamas Macao

16 Netherlands New Zealand UAE Swaziland Turkmenistan Nicaragua Bhutan

17 Denmark Egypt Guatemala Libya India Seychelles US Virgin Islands

18 Czech Republic Colombia Cuba Malawi Andorra Chinese Taipei Equatorial Guinea

19 Korea Republic Ghana Canada Lithuania Fiji Guyana Monserat

20 Croatia Slovenia Haiti Guinea Sierra Leone Guinea-Bissau Mongolia

21 Norway Switzerland Liberia St. Lucia Rwanda Myanmar Brunei Darussalam

22 Belgium Australia Toga Namibia Surinam Nepal Afghanistan

23 Italy Greece Macedonia Azebazian Yemen San Marino Sao Tome e Principe

24 Turkey Slovakia Venezuela Korea DPR Botswana Laos Somalia

25 Costa Rica Ukraine Mali Vietnam Panama Cook Islands Djibouti

26 Yugoslavia Finland Libya Madagascar Gambia Cambodia American Samoa

27 USA Hungry Latvia Oman Ethiopia Tajikistan Angola

28 England Iceland Thailand Feroe Islands Sri Lanka Somoa Aruba

29 Spain Scotland Kuwait Congo Hong Kong Netherlands Antilles Guam

30 South Africa Bulgaria Zambia Haiti Dominican Republic Dominica Porta Rica

31 Brazil Trinidad & Tobago Bosnia Uganda Solomon Islands Chad Tuks & Caicos Islands

 

There now thats better!

 

[Northern Monkey]

Cant see scotland qualifying.

we will probably need a play off!

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

Looking forward to the away trip to Aruba though

[EFM's Librarian]

A couple of questions,

Why are the people of Dar es Salaam allowed to enter the world cup (see group 21), what about the rest of Tanzania??

Why have India and Pakistan been removed from the world? I realise they are not the world's biggest footballing nations, but surely they are bigger than Monserrat or Bhutan!?

This system could lead to some very interesting groups in the future, can you imagine the threat to world peace if you had a group like this?:

USA Iraq Iran Pakistan India North Korea Israel Pakistan

[EFM's Librarian]

Ooops, I meant Palestine, not Pakistan twice

[CANV EFM]

the all new group of death.. try to incorporate lybia, indonesia and north n south belfast

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

Pakistan are in group 13

India are in group 17

Tanzinia are in group 8

[Rob_the_Saint]

...and Darussalam is part of the full name for Brunei.

 

Scotland will be pleased, they've avoided the Faroe Islands...

[EFM's Librarian]

PLease accept my humble apologies, for some reason my 'find' function refuses to see India and Pakistan in the original message.

However, if everyone wants to be pernickety, there are some very unusual spellings (kasikstain, litchinstien, Palatine)

 

Cue Rob the Saint to come on and tell me that Kasikstain is a small principality off the edge of kazakhstan!

[Colin Zeal EFM]

Looking back at the first message in this thread, I think the whole point of the World Cup has been missed.

 

It's these smaller countries that make the World Cup what it is and provide the colour and culture.

 

As far as I can remember, Australia have only once before qualified (1974?). They came very close in 1998. New Zealand qualified from the Oceania group in 1982.

 

The World Cup is great as it is. The balance is just about right.

 

 

[FleetFanatic]

I think the seeding system should be scrapped.

Let all the countries be drawn at random.

If a lot of big teams get knocked out at the start then so be it.

England might even get an easy route to the final!

[CANV EFM]

fifa will insist on the following being in it due to hard cash reasons..

1.usa .. they have the most by a mile and always make more

2.china .. so thats 1 billion replica shirts to go then sir?

3.germany/france/italy/england etc etc.. the only countries than can get 5,000 people to travel 10,000 miles to buy beer at 9 quid a pint, stay in a hotel for 400 quid a night to watch 3 football matches, watch their team play absolute [****!!****] and still think they have had a great time

4.japan.. will buy anything if you market it using a stupid pokemon style cartoon character

[Laz]

I think the winner of the play off between the winners of the Australia/New Zealand groups should qualify. Usually, they play the fourth or fifth placed team from South America in a play off. It all seems a bit unfair.

[Colin Zeal EFM]

For the 2006 World Cup, that's exactly what is gonna happen Laz. At the expense of an Asian team I believe.

 

 

[Laz]

I think you could probably limit it to just one Asian team. Was it four last time?

[Colin Zeal EFM]

Japan, Korea, China, Saudi Arabia.

 

Yeah - four!!

 

 

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

All the countries there are the Top 203 countries that play for a place in the world cup and are members of FIFA (And afganistan who have just rejoined) so any poxy suberbs of countrys actually do enter the world cup. Spelling wasn't down to me, I did the draw!

The Oceanica place has meant one less South American place.

I just think this format would give other contients chances of getting more teams at the expence of lesser one's. Look at groups 3 and 8 for example that place could go to any continent.

The downside I guess is the cost, I can't see the American Samoa FA shelling out for trips to Yugoslavia, Finland, Libya, Madagascar, Gambia and Cambodia.

 

Never mind I don't think FIFA were taking me seriously anyway!

 

PS In Englands group, can you imagine 5000 members of the England supporters club desending on Thailand.

 

[FleetFanatic]

England.....Thailand.....at this point I have suddenly become rather suspicious about the integrity of your draw EFM! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

[Colin Zeal EFM]

Was Holland in our group too by any chance!! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

 

 

[EFM's Librarian]

Maybe you could make it like that infamous draw for the 1982? world cup, it all went wrong, and there was lots of re-drawing (i think - someone help me out). Can you imagine how complicated it would be if you implemented rules about, for example, no neighbouring teams in the same group, or no teams with populations of less than 100,000 in the same group. It could be turned into a friday night television series that went on for 12 weeks, I'd stay in to watch that.