Nov
23
2007
Euro 2008 – Group Stage Draw Seedings
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Will Greece repeat? We’ll be there to find out! Pame Euro!! (pame = greek for let’s go to)
A few years ago, Dan Leo introduced me to the World Football Elo Ratings. Originally, they were developed to rate world class chess players by Dr. Arpad Elo, but in 1997, Bob Runyan converted the system to cover world football.
“The system was adapted to football by adding a weighting for the kind of match, an adjustment for the home team advantage, and an adjustment for goal difference in the match result.”
What I like about this system, as compared to FIFA or UEFA, is that rankings are continuously updated after each international game. They also provide a wealth of historical data about your favorite national team. For example, you can see that Italy played France in their first international in 1910, England played Scotland in 1872, and the USA played Canada in 1885, respectively.
In this system, England is presently ranked 9th, Ireland is 32nd, Northern Ireland is 67th, Scotland is 33rd, and Wales is 56th, respectively.
But let’s look at Euro 2008, and how the Elo system (http://www.eloratings.net/) ranks the participants as of 23 November 2007: (For some reason, there may be an extra space between the third and fourth teams).
Pot 1
Switzerland: 18
Austria: 60
Greece: 16
The Netherlands: 6
Pot 2
Croatia: 11
Italy: 2
Czech Republic: 7
Sweden: 22
Pot 3
Romania: 10
Germany: 7
Portugal: 13
Spain: 5
Pot 4
Poland: 26
France: 4
Turkey: 17
Russia: 24
The Group of Death that you have mentioned would probably be the best Group of Death ever ..
France – 1 World Cup, 2 European Championships
Germany – 3 World Cups, 3 European Championships
Italy – 4 World Cups, 1 European Championship
Netherlands – 1 European Championship
This doesn’t even include numerous appearances in the tournament finals .. so that’s 8 World Cup Titles & 7 European Championships between those four teams .. wow !!!
The Group of Death does sound fun.
My issue is that since the TWO host nations, and the holders are in Pot 1, that is now one of, if not the weakest pot, defying the point of the whole thing.
Sure, put the hosts in the competition, but should they really be put into the highest ranked pot, spreading the other good teams between pots.
Would the potential ‘Group of Death’ have been possible if ALL the teams had been sorted according to their UEFA coefficient?
You make quite a good point, tomsharp. The Netherlands, by being in Pot 1, are guaranteed to avoid Austria, Switzerland and Greece. Not exactly the best of deals if you ask me.
Also, to answer your last point, here’s what the pots distribution would have looked like if only the UEFA Coefficient had been taken into account:
So in this scenario, the closest we can get to a “group of death” would be Italy (or Netherlands), Germany, France (or Spain), and Russia/Turkey. Much more balanced.
Alternatively, using Steve’s Elo Ratings, we’d have something like this:
Here, the best “group of death†would see Italy (or France, or Spain, or Netherlands… only top teams in pot 1), Germany, Portugal, Sweden. Even more balanced.
We mustn’t forget however that the reason UEFA are using the UEFA coefficient is to reward a team’s performance during the last qualifying campaign. In other words, a “big football nation” might be ranked lower simply because they have underperformed, despite they have the talent potential to be a tournament winner (like Germany, Portugal, Spain and France, who ended up in the lower two pots).
Steve, Austria is playing at home.
Let’s move them all the way up to the 59th.
Dan Leo
PS. FIFA’s rankings have as much reality as the Fed’s inflation data or the official Soviet military casualty reports.
Here’s to hoping that Italy win, and that the fans are extra hot…
Marco, you going to Austria / Switzerland next summer? Steve, what about you?
Dan Leo, remember though we are talking about UEFA Coefficients. FIFA Rankings used a completely different method entirely.
Ahmed, I very much doubt it
although I’d love to. Imagine that I used to live in France at some point, and the World Cup swung by in 1998 when I was 16 years old. Not rich enough to afford any tickets (it doesn’t help when your parents, especially your father, doesn’t give a crap about football). Sigh.
[...] like UEFA and FIFA like to coordinate things, because the Euro 2008 Group Stage draw is set to take place just a week after the World Cup Prelim draw. In any case, this time the way [...]
If you ask me, I think there will be 2 groups of death..
Predicting a group with Holland, Germany, Czech Republic, Turkey and another with Portugal, Italy, France and Greece…
This will likely be one of the best draws in the history of the competition, it’s such a shame that England won’t be apart of it…
Can’t wait to see them in Africa..!
[...] win the tournament are Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland and France. Co-hosts Austria and Switzerland have been seeded first along with defending champions Greece as the race for the final in Vienna on June 29th [...]
[...] more information on the methods used to determine the seedings, see our “Euro 2008 – Group Stage Draw Seedings” [...]