FIFA's big favour for the Netherlands
Here on FoG blog we have been watching the FIFA rankings. They are rather meaningless for most years but they are used when it comes to seeding for the World Cup, and also the World Cup Qualifying. We saw in 2014 World Cup how Italy suffered from dropping out of the top 8 seeds, and Switzerland benefited.
The July release is now likely to decide the seeds for the European qualifying draw for World Cup 2018. Up until now we have not had the exact release date. However from checking the FIFA.com website today I can see the date will be July 9th. The release date determines the cut off points for the FIFA ranking points.
This is critical for teams like Netherlands and Germany and it means that their World Cup games versus Brazil and Argentina and all matches played on or after 9th July 2014 will have full weighting.
Netherlands beat Brazil in the third place play-off on 12 July 2014 which contributes 2364 points (3 * 4 * 197 * 1) to their FIFA ranking - almost maximum points. Any release date after the 12th of July 2015 and this match would have only counted at 50%. This high score acheived against Brazil means that their points in the Period July 2014 to July 2015 so far average out at 554 with 3 further matches scheduled.
Since that match, Netherlands have been struggling and have lost to Italy, Czech Republic, Iceland and Mexico. Only scoring wins against Latvia and Kazakhstan. This is a lowly average of 215 fifa ranking points for the period from July to now (exlcuding the Brazil and Argentina matches). Granted they would have still had time to improve that with games against Turkey, Spain and Latvia next year. There would have been pressure to win every match.
This decision by FIFA to allow some of the World Cup matches to count fully towards the ranking has virtually guaranteed Netherlands a spot in Pot 1, where otherwise they would have struggled.
See the projected tables below. Most teams still have 3 more matches to play to improve their average, but below is as it stands at the moment. The choice of release date between 9th July and 16th of July means that Netherlands are ranked 4th rather than 14th!
In 2011 the rankings were released 27th of July, in 2007 the release date was the 18th of July and 2003 was the 30th of July. This is the earliest in July the rankings have ever been released following a World Cup year.
France had three wins in the World Cup including a win against a highly ranked Switzerland. They can feel hard done by that these matches will count only 50% while Netherlands matches against Argentina and Brazil count 100%. Similarly Belgium had 3 wins including against Russia. Likewise they dont get the same treatment as Netherlands - their hard fought wins will only count 50%.
At the moment Austria look like the team that will lose out and be pushed into the second pot.
The discussion on this blog seems to indicate that the July 9th decision has been influenced by the Copa America final dates.
The July release is now likely to decide the seeds for the European qualifying draw for World Cup 2018. Up until now we have not had the exact release date. However from checking the FIFA.com website today I can see the date will be July 9th. The release date determines the cut off points for the FIFA ranking points.
This is critical for teams like Netherlands and Germany and it means that their World Cup games versus Brazil and Argentina and all matches played on or after 9th July 2014 will have full weighting.
Netherlands beat Brazil in the third place play-off on 12 July 2014 which contributes 2364 points (3 * 4 * 197 * 1) to their FIFA ranking - almost maximum points. Any release date after the 12th of July 2015 and this match would have only counted at 50%. This high score acheived against Brazil means that their points in the Period July 2014 to July 2015 so far average out at 554 with 3 further matches scheduled.
Since that match, Netherlands have been struggling and have lost to Italy, Czech Republic, Iceland and Mexico. Only scoring wins against Latvia and Kazakhstan. This is a lowly average of 215 fifa ranking points for the period from July to now (exlcuding the Brazil and Argentina matches). Granted they would have still had time to improve that with games against Turkey, Spain and Latvia next year. There would have been pressure to win every match.
This decision by FIFA to allow some of the World Cup matches to count fully towards the ranking has virtually guaranteed Netherlands a spot in Pot 1, where otherwise they would have struggled.
See the projected tables below. Most teams still have 3 more matches to play to improve their average, but below is as it stands at the moment. The choice of release date between 9th July and 16th of July means that Netherlands are ranked 4th rather than 14th!
|
|
In 2011 the rankings were released 27th of July, in 2007 the release date was the 18th of July and 2003 was the 30th of July. This is the earliest in July the rankings have ever been released following a World Cup year.
France had three wins in the World Cup including a win against a highly ranked Switzerland. They can feel hard done by that these matches will count only 50% while Netherlands matches against Argentina and Brazil count 100%. Similarly Belgium had 3 wins including against Russia. Likewise they dont get the same treatment as Netherlands - their hard fought wins will only count 50%.
At the moment Austria look like the team that will lose out and be pushed into the second pot.
The discussion on this blog seems to indicate that the July 9th decision has been influenced by the Copa America final dates.
Comments
Post a Comment