I’m going to do this one in separate parts, because I think it’s wise to wait until the draw at the start of next week before diving into the playoff percentages in UEFA. This will also give me a few days to try out a couple of minor adjustments to help tweak things a bit. So for this we’ll simply talk about what happened today and it’s possible upcoming implications. No ratings or sims or percentages until next week when we have the playoff draw in hand.
In
Switzerland, Slovakia, Argentina, Honduras = 100.00%.
Out
Croatia, Czech Republic, Sweden, Israel = 0.00%. Some awfully good teams in there, all need to prepare for Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine. Maybe by then my ratings will be so world famous I can finagle a free trip out of some media conglomerate!! Oh well we all need our pipe dreams. 🙂
UEFA Group 1
To me the most interesting of the UEFA Groups was this group. Denmark took first place after round three and never relinquished it, the key late match being a home draw on September 5th of this year against Portugal. This also marked Portugal’s low water mark (in terms of qualification) in the sims. The lack of a win there basically ended their chances at winning the group and they realistically needed to win all three of their remaining games (including a difficult road match against a still in it Hungary side) just to get into the playoff ahead of Sweden or Denmark. A Swedish upset in Denmark combined with a Danish win in Albania would also have sunk their chances. Neither of the latter happened, and they did managed to win out and Sweden was left wondering about missed opportunities. The final two games that had meaning both went straight chalk. The sims projected Portugal to beat Malta 4.21 to 0.27, they won 4 to 0. Sweden was projected to beat Albania 2.01 to 0.46 but they won more comfortably than that 4 to 1.
One caution: it’s not a 36 team field, and although Portugal will be favored over whatever team they face, they ain’t in yet. If they start to celebrate and act like they’ve clinched it, they could really screw up this otherwise great comeback.
UEFA Group 2
The Greece and Switzerland duel that had been apparent for months finally came to an end today, as Israel failed to score in Basel and the 0-0 draw was all the Swiss needed to make the result in the Greece/Luxembourg game irrelevant. The Swiss try and follow up their good performance in 2006 with another next summer in 2010. A 2-1 win at home against Luxembourg never sounds good for a team as good as Greece, but the traditional European minnows actually avoided last place this time around (though goal differential suggest they were still the weakest team). I’m not sure you necessarily call this “improvement” for Luxembourg, but there are signs of a little life. More on where the Greeks sit later. Latvia technically still had a chance, but they really didn’t. In the end the 0-2 home loss to Greece in round 2 cost them a playoff spot. A win there and they make the playoffs. Add a win at home against the Swiss (they drew instead) and they’d have won the whole group. That’s how close it can be sometimes.
UEFA Group 3
The cause of much consternation over the real chances the pre-group favored Czechs still had, the outcome of the Slovenia at San Marino match was the 2nd most likely outcome: 3 to 0 Slovenia (the sims had 2 to 0 as ever so slightly more likely). This meant elimination for the Czechs and wonderful news for the Greeks. Slovakia for their part, wound up getting it done the hard way, with a third minute own-goal in Chorzow Poland being the lone goal that would send them to their first ever World Cup. Congratulations to the Slovakians, but next time do it the easy way by getting at least a draw at home when that will clinch it. 🙂 As for the Czechs, this should have been a group they handled, but a home loss to Slovakia and only a single road win against San Marino and they don’t even sneak into a playoff. I’d have to say calling this campaign a “disaster” might sound a little harsh, but it’s not far from the truth. Unless Portugal or France stumble, they will win the “highest rated team to miss the World Cup” award this time around. And if Portugal stumbles bad enough, the Czechs might pass them in the ratings and still win it.
UEFA Group 6
The other two groups had already been decided last weekend, so we’ll skip to here. Croatia faced the same problem as the Czechs, they needed a minnow to come up with an unlikely result, and after 60 minutes, Ukraine was up a mere 1-0 in tiny Andorra. Unfortunately for Croatia the inevitable was merely postponed, Ukraine added five more in the next 24 minutes and Ukraine heads to the playoffs over the Croatians in a result that pushed the Greeks into the pool of upper seeds. England’s complete group dominance coupled with Ukraine getting to play them at home after England had already clinched, may ultimately have been the difference. But Croatia was outscored 9 to 2 in their two games against the group winners, and in a group with Andorra in it, a final goal differential of just +6 isn’t going to impress anybody or generate much sympathy. They maybe should have been good enough to make the playoffs, but they just weren’t. For their part, Ukraine is hardly a pushover and a seeded team would be wise not to take them lightly.
UEFA Playoff Seeds
Pot A (or whatever) = Russia, France, Portugal, Greece
Pot B (or whatever) = Ukraine, Ireland, Bosnia, Slovenia
We’ll see how it gets drawn, but by my ratings Ukraine and Greece is the closest possible matchup (Greece would still be favored), with Ireland the second biggest threat of the unseeded teams, and Russia the second weakest (but hardly weak) of the seeded teams. Say what you like about the FIFA rankings, but for these specific eight teams if you must divide them into two equal groups, I believe those are the right two groups. Interestingly the last ratings pull had Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia rated 49th and 50th so they look to be roughly equal in quality and both are playing quite well at the moment. I doubt anyone has any right to expect an easy time of it, it ought to make for some truly exciting football. Check your local listings.
Many, many, many thanks to Edgar at http://www.football-rankings.info/ both for his general support of my sims, and his indispensable work predicting the future FIFA rankings based on results. You’re the best!!
CONMEBOL
If there’s one thing Argentine footballers tend to like, it’s drama. If they were planning on qualifying anyway, did they really have to do it like this? Mario Bolatti’s late winner from a goalmouth scramble was an exclamation point, but simply keeping home side Uruguay off the scoreboard was all they needed and that’s what they did. Ecuador could have made this a very bad day for Uruguay indeed, but Mexican league star Humberto Suazo fired the already qualified Chileans ahead in the 51st, and Ecuador couldn’t manage a single road goal much less two and bow out of qualifying. For Uruguay, they manage to cling to the playoff spot. Finding out who they were going to play would prove to be extremely dramatic…
CONCACAF
Honduras and Costa Rica were the only two teams with anything to play for. One would qualify directly, the other would move on to face the Uruguayans in the playoff. The USA fielded essentially their first string at home against Costa Rica, while Honduras traveled to El Salvador. The Hondurans needed a win to overtake Costa Rica, the Costa Ricans needed a win themselves to make that irrelevant. In the 21st minute, Bryan Ruiz scored a very goal to put Costa Rica up 1-0 on the USA and three minutes later would double their advantage with a postage stamp wonder strike from outside the box. At halftime the scores read 2-0 Costa Rica, with Honduras scoreless in El Salvador. In the 64th minute the Hondurans caught the slightest glimmer of hope as Carlos Pavon put them ahead in El Salvador 1-0. That hope grew a great deal when Michael Bradley swept one in during a goal mouth scramble to trim the Costa Rican lead to 2-1. In the 89th minute all hell broke loose as the Costa Rican head coach Rene Simoes and his assistant were both ejected from the match and touchline. The equipment manager was now the head coach in the 90th minute of a 2-1 game where they needed to hold the lead to go to the World Cup. Unthinkably, in the fifth minute of stoppage time Jonathan Bornstein’s header off of a corner leveled the score at 2-2 sending Honduras to the World Cup, Costa Rica to the playoff and the moods of two Central American countries in vastly different directions.
I don’t think the quotes coming out of the Costa Rican camp toward the officiating crew in the coming days will be suitable for young ears. They have a very difficult artificial turf down in Saprissa that Uruguay would be wise to prepare for. Trust me on this: it can be a very difficult place to play and they likely won’t be in a very good mood down there for that one. Uruguay will be favored and by a significant margin, but there’s no way I’d count Costa Rica completely out.
Expect a set of sims to be ready to go once UEFA Playoff draw is announced on Monday.
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