Final stages of World Cup Qualification rounds

[Loppan Torkel]

The qualifying rounds are in their final stages.

Sweden managed to win 2-1 in Dublin last night. Not the best game, but a good win and they have a pretty good shot on the second place in their group, with Austria being their main opponent. If they get the second spot they'll probably face a Fifa-ranked top 20 team for a double meeting and a chance to play in Brazil. At the moment the top sec.placed teams are Croatia, Greece, Russia and France.

Group C:

Team MP W D L GF-GA Pts
Germany 7 6 1 0 18 19
Sweden 7 4 2 1 5 14
Austria 7 3 2 2 7 11
Rep of Ire 7 3 2 2 1 11
Kazakhstan 7 1 1 5 -12 4
Faroe Island 7 0 0 7 -19 0

How's your country doing in qualifying? Any other good stories regarding the last stages?

I like how Iceland still have a chance to reach the WC and how they reached a 4-4 result in Switzerland.

Team MP W D L GF-GA Pts
Switzerland 7 4 3 0 7 15
Norway 7 3 2 2 2 11
Albania 7 3 1 3 0 10
Iceland 7 3 1 3 -1 10
Slovenia 7 3 0 4 -1 9
Cyprus 7 1 1 5 -7 4

Link to video.


Edit:
Qualified so far:
1. Brazil
2. Japan
3. Australia
4. Iran
5. South Korea
6. Netherlands
7. Italy
8. United States
9. Costa Rica
10. Argentina
11. Belgium
12. Switzerland
13. Germany
14. Colombia

 

[Quackers]

Sweden have Ibra. Austria have Alaba.
As Ibra > all, than Ibra > Alaba.

Sweden gets play-off spot.

I wanted Ireland to qualify, i've got a soft spot for them and all of the home nations tbh.

I've just read that Cape Verde have been thrown out of the play offs for African region of qualifying. They fielded a suspended player! I wanted them to sneak into Brazil 14; they're a nation of 500k spread over 10 islands in the atlantic. It would be a great achievement to qualify.

 

[Gucumatz]

Sweden plays Germany again. Germany will want revenge. Therefore Austria should be able to run with the playoff spot

 

[warpus]

Poland's (pretty much) out. Canada's out.

I'm going to be cheering for other underdogs instead, it seems... again.

 

[Gucumatz]

You all still play against England yes? All you have to do is win out [Not extremely likely, but possible]

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I'm not so sure about Sweden having the upper hand. They recently failed to win against Ireland at home and the did lose to Austria away. They also need to win the home game against Austria, tying isn't enough.

Cape Verde qualifying would be an achievement, but I'd be even more impressed if Iceland, a nation of 320 000 people would qualify from the UEFA group. They're in second place now and has it in their own hands. Amazing goals by Gudmundsson..


FIFA Rankings tabled

Rnk Team Pts +/- Pos
1 Spain 1514 0 Equal
2 Argentina 1263 2 Up
3 Germany 1261 -1 Down
4 Italy 1199 2 Up
5 Colombia 1180 -2 Down
6 Belgium 1159 4 Up
7 Uruguay 1126 5 Up
8 Brazil 1067 1 Up
9 Netherlands 1058 -4 Down
10 Croatia 1051 -2 Down
11 Portugal 1029 -4 Down
12 Greece 1016 -1 Down
13 USA 996 6 Up
14 Switzerland 992 1 Up
15 Russia 968 1 Up
16 Chile 967 5 Up
17 England 947 -3 Down
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina 934 -5 Down
19 Côte d'Ivoire 902 -1 Down
20 Ecuador 851 -3 Down
21 Mexico 837 -1 Down
22 Sweden 836 8 Up
23 Denmark 825 4 Up
24 Ghana 815 0 Equal
25 France 812 -2 Down
26 Ukraine 799 2 Up
27 Montenegro 766 1 Up
28 Algeria 762 6 Up
29 Slovenia 754 16 Up
30 Hungary 744 1 Up

 

[Gucumatz]

Cape Verde were disqualified because they fielded an ineligible player, so yes, it would be shocking if they qualified

 

[BirraImperial]

We have booked our trip to Brazil Mexico could very well be eliminated or forced to search qualification through the playoff spot against New Zealand. We face them on the final matchday at home, so it should be interesting.

 

[mitsho]

It should be noted that only the best 8 (of 9) placed second teams in Europe's qualifiyers will get to the play-off round. That puts Iceland, but also Bulgaria/Denmark or even England/Ukraine into a though spot (as those 12-0 wins against San Marino don't count then ).

 

[Gucumatz]

Why do they even allow teams like San Marino, Andorra, Lichtenstein, etc. to compete in the main pot? Why can't they be like pretty much every other region and have the minnows compete in a separate early pot, where the winner of the lot advances?

 

[mitsho]

Because some people prefer simple 1 (and a half) stage-systems to the complex multi thing done in Asia or Africa?

It's also not a problem, since all teams get the 6 points (...) against those teams deducted before the final tally. If say Gibraltar would compete as well, you could fill up all groups and wouldn't have to do it in the first time.

Finally, it's a bit of folklore to have to play there and there's always these few surprises that then are the real football stories, like Luxembourg beating Switzerland or France drawing on the Faroes. These kind of stories belong to football and they are also why we Europeans don't want those closed franchise leagues the US has and why EVERY national champion gets a chance to start in the Champions League qualification. It's after all called a champions league (and one could argue that teams like Arsenal who haven't won anything of note in the last few years mayxbe shouldn't have access). See, I can turn that argument on its head easily

 

[sophie]

Suck it England, Mexico and France!

 

[Gucumatz]

Mexico can suck it, but France and England aren't too worried yet I would think.

 

[sophie]

Mexico can suck it, but France and England aren't too worried yet I would think.

YOUR DOING IT WRONG!!!!1!

allcaps

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Sweden 2 - 1 Austria
Not a great game. Serious flaws in the team, but they've got Zlatan to sort it out every time.
Sweden's ready for a play-off against another second seed.

Link to video.


Link to video.
He deserved it for being a dirty player.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Mexico squeaked by Panama with an amazing bicycle kick by a substitute in the 85th minute.

Link to video.

 

[sophie]

Haha, I love in the second video how the broadcaster gets so exasperated by the goal that he unthinkingly switches from Spanish to English briefly.

 

[Formaldehyde]

No. That was the ESPN English broadcast. They used two Mexican talking heads to cover it. They were actually overwhelmed instead of exasperated. They lost a bit of their impartiality in the moment. One of them even called it a goal that every child dreams of scoring.

 

[Gucumatz]

So which of the European runners up will not be given a playoff spot? Will it be Iceland/Slovenia?

 

[mitsho]

The worst one which at the moment is Bulgaria. You take away the results against the last placed team (to get a fair table as one group consists of one team less). And it will most likely be the team from group B, Iceland/Slovenia are certain to be in.

I'm not sure how the play-offs afterwards are drawn, but if they split the pots by the table of the group-second-placed-teams, it could get interesting, at the moment (before last round), we would have (in order of points):
seeded: Greece, Portugal, Ukraine, France
unseeded: Sweden, Iceland, Croatia, Turkey

Things are supposed to change though, Croatia f.e. should move up still. In any case, the two pots will be quite alike in strength (with noteable exceptions), so there should be some nice matches coming up