World Cup Draw

It looks like ireland will be a 2nd seed for the WC draw in December.
The WC qualifying looks like being made up of 8 groups. 5 groups of 6 teams and 3 groups of 7.
I think the top 2 teams go thru from each group.

The pots will look something like this

Pot 1
France, Portugal, Sweden, Czech Republic, Spain, England, Italy, Turkey

Pot 2
Holland, Poland, Croatia, Belgium, Russia, Denmark, Ireland, Bulgaria

Pot 3
Slovenia, Romania, Scotland, Serbia & Montenegro, Switzerland, Greece, Ukraine, Slovakia

Pot 4
Austria, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Israel, Bosnia, Latvia, Wales

Pot 5
Hungary, Georgia, Belarus, Estonia, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Lithuania, Macedonia

Pot 6
Albania, Moldova, Armenia, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Azerbaijan, Faroe Islands, Malta

Pot 7
Luxemburg, Andorra, Kazakstan

What group woud you like Ireland to end up in.

(Added Switzerland to Pot 3)

If these were the pots then I'd like this group to come out:

Sweden
Ireland
Slovakia
Israel
N. Ireland
Faroe
Luxembourg

I'm sure we'd qualify from this.

Quote:

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Originally posted by finlma
Sweden
Ireland
Slovakia
Israel
N. Ireland
Faroe
Luxembourg

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I'd prefer Scotland for Slovakia and San Marino for the Faeroes myself. Course, we're due a tough group after the last one (which was an easy draw on paper...) - how about Italy, Ukraine, Norway, Cyprus and Albania? Nasty little group with every team capable of taking points off each other.

Would still fancy us from that if we played to our potential though, which is encouraging.

i'd like

Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, N.Ireland, San Marino

i'd dislike

France, Ukraine, Latvia, Hungary, Albania, Kazakstan

won't read too much into the draw though, i thought we were certainties before the euro2004 games started

I heard Kerr say on the radio that only the winners of each group and the best two in second place go through. (10 teams in total) That makes it much harder.

The other second placed teams go into play-offs.

Jeez...they like making things more and more complicated...

I'm predicting we're in one of the groups with 6 teams and would like the following draw:

France/Italy/England (We need a "Big" team in our group)
Ireland
Greece (Away trip to the sun)
Austria/Finland (Fond memories of both Vienna & Helsinki)
Northern Ireland (Show them how it's done)
San Marino (Haven't been there before)

How about this for a group. Posssible but unlikely.

England
Ireland
Scotland
Wales
N.Ireland
A.N. Other

A 5 Nations tournament. It would pack out stadia for every game and the results would be very unpredicatable.

Quote:

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Originally posted by ProfFrink
I heard Kerr say on the radio that only the winners of each group and the best two in second place go through. (10 teams in total) That makes it much harder.

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I must say I find that hard to believe.

Say it's right, then there'd be 10 European teams + Germany to qualify, giving us 11 European teams. The usual 5 from South America and 3 from Central & North America. That leaves 13 teams from Asia and Africa? Maybe that's the way it's going to be, but in my view that would severely weaken the WC and make the EC a much more difficult championship to win.

Quote:

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Originally posted by ProfFrink
I heard Kerr say on the radio that only the winners of each group and the best two in second place go through. (10 teams in total) That makes it much harder.

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I don't think this is the case. I'm almost sure its the top teams, plus the 2 best qualifiers and then the dreaded play-offs for the rest of the 2nd places.

Quote:

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Originally posted by finlma
I don't think this is the case. I'm almost sure its the top teams, plus the 2 best qualifiers and then the dreaded play-offs for the rest of the 2nd places.

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Thats sounds about right cos 32 teams in finals & europe defo gets more than 10 teams & is usually close to 50% of total. i.e. 8 + 2 + 3 winners of playoffs + Germany = 12 & maybe even playoff against asia again or something...

Quote:

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Originally posted by pete
8 + 2 + 3 winners of playoffs + Germany = 12

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There's a calculator on your PC Pete :D

8+2+3+Germany = 14

Quote:

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Originally posted by Peadar
There's a calculator on your PC Pete :D

8+2+3+Germany = 14

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Yeah, but there's no 'Germany' button on it

Quote:

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Originally posted by noby
there's no 'Germany' button

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You don't know where Pete works.
I'd bet his parent company have "Germany" buttons on everything :D

Quote:

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Originally posted by Peadar
You don't know where Pete works.
I'd bet his parent company have "Germany" buttons on everything :D

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Me have a Germany button here but its called 'Delete' on the Irish keyboard.

:)

One Question.

How can you have the two best runners-up, when some groups have 6 teams (10 games) and some groups have 7 (12 games)?

Quote:

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Originally posted by noby
How can you have the two best runners-up?

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I had a look yesterday and couldn't find anything anywhere about how the European Qualification section will be arranged.
I presume we'll learn more on the 05/12/2003 when the draw is made. Not long to go now.

Quote:

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Originally posted by noby
One Question.

How can you have the two best runners-up, when some groups have 6 teams (10 games) and some groups have 7 (12 games)?

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I'm sure the boys in FIFA have some complicated mechanism of working it out. It will probably be an average of the points per game against the teams below you in the group, thats how it usually works me thinks.

forget uefa, the boys from Essex Intermediate Football League seem to have the info.


European Confederation


With Germany gaining automatic qualification as hosts, there will be 51 UEFA countries taking part in the qualification tournament.

With 13 places available at the finals, UEFA have decided that these 51 countries will be split into three groups of seven teams and five groups of six teams.

The eight group winners and the best two runners up will qualify automatically for the finals.

The remaining six group runners up will then contest play-offs to decide the remaining three qualifiers.

Neither the format for these play-offs or the criteria for deciding the best two runners-up in the qualification groups has been announced.

The draw to decide the groups will take place in Frankfurt's Festhalle on 05 December 2003