World Cup play off places.

vincenzo1975

Format:(from http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/preliminaries/europe/secondplace.html)
Determining Europe's runners-up
When the group phase of European Zone qualifying reaches its conclusion on 14 October 2009, the nine section winners will be guaranteed a place at the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™. Thereafter, the eight best runners-up will compete in two-legged play-offs, with the continent's four remaining tickets to the world finals at stake.
Group 9 consists of five teams, one less than the other pools. When calculating the best runners-up, therefore, matches played against the sixth-placed finishers in Groups 1 to 8 will not be taken into consideration. The criteria will be as follows;
- Total points
- Goal difference
- Goals scored
- Goals scored away from home
- Disciplinary record *
- Drawing of lots
* Yellow card, -1 point; two yellow cards in the same match, -3 points; red card, -3 points; yellow card followed by a direct red card in the same match, -4 points.

With one team from each group being considered, this leaves potential runners up in each group as follows, by my calculations. the games left does not include the lowest team in each group as that result wont matter.

.............Team.........Pts.....GD.....GF.....GA...gamesleft
Group1...Hungary.......7......1......5......4......3
............Sweden........9......1......4......3......2
Group2...Greece.......10......3......9......6......2
Group3...NIreland.......8.....-1......6......7......2
............Poland.........5......1......9......8......3
............Slovenia.......8......1......5......4......2
Group4...Germany....13......6......10.....4......2
.............Russia.......12......8......11.....3......2
Group5...Bosnia.........9......8......14.....6......2
Group6...Croatia......11......3......10.....7......2
.............Ukraine......11......3......9......6......2
Group7...France.......11......1......8......7......2
Group8...Ireland.......10......2......6......4......2
.............Bulgaria.....10......5......10.....5......2
Group9...Scotland....10.....-4......6.....10......1

ps: sorry about the dots, but you cant post multiple spaces or tabs.

One Cold Hand

From my reading of it the only team we are definately clear of is Northern Ireland. Most teams have only played 7 games to our 8, but all of those are within 3 points of us.

Scotland (the 2nd placed team in Group 9) have 10 points, so when you take away our 2 wins against Georgia that leaves us level (we have 16). I think it's safe to assume that all the 2nd placed teams in groups 1-8 have won their 2 games against the bottom team.

All in all, it's pretty tight!

vincenzo1975

One Cold Hand wrote: »

From my reading of it the only team we are definately clear of is Northern Ireland. Most teams have only played 7 games to our 8, but all of those are within 3 points of us.

Scotland (the 2nd placed team in Group 9) have 10 points, so when you take away our 2 wins against Georgia that leaves us level (we have 16). I think it's safe to assume that all the 2nd placed teams in groups 1-8 have won their 2 games against the bottom team.

All in all, it's pretty tight!

actually, bulgaria drew with georgia, so they only have 1 point deducted from their current pts tally, meaning they are currently in the runner up spot ahead of us. we need italy to get a result against them.

copacetic

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

actually, bulgaria drew with georgia, so they only have 1 point deducted from their current pts tally, meaning they are currently in the runner up spot ahead of us. we need italy to get a result against them.

you've misunderstood how it works. the second places are determined as normal within the group, only then is the table of second place teams made up. Discarding the last team in each group. Since the last team can change in a few of the groups its not easy to predict anything at this stage.

vincenzo1975

copacetic wrote: »

you've misunderstood how it works. the second places are determined as normal within the group, only then is the table of second place teams made up. Discarding the last team in each group. Since the last team can change in a few of the groups its not easy to predict anything at this stage.

I interpreted it differently, I would interprete it that the runner ups are calculated by removing the lowest team first. the wording on the fifa website is poor. Hopefully its the way you describe, if it is, we should be ahead of group 9 and group 3 but we still have Italy to come.

copacetic

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

I interpreted it differently, I would interprete it that the runner ups are calculated by removing the lowest team first. the wording on the fifa website is poor. Hopefully its the way you describe, if it is, we should be ahead of group 9 and group 3 but we still have Italy to come.

They talk about 'best runners up' but thats only getting the best 8 from 9. It's the runners up from each group who are included. I've never come across someone with your interpretation before, I'm 100% sure on it;)

m@cc@

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

I interpreted it differently, I would interprete it that the runner ups are calculated by removing the lowest team first. the wording on the fifa website is poor. Hopefully its the way you describe, if it is, we should be ahead of group 9 and group 3 but we still have Italy to come.

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

When calculating the best runners-up, therefore, matches played against the sixth-placed finishers in Groups 1 to 8 will not be taken into consideration.

Seems as clear as glass to me.

The Rooster

vincenzo1975 wrote: »

actually, bulgaria drew with georgia, so they only have 1 point deducted from their current pts tally, meaning they are currently in the runner up spot ahead of us. we need italy to get a result against them.

That is wrong.

The 9 group runners-up are calculated by reference to ALL games played in the group.

Only when comparing those 9 runners-up to each other do you discard all results against 6th place teams.

Current best runners-up table:
Russia 5- 12
Croatia 6- 11
France 6- 11
Greece 6- 10
Ireland 6- 10
Scotland 7- 10
Bosnia 5- 9
N. Ireland 6- 8
Hungary 5- 7

vincenzo1975

:rolleyes: OK, as I said above, i originally interpreted it differently. My mistake.

personally, I would like to get scotland or northern ireland, I think we would have a much better chance against players and styles we know a lot about.

JerryHandbag

Looking at all the groups, the bottom team at the moment in each is very likely stay there, so its just a case of deducting 6 pts from each to get an idea of where we stand, apart from our own group that is.

Bottom spot in our group is still up for grabs, I think it would actually be better that Montenegro finish bottom, so then we would have 4 pts deducted from our tally (assuming we beat them in Oct) as opposed to 6 pts.

I think it will all be far less confusing with one round of games left, and we will know what we have to do for the Montenegro match.

Edit: Georgia have 2 away games left, so they're very likely to finish bottom. Damn

leninbenjamin

JerryHandbag wrote: »

Edit: Georgia have 2 away games left, so they're very likely to finish bottom. Damn

Ah feck, didn't see that either.

Montenegro's next match is against Cyprus at home. If they win that, and they should, then Georgia would need two wins against Montenegro and Bulgaria. practically impossible.

Best we can hope for us for Montenegro to draw against Cyprus and then Georgia to beat them, then it's up to us to beat Montenegro. Could happen I suppose, the teams are all pretty evenly matched. but unlikely.

We're going to need a bit of luck elsewhere if we're going to secure that play off place I think, and we may still need a result against Italy depending on what happens on Saturday...

Bounty Hunter

With scotland only left to play Holland they can only reach a max of 13 points, but will most likely stay on 10 or maybe if they get a draw 11.

Norway can at max get 10pts in that group also (although they have a better goal difference).

So most likely if Ireland can get 3 points from either remaining home game (most likely Montnegro) or possibly even just draw either and come 2nd we will be in the top 8 2nd place sides.


Its then that things could get really tough if we dont get some serious luck with the following as likely playoff teams atm:

Russia, France, Croatia, Bosnia

we would much prefer on of the following current 2nd place sides imo:

Hungary, Greece, Northern Ireland

Rekop dog

Jesus didn't know about this- bring back the old playoff against Asian team Imo. Here's hoping the Dutch put out a good team against the Scots!

eoin99

Rekop dog wrote: »

Jesus didn't know about this- bring back the old playoff against Asian team Imo. Here's hoping the Dutch putbout a good team against the Scots!

I would give the Scots a decent enough chance of winning on Wed night. They have everything to play for, only a win would give them hope of qualifying. They are at home against a team that has already guaranteed qualification by topping the group. Depends greatly on the Dutch team and their attitude to the game really because the Scots will definately be up for this one.

Necronomicon

Scotland were poor yesterday. McFadden is suspended for the Holland game (though it's being appealed) and Brown picked up an injury in the game and is rated 50-50. The Dutch may be true but you'd have to still fancy them.

JerryHandbag

Necronomicon wrote: »

Scotland were poor yesterday. McFadden is suspended for the Holland game (though it's being appealed) and Brown picked up an injury in the game and is rated 50-50. The Dutch may be true but you'd have to still fancy them.

Yeah Scotland were shocking in the first half, coulda been 0-2 at half time, picked it up a bit 2nd half but thought the final score was flattering. I still think Holland will have enough to do them, with McFadden missing and all.

In fairness, they've lost 3 games already out of 7, you can't say they deserve to go through with a record like that. Its a poor group, Holland ahead by about 13 pts afaik!!

leninbenjamin

JerryHandbag wrote: »

we would much prefer on of the following current 2nd place sides imo:

Hungary, Greece, Northern Ireland

As regards the group 1 spot:
Hungary have to play Portugal twice and the Danes. Sweden will play Albainia, Malta and the Danes. Portugal will then play Malta. It's much more likely that that play off spot will be filled by Portugal or the Swedes, both teams considerably stronger than ourselves.

As I said, we're going to need massive luck to get to the WC now. Oh, if only we finished off Bulgaria in those games. :mad:

ArmaniJeanss

I don't think finishing 9th best runnerup is an issue for us as long as we beat Montenegro, and we probably won't get runners up spot anyway unless we do beat them.

As said the most the Group 9 runner up can get is 13. But Scotland have a fairly rotten goal diff having shipped a few heavy defeats.

We've already a guaranteed 10 points for play-off calculation purposes so a win over Montenegro would guarantee us 13 (if they haven't finished bottom and we therefore lose our 6 against Cyprus or Georgia) or more than 13 (if Montenegro do finish bottom and we count our 6 against Cyprus and Georgia).

As an aside, its a shame Uefa are getting so fcuked over by FIFA when it comes to World Cup places - Down to 13 places now from 15 in 1998, 14.5 in 2002, 14 in 2006. Despite UEFA teams providing at least half the last 16, half the quarter finalists, semi finalists and finalists in all those competitions.
Africa is now up 6 teams despite regularly only getting 1 team into the last 16.
Bloody politics.

8-10

Necronomicon wrote: »

Scotland were poor yesterday. McFadden is suspended for the Holland game (though it's being appealed) and Brown picked up an injury in the game and is rated 50-50. The Dutch may be true but you'd have to still fancy them.

Sneijder broke his foot too right? But they should still destroy them, although being qualified already I wonder how many other players will be going in for the strong challenges and how strong the line up will be.

eirebhoy

The 2nd placed team in group 1 (N.Ireland, Poland, etc.) shouldn't finish on more than 18. If Scotland and ourselves get 1 win that'll be the group to miss out imo.

cooker3

I don't think we will need to worry about getting in to the play-off should we come 2nd with the state of Scotland's group.
Btw, if you want to format the table better. Put the table in tags [code][\code]
It will put it in a box and allow you to add spaces and tabs etc

CHD

When we draw 1-1 with Italy and beat Montenegro 2-0 can we all come back here and lol heartily.

How good would our group look if we put Bulgaria away at home

Zebra3

Handy link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_(UEFA)#Second_round

Euro_Kraut

If Scotland were to lose on Wednesday, a draw against either Italy or Montenegro would gaurntee a play off place for us (assuming we stay second).

There is no seeding of the draw so we would be as likely to get France as we are to get Northern Ireland.

greendom

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

There is no seeding of the draw so we would be as likely to get France as we are to get Northern Ireland.

That's probably good for the republic. With their recent record they couldn't expect a high seeding so it gives them a better chance of playing weaker opposition.

ShooterSF

Balls to this play-off talk I say.
If Italy don't win on Wednesday we're gonna top to group anyway. Optimism FTW.

ArmaniJeanss

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

There is no seeding of the draw so we would be as likely to get France as we are to get Northern Ireland.

Any proof of this, in the past they've used both seeding and non-seeding for these playoff, and I haven't seen any official announcement yet either way.
Just because it hasn't been mentioned don't bet its not at the back of their minds.
With this World Cup looking like being only breakeven financially (at best) I don't think they'll want big European heavyweights (especially those with travelling support) going head to head in playoffs.

So if a few of Portugal, France, Germany and Sweden (and lets hope Italy) end up in the playoffs then I'dd be 99% certain they'll seed it.

A Primal Nut

ShooterSF wrote: »

Balls to this play-off talk I say.
If Italy don't win on Wednesday we're gonna top to group anyway. Optimism FTW.

Don't see how anyone can say we will top the group. You see loads of pundits coming out saying we have a great chance as if its in our hands. Italy have to fail to beat Bulgaria and lose at Croke Park. Won't happen. We missed our chance by not finishing off Bulgaria the two times we played them.

It looks like France, Russia, Czech Republic, Croatia and maybe Portugal could be in the playoffs. We need to avoid them obviously. If we get someone like Greece, Scotland, Bosnia, Norway or Sweden we'd have a good chance I'd give us a good chance against Turkey too. Its really 50/50.

dsmythy

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Any proof of this, in the past they've used both seeding and non-seeding for these playoff, and I haven't seen any official announcement yet either way.
Just because it hasn't been mentioned don't bet its not at the back of their minds.
With this World Cup looking like being only breakeven financially (at best) I don't think they'll want big European heavyweights (especially those with travelling support) going head to head in playoffs.

So if a few of Portugal, France, Germany and Sweden (and lets hope Italy) end up in the playoffs then I'dd be 99% certain they'll seed it.

I think it would be bad if they did this just to get the big teams through. If they are going to seed it they should go with the best 4 second placed finishers in one pot and the other 4 in the other. If teams aren't good enough to make it then they're not good enough. Hopefully they don't seed them on ranking.

ANTIFA!

I wouldn't want Bosnia, Norway, Sweden or Scotland would be nice. All teams with styles like ours.

PCPhoto

ANTIFA! wrote: »

I wouldn't want Bosnia, Norway, Sweden or Scotland would be nice. All teams with styles like ours.

we have a style ? :eek:

bring back jack and put 'em under pressure.....feck sake we dont even have proper chanting and singing at the games....we had our chances to top the group against Italy and Bulgaria...we should have beaten either/both of them...and would be top going into the last couple of games.

Lamper.sffc

A Primal Nut wrote: »

Don't see how anyone can say we will top the group. You see loads of pundits coming out saying we have a great chance as if its in our hands. Italy have to fail to beat Bulgaria and lose at Croke Park. Won't happen. We missed our chance by not finishing off Bulgaria the two times we played them.

It looks like France, Russia, Czech Republic, Croatia and maybe Portugal could be in the playoffs. We need to avoid them obviously. If we get someone like Greece, Scotland, Bosnia, Norway or Sweden we'd have a good chance I'd give us a good chance against Turkey too. Its really 50/50.

Italy have underperformed throughout the campaign

So its not unbelievable to think Bulgaria could get something from their game with them. Its not beyond the realms of reality to think we could also beat them at home (Remember the Dutch game)


Actually what will happen is bulgaria will draw with Italy and we will beat the Italians and then go on to draw or lose against Montenegro thus allowing italy back into top spot.

ironictoaster

I'm starting to miss Iran all of sudden.

Ireland to top the group, I still have faith in Trap and the squad.

Gary ITR

Lamper.sffc wrote: »

Actually what will happen is bulgaria will draw with Italy and we will beat the Italians and then go on to draw or lose against Montenegro thus allowing italy back into top spot.

I would think this is actually a very likely outcome

Fuhrer

PCPhoto wrote: »

we have a style ? :eek:

Get Ball, Kick Ball.