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From: Matthias Mühlich on 7 Sep 2009 13:10
Futbolmetrix schrieb:
> More evidence for the depth of UEFA or for how screwed up UEFA's seeding
> system is?

Depth, IMHO. After ~6 teams who (almost) always qualify (GER, ITA, FRA,
ENG, NED, ESP), there are at least a dozen, perhaps 20, teams which have
a similar chance to qualify with a proper combination of having "golden
generation" / luck in the draws / luck in the games. Only qualification
of pot 4 teams like Slovakia or Bosnia could be considered a real surprise.

BTW: It's no coincidence that the chance of qualification correlates
strongly with the population of a given country (and also a bit with
economic power). The big (Western) European countries have enough depth
in their player pool, so qualification is almost guaranteed, and then
their are lots of European countries with comparable size and football
tradition fighting for the remaining 7-8 spots.
From: Jussi Uosukainen on 7 Sep 2009 17:39
Matthias M�hlich <muehlich(a)iap.uni-frankfurt.de> wrote:
> Futbolmetrix schrieb:
>> More evidence for the depth of UEFA or for how screwed up UEFA's seeding
>> system is?
>
> Depth, IMHO. After ~6 teams who (almost) always qualify (GER, ITA, FRA,
> ENG, NED, ESP), there are at least a dozen, perhaps 20, teams which have
> a similar chance to qualify with a proper combination of having "golden
> generation" / luck in the draws / luck in the games. Only qualification
> of pot 4 teams like Slovakia or Bosnia could be considered a real surprise.
>
When will Sweden enter this list? They have been very consistent in
qualifying for the last 20 years, having a similar record to England and
France in the same time...

--
/jussi
Highly intelligent and well-informed people disagree on every political
issue. Therefore, intelligence and knowledge are useless for
making decisions, because if any of that stuff helped, then all the
smart people would have the same opinions. So use your "gut instinct"
to make voting choices. That is exactly like being clueless, but with
the added advantage that you'll feel as if your random vote preserved
democracy.
*Scott Adams
From: MH on 7 Sep 2009 18:46


Huw Morris wrote:
> Futbolmetrix wrote:
>
>
>>That would mean that 3 no.1 seeds wouldn't have even made it to the
>>playoffs (Portugal, Czech Republic and Croatia).
>>
>>More evidence for the depth of UEFA or for how screwed up UEFA's seeding
>>system is?
>
>
> You could test this by comparing the UEFA seedings

Which, this time, were based on FIFA rankings at the time.

It would be interesting to look at whether UEFA's old seeding system
(ranking based on average points per game in last two qualifying cycles)
compared with the FIFA rankings.
I will sit down and work out what the seedings would have been using the
old system some day.


at the time with the ELO
> rankings at the time. If the ELO rankings are no better at predicting which
> teams progress, then it's evidence of UEFA's strength in depth.
>
> I predict that you'll find ELO rankings better than UEFA seedings, but
> there will still be significant surprises.
>
> In any case, let's see how these groups pan out before slating UEFA's
> seeding. Czech Republic are by no means out of it, and Slovakia still have
> work to do.
>
> Huw
>

From: Matthias Mühlich on 8 Sep 2009 14:11
Jussi Uosukainen schrieb:
> When will Sweden enter this list? They have been very consistent in
> qualifying for the last 20 years, having a similar record to England and
> France in the same time...

I was really thinking about including Sweden. But their status in the
current qualification round made me leave them out. Will their
impressive record end now? Nevertheless, Sweden (just like the
Netherlands) clearly deserves a mention for overperforming consistently,
based on the size of their population.
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