[Gerben42]

Here we go again. The UEFA (European football association) in its infinite wisdom will seed the qualifiers to the European championships in 4 groups, basically on strength. From each group, 1 team gets to play in each of the 4 groups in the championship.

But... Group 1 which is supposed to be the strongest group gets:

* Host #1: Switzerland
* Host #2: Austria
* Defending champions: Greece
* Country A (#1 in qualifying list)

The second group I don't know by heart but looks a bit like:

* Country B (#2 in qualifying list)
* Italy (World Champions)
* France (WC Runners-up)
* Some good team like Czech Republic or so.

Because of this, you want to be country B and not country A, because you will get an opponent from group 1.

Country A & B are to be selected from Germany and Netherlands. Both have easy opponents in the last round:

Belarus - Netherlands (in Minsk)
Germany - Wales (in Frankfurt)

Netherlands will be country A unless they lose and Germany wins. The match in Minsk started earlier because of the time zones, and the Dutch... lost! 1 - 2.

I am writing this 5 minutes before the end of the second game, and it's still 0 - 0 in Frankfurt, logically.

All thanks to the silly regulations really, you cannot blame the players or coaches for not wanting to win...

[matmat]

I always though the way the groups in qualifiers were constructed sucked. Just have a random drawing... that way noone can complain about conspiracies or anything...

[matmat]

as an aside, i think it ridiculous that hosts get a free pass.

[1eyedjack]

I don't follow football, but I must be missing something because from the foregoing post it seems to me that country A has the easier ride, having what appear to me to be a weaker pool of opponents in group 1 than does country B in group 2. That being the case I would rather be country A. I am sure it is something obvious.

[hotShot]

This is not the groups you play, it's the set you are picked from, your future opps are drawn from the other groups.
If you are in the same set with France and Italy, you won't play them in the first round.

[1eyedjack]

Gotcha. That explains it. Thx

[gwnn]

Pool A
Switzerland
Austria
Greece
Netherlands

Pool B
Croatia
Italy
Czech Republic
Sweden

Pool C
Romania
Germany
Portugal
Spain

Pool D
Poland
France
Turkey
Russia

France in Pool D, that's kind of unusual and all...

I have no idea why the host countries need to be 1st seeds. The same for Greece. All three are just bad teams (sorry!) There are easy systems where the two hosts can be drawn in different groups. Ah well...

[matmat]

if they are going to prearrange pools like this they should do it so that the teams that were in the same qualifying group can't be in the same finals group...

[Gerardo]

Greece is the current European champion. That's why it is seeded.

On the hosts free pass (and seeding), it is mostly tradition, coming from pre TV times, where attendance were a non negligible percentage of the income. Time to review this one, I guess.

[matmat]

Gerardo, on Nov 21 2007, 07:04 PM, said:

Greece is the current European champion. That's why it is seeded.

On the hosts free pass (and seeding), it is mostly tradition, coming from pre TV times, where attendance were a non negligible percentage of the income. Time to review this one, I guess.

i know it is tradition, but also, traditionally, a single country hosted a tournament such as this, but recently there seems to be a trend to have smaller countries team up, taking away two slots instead of just one. (japan/korea, austria/switzerland, and poland/ukraine soon, i think?)

[gwnn]

Gerardo, on Nov 22 2007, 02:04 AM, said:

On the hosts free pass (and seeding), it is mostly tradition, coming from pre TV times, where attendance were a non negligible percentage of the income. Time to review this one, I guess.

What difference could it possibly make in the income whether or not the host is seeded?

[mrdct]

gwnn, on Nov 22 2007, 12:34 AM, said:

Gerardo, on Nov 22 2007, 02:04 AM, said:

On the hosts free pass (and seeding), it is mostly tradition, coming from pre TV times, where attendance were a non negligible percentage of the income. Time to review this one, I guess.

What difference could it possibly make in the income whether or not the host is seeded?

It's not so much that the hosts are seeded, but that hosts automatically qualify for the tournament.

[jikl]

Quote

QUOTE (gwnn @ Nov 22 2007, 12:34 AM)
QUOTE (Gerardo @ Nov 22 2007, 02:04 AM)
On the hosts free pass (and seeding), it is mostly tradition, coming from pre TV times, where attendance were a non negligible percentage of the income. Time to review this one, I guess. 


What difference could it possibly make in the income whether or not the host is seeded? 


It's not so much that the hosts are seeded, but that hosts automatically qualify for the tournament.

It is also that they are seeded since they have a much better chance of advancing to the latter rounds with an artificially high seeding.

Sean

[gwnn]

BTW no offense Gerben+Han, but Holland aren't all that better than the other 3 in the top favorites pool

[Codo]

I agree that the current system is silly.

The hosts should have a bonus, after all they have an advantage- they play at home. And, as they do not have any qualification games, so they lose ranks just because the disabbility to play in serious games.
But I think there should be no automatic top seeds for the hosts.

I had liked a seeding system which follows the FIFA ranking and gives the host(s) a bonus from lets say 30 places and the holders from 10 places.
In this case, Italy, France, Germany and Greece are group 1.
Spain, Netherlands, Croatia, Czech Republic, in two, Portugal, Romania, Russia and Switzerland in three, rest in four.

You may argue about one or another seed, but this is much fairer then it is now.
It may not show the current strength (f.e. Croatia played an impressive qualifier) but it is much closer to reality and easy to understand.

And this system will give no team an excusion to loose or play a draw against a lesser opponent just to be seeded in a better group. They should all try to qualify as good as possible.

I am not sure about the games yesterday, but we Germans have a long history in close matches against Wales, so maybe we had not even won if it had been crutial. But I do believe that the knowledge, that you are already qualified and that it will do you no good to win this last game makes you play weaker. You just don´t have this last 10 % of will, the highest amount of adrenaline.

But I am really not sure if we did a good job. Now we are in pool nr. 3. IS this really an advantage compared with Pool NR. 1? It could be but a possible group like Netherlands, Italy, Germany France will be.... nice to watch.

But who cares, we will beat them all, at least at the penalties and win 2008...

[Walddk]

Seedings for the draw for the 2008 European Championship in Austria and Switzerland:

Pot One:
Switzerland
Austria
Greece
Netherlands

Pot Two:
Croatia
Italy
Czech Republic
Sweden

Pot Three:
Germany
Romania
Portugal
Spain

Pot Four:
Poland
France
Turkey
Russia

[geller]

jikl, on Nov 22 2007, 03:52 PM, said:

It is also that they are seeded since they have a much better chance of advancing to the latter rounds with an artificially high seeding.

Yes, for example in the 2002 World Cup Japan (the co-host, with South Korea) were seeded top in a group with Russia, Belgium and Tunisia, where they advanced to the round of 16 (losing to Turkey). This obviously was good for national pride as well as TV and ticket sales.

[brianshark]

Arguably Switzerland and in particular Austria are much weaker than other hosts have been in the past, including the likes South Korea and Japan. In fact I'd say they are the weakest 2 teams of all 16 in the tournament.

But overall, there is no massive difference in class between most of the teams so the seeding system doesn't mean that much. All the teams in this tourney have a chance to advance and no group can be that much tougher than any other (compared to Rugby World Cup).

[Codo]

Well a group like Austria Sweden Romania Russia is much weaker then a group with Netherlands Italy, Germany France.
And it is not close, so the seeding system is something to care about.

[Rossoneri]

I liked the post about Germany and penalties.

Any idea how are the countries selected in the pots? At least in champions league they have coefficients to seed (though some will argue about that as well)