World Cup 2014: Scenarios For All 9 UEFA Qualifying Groups

world cup 2014 When these matches start, we will be less than one year away from the opening kick-off of the FIFA World Cup Finals. European football produces most of the perennial favorites including England, Germany, and Italy. The caliber of the squads from Europe is powerful in comparison to the rest of the world, that those who fail to qualify remain as the surprises. This includes the Netherlands (2002), Russia (2006), and the Czech Republic (2010). Weaker confederations were represented by the likes of Tunisia (2002), Trinidad and Tobago (2006), and North Korea (2010). For this group-by-group analysis, I will use historical data, statistical data of the current teams, and my own intuition. Concession: I am only using the 2010 EUFA qualifying rounds as it is the same format as this edition and the current statistics are only halfway through, my own intuition will be the most reliable resource and certainly the least biased. For those who aren't familiar with the qualification process, here are the qualification rules: The winner of each group automatically advances to the FIFA World Cup Finals All second place teams (except for the worst runner-up) face one other second place team in an aggregate play-off. The winner advances to the FIFA World Cup Finals The worst second place team is determined by the least amount of points after subtracting the results against the worst placed team in their group Group I is exempt from this as they have one less member. Highlighted are certain teams with the following rainbow of colors showing certain scenarios and positions. 1st Place Runner-up Cannot Win Group Eliminated For the historical data, I used the same tiebreaking method for the worst second place teams UEFA uses, eliminating all matches against the worst placed team. In all instances but one (Greece had a 1-1 draw against Moldova), each team's point total in the larger groups were subtracted by six points. Using the data from the 2010 UEFA FIFA World Cup Qualifying rounds, the group winners averaged 19 points (18.7 rounded up) and second place teams averaged 14 points (13.7 rounded up).
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