Subject: World Cup 2014 Qualifying stage - Europe

FIFA ranking is stupid. An example: losing against Spain by a one goal margin gets you the same amount of points as losing against San Marino with a ten goal margin. The strength of the opponent only plays a role if you don't lose. The goal difference never plays a role. Friendlies count too much.

Elo ratings are way better (though not perfect: the United States are above Belgium for instance). Then pot 1 would be: Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Netherlands, England, Uruguay and Italy.

Also, for Europe, the qualification format is not a good one. Absurd seeds (like Norway, who were 12th in the FIFA-ranking at that time while not having played a major tournament since 2000; that this seed is absurd can be seen in their results: 3 wins, 3 draws and 4 losses in a group with Cyprus, Albania, Slovenia, Iceland and Switzerland) and (and because of) not enough competitive matches to make a difference.
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Also you lose A LOT of points when you're a host of a tournament and you don't play the qualifiers, which give you more points than friendlies.

Yes, and that's compensated by receiving a seed at the tournament. Which is strange too; see at the seeded pot at Euro 2012: Spain, Netherlands, Poland and Ukraine. Quite frankly, I think it's better to be in pot 2 then (if half of the teams in the seeded pots are, well, with all due respect, no top seed at all) like Germany was.

That's why Elo Ratings are way better.

Yes, and that's compensated by receiving a seed at the tournament

yeah, but it also gives you a bad starting position for next 2-3 qualifiers [unless you do very well at one of the tournaments].

Between 2008-2009 Poland was ranked at places between 18-30. When EURO started Poland went down to 66. Automatically we've got a worse qualification group for WC and what comes with it - tougher opponents at WC Q. = it was harder for us to regain the lost points. (during the Q draw we were ranked ~74).

I mean...Poland is not really a strong team, but come on - 69th place in the rank? We haven't been so low since the 1997...

Teams that are higher than Poland:

31 Costa Rica
32 Algeria
36 Panama
38 Armenia
41 Mali
42 Cape Verde Islands [?!]
44 Wales
49 Iran
55 Uzbekistan
61 Libya
67 Zambia
68 Guinea
69 Poland

[']

With the Elo Rankings, Poland is 48th (25th in Europe vs 35th in the FIFA ranking).
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i can`t believe that these friendly games are so important for the rankings...it`s indeed a big farce

Algeria, Armenia, Mali, Uzbekistan and Zambia are better than Poland, imo or maybe not better but would win in direct game (Moldova 1:1, Montenegro two draws, what would you expect from them anyway? not to mention they lost goal against San Marino)

Yeah, I guess we will lose with Zambia, Mali and Algeria...even though we've beaten Ivory Coast 3:1 :).

And we lost to Estonia, gg.

And Estonia drawn 2:2 with Netherlands. So what?

Poland is worse than the Netherlands? :p

No surprise there :p

nothing, you say about game against Ivory Coast, which took place 3 years ago, no point, Poland would lose against almost every team except half-amateur teams like San Marino or some Oceania islands
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Blablabla. I guess that Denmark is one of the worst teams in the world, since we've beaten them lately?

Go troll somewhere else, you're boring.


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exception proves the rule, look at the results, not a single won match (qualify round or tournament) against at least average team since few years, only beaten rivals are San Marino and Moldova, good job Poland

not a single won match (qualify round or tournament) against at least average team since few years,

and how many of those games have we played in last couple of years...?

2013: Ukraine [20th in rank] [2x loses, one very close to winning], England [10th in rank] [1x lose, 1x draw], Montenegro [54th in rank] [1 draw, 1 unlucky draw where we deserved a win and were far better on the pitch]

2012: 1:1 vs Greece [15th], 1:1 vs Russia [19th], 0:1 vs Czech Rep [27th]

2011: no official games

We are at level of 25-30 place in the rank and we had tragic coaches. With a proper coach we can easily manage to play as equals and win with Greece, Russia, Czech Rep, Ukraine, Slovenia, Norway, Bosnia, Romania, Denmark, Serbia.

With good coach and normal ranking [meaning no 4th basket for qualifiers] we should always qualify or be close to qualify to EURO/World Cup.