Essential The Official Football (Soccer) Thread - We are SO back, the Premier League returns!

THEREALBRAND

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QuintessentialMan said:
Pot 1: Russia, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium, Poland, France

Pot 2: Spain, Peru, Switzerland, England, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Croatia

Pot 3: Denmark, Iceland, Costa Rica, Sweden, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Iran

Pot 4: Serbia, Nigeria, Australia, Japan, Morocco, Panama, South Korea, Saudi Arabia

How the hell did Poland sneak into Pot 1. :stopitslime:
Nigeria in po:yeshrug:t 4, but that is our own fault for screwing up and not making the last afcon.
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There was an interesting article about that. They pretty much manipulated FIFA's rules for ranking teams in their favor, and gamed the system.

How Poland have 'played' the FIFA rankings to reach Pot One in the World Cup draw

So, we now know the 32 teams that will be competing at the Russia World Cup next summer.

Peru became that final nation to book their place at the tournament after they overcame New Zealand over two-legs.And with all 32 teams in place, we now know which eight teams make up each Pot.

One team from each Pot will make up the eight groups. It’s as simple as that.

Oh, apart from the fact that you can’t have more than one nation from the same confederation - except UEFA where you can have two counties in the same group.


A lot of people have been having fun, speculating at what the groups could be ahead of the official draw on Friday 1 December.

The hosts, Russia, have been placed in Pot One, along with the seven highest-ranked sides. Then Pot Two is made up of the next eight ranked sides and so on…

Unsurprisingly, Pot One contains some giants of world football with Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium and France joining Russia.

HOW POLAND HAVE 'PLAYED' THE FIFA RANKINGS
But there’s another nation that has somehow found their way into Pot One - Poland.

Poland are, rather incredibly, the sixth-best ranked country in the world despite having reached the knockout rounds only once in 36 years.

How are they in Pot One?

Well, Spanish outlet Marca have produced an excellent report explaining exactly how.

First, an overview of how the FIFA rankings work.

“FIFA's system is based on how a team has performed over the last four seasons, weighting each calendar year's results into points. That means, for example, that only 20 percent of the points earned four years ago still count with 100 percent of the most recent 12 months' points accounted for.”


All nations have to do to keep their points is to play five games a year, which the Poles have easily managed in qualification. They topped a relatively easy group of Denmark, Montenegro, Romania, Armenia and Kazakhstan - winning eight of their 10 matches.

Before this month, they haven’t played a friendly since November 2016, when they drew 1-1 with Slovenia. Meanwhile, the likes of England and Spain - who find themselves in Pot Two - have been playing tough friendly matches against decent opposition.

But why Poland play two friendlies during the recent international break?

Because the rankings for the World Cup Pots were taken from October - meaning these two friendlies didn’t affect their points. Incidentally, they drew 0-0 with Uruguay and lost 1-0 with Mexico.

So, Poland have actually ‘played’ FIFA’s rankings to perfection to earn themselves a Pot One position.

To be fair, it’s very clever but ever so sneaky.

Maybe England and Spain will be wishing they had done the same if they get drawn in the Group of Death.
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Black Magisterialness

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Just rereading the fact that cats were all up in arms against me and @KaiserRexTheCzar for saying the Prem was lacking in technical talent...and that England was kaput...man look at the table going into tomorrow :laff:

Playa_Wit_A_Passport said:
Your boy Guardiola cant handle the premeirship, dude thought he was gonna come here & easily dominate.

It sucks watching a league where every season you know who is gonna win the league. BPL has 6 teams who can potentially win the league. Every week, every game seems like a final. Nothing more entertaining than that.
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holy fukk have words never been so indicting....:mjlol:
 
International Playa

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Black Magisterialness said:
Just rereading the fact that cats were all up in arms against me and @KaiserRexTheCzar for saying the Prem was lacking in technical talent...and that England was kaput...man look at the table going into tomorrow :laff:




holy fukk have words never been so indicting....:mjlol:
Click to expand...

Looool, I guess you got me, but...... Man city are guilty of losing it in the middle of the season. They have had a good start though
 
THEREALBRAND

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Must win Madrid Dérbi tomorrow for both teams. Going to be a crazy atmosphere at the Wanda Metropolitano. I'm still hurting from those Qarabag games, if things go bad tomorrow I might have a breakdown.
 
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