World Cup Format - Fair or is there Something Better?

As we head into the final stretch with the group Draw for the World Cup many times fairness.

They even asked on the Fifa.com website if they should change the number of teams involved in the final tournament.  So yes people think things should change or change is in the air.

As far as I understand the 32 team format for the final tournament has been around for at leas the last 4-5 world cups.  Interestingly, it seems so natural to have this number of teams in the tournament while in the near past it was a lot less and in the early days it was even as low as only 18 teams.



Some think that due to the maturing of Futebol around the world that locations like Africa or Asia should have more teams but, how do you do this without throwing in more from Europe where football is very mature.  However, are we trying to be fair or are we looking for simply the best play from teams around the world.   Is football so mature in Oceania or Asia?



The most interesting method would be to come up with the world rankings and then simply pick the top 32 teams.  Ye, this would leave out Asia or Africa many times and locations like North America would also be short on representation.  How in reality would you come up with enough games in a format that works to have some form of ranking?  Keep the games in the different confederation, or just do a huge random draw of everyone that can play and have a certain number of games?  You'd have a bunch of teams killing the weak and less mature say like Germany playing a Burma.  Or Brazil with a Maldives islands.   This would make thing a little different.



Under the current system several higher ranked teams from Europe for example have been left out since you find they did not make it out of the second round (playoffs).  This because you find you have representation from all confederations.

Going with the recently released world ranking you find a mix of teams from around the world but, mostly European.

FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking

Last Updated 28 Nov 2013

Nov 2013

	Rnk	Team	Pts	+/- Pos
	1	Spain	1507	0
	2	Germany	1318	0
	3	Argentina	1251	0
	4	Colombia	1200	0
	5	Portugal	1172	9
	6	Uruguay	1132	0
	7	Italy	1120	1
	8	Switzerland	1113	-1
	9	Netherlands	1106	-1
	10	Brazil	1102	1
	11	Belgium	1098	-6
	12	Greece	1055	3
	13	England	1041	-3
	14	USA	1019	-1
	15	Chile	1014	-3
	16	Croatia	971	2
	17	Côte d'Ivoire	918	0
	18	Ukraine	907	2
	19	France	893	2
	20	Mexico	892	4
	21	Bosnia-Herzegovina	886	-5
	22	Russia	870	-3
	23	Ecuador	852	-1
	24	Ghana	849	-1
	25	Denmark	831	1
	26	Algeria	800	6
	27	Sweden	793	-2
	28	Czech Republic	766	-1
	29	Slovenia	762	1
	30	Serbia	752	-2

	31	Costa Rica	738	0
	32	Romania	734	-3

If you use this list as a base you find that several teams on this list have not made it to the 2014 competition; Teams like Ukraine, Slovenia, Serbia etc.  You also would see no representation from Asia and Africa is really almost an after thought.  So this could be an interesting way to come up with the 32 teams for the final tournament..... but, if you want to continue to have a world wide representation with the best teams unfortunately, you have to leave a few from Europe out and include a few from the far flung parts of the world.

The current format seems to be working very well.  The last time they expanded things it was to include a couple more from North America, Asia and Africa.

Also the group play format if wonderful.  You have a method to eliminate the bottom half of the teams but, still allow them to play a fair number of games.  Think each group has play 3 games (6 in each group) and ties become really important.  This provides for interesting football and lets the better 2 teams pass out of group stage.  Then you start doing the single elimination.

I've run many a rain gutter regatta or pinewood derby with the Cub scouts.  I've seen what happens when your numbers get too big if you decide to do Round robin or even double elimination.
See my post on double elimination.
Many like double elimination due to the fact you have each player go twice.  This keeps people from feeling they got cheated especially if they get to change lanes or gutters.  Round robin is another interesting animal.  Since you complete against everyone it can take a long time.
An 18 team  round robin competition would require about 153 games or so.  Even if you have them going on constantly you are looking at like 15 games for each of 10 locations.  You'd still have the near month long competition if you want to include some rest days.  It would be double that for the 32 teams so round robin is not practical or even fair in some respects.  You technically could have a couple of teams that end up with the same number of wins, draws and loses.  You don't want to have to do some lottery draw to decide who is best.  And an additional penalty kick event could be a bit much.
The group play stage is like the first of the 2 double eliminations or both for that matter.  They make sure to have each team playing several games.  Then you simply kill of the loser.  Not that bad of a system.

There is also the issue of seeding for the world cup.  You have 4 teams in each of the 8 groups so you have a total of 4 pots to pull from.  They want to make sure that not to many come from each confederation in each group.  Does no good to have a group of Africa teams with say Belgium or mainly South America with say just Australia.  The play by confederation has already occurred and we don't need a repeat of that.   That make it almost a guarantee that each pot has some Europeans but not to many.  As of right now only 9 teams are left from Europe to be seeded.  That makes 3 per remaining pot.  Though that does give you the possibility of 3 or more teams from Europe in a group.  You'd likely want to increase the numbers of euro teams in a pot.  Throwing all the Asia team in a pot or all the North American team also makes sense if you want to guarantee they do not play each other.

Come Friday December 6th this will all be resolved  for the 2014 Brazil World Cup.
Then we can find out if there will be an iron group of power house teams.  With countries like Italy, Netherlands, France, Portugal, and Russia not being in the first pot anything could happen.  It could be just one of those times getting out of group play will be a pain.





Buaidh - NO - Bas

Fairness and the World Cup

I've had some rather spirited discussions lately on the "fairness" of the teams going to the World Cup with a colleague recently.

You see if you go strictly by the numbers it does not seem fair how they decide the number of teams that will advance to the World Cup by continent.  The best example is to compare Europe and Africa.  Both have almost the same number of teams overall - 53 and 52 respectively.  But, the big difference comes in the number of teams each continent will provide to the big event.  Europe will send on 13 teams and Africa only 5.  So by the numbers this seems so unfair.  But, is it really?

It all depends on what you are trying to achieve.  In this case how many people will try and watch let alone attend in person a game if you have a bunch of so-so teams no one has ever heard of?
European teams have a long history within the footballing sport.  For that matter Football was invented in England.  Some African teams have just a few years history and little or no governmental support or infrastructure.  Add that up and it is clear why FIFA chooses to send the number of teams that it does from each continent.  The one with the highest percentage of teams attending is South America.  It's in the 45 percent range.  Oceania has the lowest with a mere 4.5%.  Europe has a 25% ratio, Asia 10-11 percent and North America 10% and Africa about 10%.
Statically, and numerically this is not fair but, it provides for a quality tournament worth watching.



Let's examine why this works better then going by pure numbers in a bit more detail.  The easiest way to do this is to see a list of those that made the final since the World Cup began and the champions.

National team	Finalists	Winners	Runners-up
Brazil	7	5	2
Italy	6	4	2
Germany	7	3	4
Argentina	4	2	2
Uruguay	2	2	0
France	2	1	1
England	1	1	0
Spain	1	1	0
Netherlands	3	0	3
Czechoslovakia	2	0	2
Hungary	2	0	2
Sweden	1	0	1

It is very easy to see where the teams that win come from.  Europe and South America.
I'm not even sure how many times teams from Asia or Africa have even made it into the semi-finals.  The USA for example has begun to consistently make it out of group play to the round of 16.  They have been improving and down the road there may be a chance at making it to the final.  For the time being they become one of the many wild card teams that may play that perfect game and really give a contender for the cup a run for their money.

So there is that trade off.  Do you want to be fair numerically or do you want to have a quality game?

The quality of the game is more important to the world Cup then to say some other sporting events or activities.  For the World Cup you are looking for the very best teams the world over.  You don't want the best proportion of teams the world over, but, the best teams of the world.

In younger youth sports that do not have a financial incentive attached things change.  You might require fairness in the games played at school or by those still in primary grades.  This keeps things positive and helps get away from the "win at any cost" issue.

Now some start to say there should be fairness in hiring practices, school admissions, and other societal things.  But, what are you really achieving?  What is your aim in forcing things to be fair by some predefined criteria?

Brazil has begun to implement affirmative action when it comes to university admissions.  Federal university is free in Brazil (tuition at least) if you can make it in.  Thus there is a big process each year to see who can gain one of the few slots available for a specific area of study.  Many people take training courses there much like the ACT or GMAT trainings/testing here in the USA just so they have a change at passing Vestibular.   Now, what ends up happening is that the more well off families can afford to pay for such courses.  Poor families are highly under represented.  That does not mean poor people are not taking the test to see if they can get into university.  Thus they are starting to implement affirmative action.
A very large portion of the population in Brazil are of mix-race.  And the majority have some African blood.  Negros are highly under represented at university and then it goes down from there.... the more Caucasian you are the more you are likely to go to university. Not a guarantee but, statically the reality.
So with affirmative action you basically declare we have to have 10% of college applications, or students say be Amer-Indian or negro. Now this creates a different problem of fairness.  Are you being fair by saying if your race is X percent of the population therefore you automatically get X percent of the college admissions slots?


This leads to some people that might wonder - 'Did I get into this school simply because I'm ______ race?'
Now your not getting into school based on merits but, race.  And do you use merits after race since you will always have a limited number of slots?
One small problem you begin to find in Brazil is the number of people claiming they are negro to take advantage of the affirmative action but, at the same time looking white as heck.  They may have some African blood in them but, when do you cut it off and say you have to be at least 30% African blood or 45% Amer-Indian blood?  Is that provable blood or not?  Some people may look dark as heck and could qualify as Amer-Indian possibly but, can not prove one way or another their background.

These and many other issues arise when you begin to get involved in correcting social injustices by way of quotes and the like.  Abuse of the system will exist.  It could also do some good and right some wrong however, is their a better way to handle this.

It appears no one has found it yet since, places like Brazil are now trying affirmative action just like the United States did over 35 years ago.



Have you ever thought how it would be to have a color blind job interview?  One were the interviewer and interviewee don't even really see one another.  Where the voice and/or face are distorted or blurred.   Imagine how this changes the make up of a company.  because now a days you can't judge someone just by their name.
There are Garcias that don't seem Latino at all and McDaniels that are so Black their appear blue.  You can't judge a person just by their name.......



So we have to be careful with how fair we want to be!
For we can go to far to the other side in trying to right past wrongs or making up for racial injustice perpetrated hundreds if not thousands of years ago.  You might just say the Holocaust is an example of over stepping ones bounds to right a perceived wrong carried out years earlier.

We must guard against be fair for all the wrong reasons



Buaidh - NO - Bas

Por os Brasileiros

Como já sabe a canção “real in rio” não ganhou o Oscar por melhor musica original.

Os muppets ganhou por o “Man or Muppet” envez.  E o pior é que só tinha estas duas canções concorrendo.

Os muppets ganhou por varias razões.  A final de contas a Academia nem entendou a musica Brasileira.  E no fundo do fundo os muppets tem um lugar especial para as pessoas aqui nos EUA.   Junto isto com o problemas de que nimguem estava disposto de conhecer ou tentar entender a musica.  Para algumas pessoas isto estaja só barulho.  Vai no fundo da musica e você começa de ver as grau na musica- bateria, percussão, etc.  E se vai ainda mais fundo para ver a quantidade de pessoas para fazer esta musica é ainda mais complicado.   Quanto tem cenares de pessoas tudo em União – Que Maravilha!!!!!  E isto é a Samba de Carnaval.  Montão de pessoas tocando musica unido….. que beleza!

Estou inclunindo video das duas musica para comparar.   Mas, por o Brasileiro vai estar difícil entender a musica “Man or Muppet”.  Minha esposa diz que nunca entendeu a humor ou as piadas quando viu os Muppets como criança.

Posso dizer que além dos EUA o Brasil  tem criado mais variações de musica.

Por exemplo – Samba, Forró, Fevro, Choro, MPB, Bossa Nova, Tropicalismo, Pagode, Axé,  Sertanejo e muito mais.

EUA tem criado mais ou menos 5 estilos de musicas.  Brasil ganha nesta briga.

Estou grato que tem um filme mostrando algo positivo do Brasil.

Infelizmente, os filmes conhecido no passo recente estão bem sobre Favelas, e as coisas disagradável.   Brasil é mais do que favelas, traficantes de drogas, a selva Amazônica, etc.

O World Cup de 2014 vai ajudar mostrar a diversidade de climas, culturas regionais etc.

Mais do que os Olímpicos  que vai mostrar principalmente Rio de Janiero.

Espsero que o Brasil bote o melhor pé para frente de mostrar as belezas, cultura, e o de mais que tem para oferecer.

Vive Brasil!  Vive o Verde e Armarelo!

Buaidh – NO – Bas