World Cup 2014 Preview

The World Cup begins in three weeks.

It really is perfect. Because I can't get excited about soccer every year. But once every four years, it satisfies that itch. Also, soccer in America is substandard and no one has any ties to it, and it's not easy to embrace the foreign Premier League (or La Liga or anything else), not to mention that in the last 19 years, only four teams have won it. But international soccer fixes all of that.

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This won't be a preview in the conventional sense for two reasons. One, I don't know really anything about these teams. Two, you can go to lots of places for that.

This is going to take a deeper dive into the teams' rankings and groups.

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Qualification

32 teams get invited to play. Here's where they come from.

Host: 1
Europe: 13
Africa: 5
South America: 4 or 5
Asia: 4 or 5
North/Central America: 3 or 4
Oceania: 0 or 1

Notes:
Asia's 5th best team plays South America's 5th best team for a spot. (This year: Uruguay over Jordan)
Oceania's best team plays North/Central America's 4th best team for a spot. (This year: Mexico over New Zealand)

So once you sort out the intercontinental playoffs and include the host, you have six regions with the following number of teams:

Europe: 13
South America: 6
Africa: 5
Asia: 4
North/Central America: 4
Oceania: 0

Okay, five regions with teams. So let's look at the current FIFA world rankings to see which region has the best competition.

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Strength of Competition by Region

South America
Average Ranking: 9.67
Median Ranking: 8.5

Europe
Average Ranking: 11.15
Median Ranking: 10

North/Central America:
Average Ranking: 25.5
Median Ranking: 27.5

Africa
Average Ranking: 32.8
Median Ranking: 32

Asia
Average Ranking: 51.5
Median Ranking: 52.5

Notes:
Unless there is some bias in the FIFA rankings, Europe and South America are bringing much better teams to the tournament. Asia is terrible at soccer. This discrepancy is somewhat surprising. I figured Europe and South America would have the best teams, but I assumed that by comparing only the say the top 4 teams in Asia to 13 teams in Europe that it would be about even. (The idea that the 4th best team in Asia might be comparable to the 13th best team in Europe--but that's just not the case.)

Brazil is currently 11th in the world and actually brought down the South America rankings. It would seem that region deserves more than 5 bids. Perhaps, Asia could do with less?

In North America, the average is lower than the median because the outlier a good team--the US at 13th.
In Africa, the average is higher than the median because the outlier is a bad team--Cameroon at 59th.

The best team in the Cup is Spain, ranked #1.
The worst team in the Cup is Cameron, ranked #59.
The best team to miss the Cup is Ukraine, ranked #20.
If New Zealand had beaten Mexico to qualify from Oceania, they would have been the worst, ranked #79.

(All rankings used above are as of 17 October 2013, the rankings used for the World Cup draw. For what it's worth, in the current rankings Brazil moved up to #4, the USA dropped a slot to #14.)

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Strength of Competition by Group (aka what's the Group of Death?)

I'm using screenshots from the ESPN bracket because they helpfully include the world rankings. (Though I just noticed these are neither the current rankings nor the draw rankings. Close enough.)

Average Ranking: 24.25

Average Ranking: 21

Average Ranking: 20.25

Average Ranking: 14.25

Average Ranking: 22.75

Average Ranking: 26.25

Average Ranking: 11.25

Average Ranking: 28.25

Notes:
The average ranking of all teams/groups: 21.03.

The Group of Death is clearly Group G. Plus, when you consider that the US has lost to Ghana in both 2006 and 2010, it's hard to imagine a worse draw. Group D is no picnic either.

When you look at Groups H and Group F, you see that a team ranked 22 or worse, and ranked 21 or worse are guaranteed to advance.

When you look at Group G and Group D, you see that a team ranked 14 or better, and 13 or better are guaranteed not to advance.

I think it's interesting to mentally sort each group by rankings and think of them as seeds. For example, Argentina has the easiest path of all the 1-seeds.

No 4-seed has an easy draw, but the previously mentioned Groups H and F offer the best hope for a 4-seed to advance.

Ghana got the worst draw by far for any 4-seed. At #24, they would be a three seed in almost every other group.

Most groups tend to feature three teams that share good chances to advance and one lowly outlier.

France is fortunate to be a 2-seed. In other groups they would either be a 3 or a 4-seed.

Brazil and Belgium are the lowest 1-seeds and could easily have been 2-seeds in other groups.