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2014 FIFA World Cup Draw

So for a little fun after the USA qualified for the World Cup I worked on an excel workbook where I can generate World Cup draws.

We have 10 teams that have qualified out of the 32 so far. And my current setup is basing the draw on what happened in 2010. This could change when FIFA meets on December 3rd to decide on how to do the group draw on December 6th.

For the remaining teams, I mostly picked who goes based on current standings in their respective qualifications and/or randomly picked a few teams that can make it. You could essentially pick whatever nations that have yet to qualify and toss them in yourself. Nation rankings are based on the FIFA September 2013 rankings that came out this morning. For example, I've gone with assuming Uruguay finishes 5th and beats Jordan in the AFC v CONMEBOL playoff. And for the OFC v CONCACAF, I'm just assuming Panama takes 4th as they are currently in that position and that they beat New Zealand. This also makes Pot 2 easy as it is 4 and 4 for the nations.

Outside of this, each Pot is organized as follows:

Pot 1 - Host nation plus the top 7 ranked teams

Pot 2 - CONCACAF and AFC Nations

Pot 3 - CONMEBOL and CAF Nations

Pot 4 - UEFA Nations

During my first draft and the August standings it ended up working out that UEFA had 5 nations in Pot 1 leaving me a perfect 8 nations for Pot 2. But this draft and the Sept rankings left me with 9 UEFA nations. I'm not sure how FIFA would do it but I assume the last UEFA team would get bumped around to another Pot. In my current example, I moved Iceland to Pot 3 since it was an additional CONMEBOL team that moved into Pot 1.

Next up, each Pot is organized top to bottom based on current FIFA rankings. It doesn't have to be done this way, it is just how I felt like organizing the Pots. Each Group A-H has 1 team from each pot. The easy part is Pot 1 as each team goes into each group. For Pots 2-4 I was able to create a formula that allowed excel to randomly generate unique numbers within a small range. Therefore I could hit the F9 key and change up my draw as often as I wanted to. And in my example below I had to switch Ecuador and Iceland in their respective groups to stick with the group limits of 2 UEFA teams max or 1 team per confederation max.

Below I've copied what I made right before posting this. I will see if I can upload my entire workbook to google documents so if anyone would like to download it and play with it, they are welcome to. And please let me know what you think in the comments below. This was fun to do and I would love any input or requests.

Pot 1 Pot 2 Pot 3 Pot 4
1 Brazil 9 USA 17 Chile 25 Netherlands Each Group may not exceed 2 UEFA teams per group
2 Spain 10 Costa Rica 18 Ivory Coast 26 Greece Each Group may not exceed 1 team from each confederation
3 Argentina 11 Panama 19 Ecuador 27 Switzerland w/ exception to UEFA as listed above
4 Germany 12 Honduras 20 Ghana 28 Russia
5 Italy 13 Japan 21 Algeria 29 England
6 Colombia 14 Iran 22 Nigeria 30 Bosnia
7 Belgium 15 Austrailia 23 Egypt 31 France
8 Uruguay 16 South Korea 24 Iceland 32 Ukraine
Country FIFA Ranking Sept 2013
Brazil 8 Japan 42 Chile 16 Netherlands 9
Argentina 2 Austrailia 53 Ecuador 20 Switzerland 14
Italy 4 Iran 48 Ivory Coast 19 Russia 15
Colombia 5 South Korea 58 Ghana 24 Bosnia 18
Uruguay 7 USA 13 Algeria 28 England 17
Spain 1 Costa Rica 33 Nigeria 36 Greece 12
Germany 3 Honduras 40 Egypt 50 France 25
Belgium 6 Panama 35 Iceland 54 Ukraine 26
Group A Group B Group C Group D Group E Group F Group G Group H
Brazil Spain Argentina Germany Italy Colombia Belgium Uruguay
Iran 14 Panama 11 Austrailia 15 Costa Rice 10 Honduras 12 Japan 13 South Korea 16 USA 9
Algeria 21 Nigeria 22 Egypt 23 Ivory Coast 18 Ecuador 24 Iceland 19 Ghana 20 Chile 17
Netherlands 25 Bosnia 30 England 29 Ukraine 32 Russia 28 France 31 Switzerland 27 Greece 26

This FanPost was written by a Stumptown Footy community member and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the site or its staff.

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