The draw will take place at the Palace of Arts in Kyiv, Ukraine at 18.00CET (19.00 local time) on Friday 2 December.
Pot 1: Poland, Ukraine, Spain, Netherlands
Pot 2: Germany, Italy, England, Russia
Pot 3: Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Sweden
Pot 4: Denmark, France, Czech Republic, Republic of Ireland
Source: UEFA.com
Croatia needed two wins to climb to Pot 2. After their 3 - 0 win in Istanbul I was sure they would overtake Russia, but in the end it didn't happen. I don't know if HNS were aware of this. If anyone from Croatia reads this post, please tell me if it was reported in the press that Croatia need two wins to climb to Pot 2. Thanks!
Poland will be automatically placed in Group A as A1, Ukraine in Group D as D1.
The draw will start with Pot 1 in order to fill position one in Groups B and C. The draw will continue with Pot 4, from which a team will be allocated to each group consecutively, from Group A to Group D. This procedure will then be repeated for Pot 3 and finally for Pot 2.
The position of each team within its group (2, 3 or 4) will also be determined during the draw.
Ukraine - Italy - Croatia - France
ReplyDeleteWell, this could provide for some "group of death" scenarios.
ReplyDeleteFor instance: Netherlands/Spain - Germany/Italy/England - Portugal - France.
Also possible is a "group of debt" : Spain - Italy - Greece - Ireland, referring to the Euro-crisis in those countries.
It will be exiting to watch the draw in two weeks time!
Greece with France and Germany should prove interesting from an EURO crisis point of view :)
ReplyDeleteEspecially after DFB didn't accept to host the friendly between Greece and Romania.
Dream: Poland, ENGLAND, Greece, Czech Republic
ReplyDeleteNightmare: Spain, ENGLAND, Portugal, France
We already beat you this year!:
Spain, ENGLAND, Sweden, Denmark
Mock Draw:
Group A: Poland, Germany, Croatia, Ireland
Group B: Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Denmark
Group C: Spain, England, Greece, Czech Republic
Group D: Ukraine, Russia, Sweden, France
I'd be very happy with that. Two of the teams I have in my dream group, and Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Portugal all on the other side of the draw.
Another thing about my mock draw: The rivalry between Portugal and Denmark continues! I wonder if Denmark would best Portugal a third time? That group B is obviously the group of death.
ReplyDeleteLoric you act like your groups are official! How odd is that?
ReplyDeleteYes, all of the media in Croatia reported that we need to win against Turkey in Zagreb in order to stay in Pot 2. Slaven Bilic was even asked at the pre-match press conference whether he feels pressure to win, and he said - no, the only important thing is to qualify, and that he doesn't care about pots and who they would draw.
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI said MOCK draw...
Yep, Bilic said he doesn't care, that we play better against higher ranked teams because they don't park the bus, like the teams in our qualifying group did (including Greece), which gave us a lot of problems with Eduardo a shadow of his former self.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that I picked Greece over Croatia as my team for an England dream group. Even though Greece won the group over Croatia. Even though England struggle against defensive, well organised teams. Even though England crushed Croatia twice in the World Cup qualifying group. I still see Greece as the weakest team, because I think while they could blank England potentially, their midfield and attack look to be weak. I think we'd boss the midfield and be the ones asking the questions. Oh, and Croatia would have a chip on their shoulder I'm sure if they meet England. I was hoping Croatia would sweep the Turks in order to avoid Croatia! Yes, I was hoping to avoid the team we beat 4-1 and 5-1 the last two encounters! They beat us twice at Euro 2008 qualifying and deprived us of qualification, and we took immediate and ruthless revenge and did the same to them. It's too soon to face Croatia again, the England fire will have gone cold and the Croatian one will still be burning strong...
ReplyDelete@Lorric
ReplyDeleteYeah, most people think that way. On the message boards we were all wishing to get into pot 2 and avoid Germany and Italy, against which we have a positive all-time score, and get drawn with Greece instead. :D
But you shouldn't be afraid of Croatia. There's those two defeats, but Englad is actually the worst opponent for Croatia. I think 4 of our 6 worst defeats (and 3 worst) (or something like that) were to England. We stereotypically lazy Balkanoids hate your pace... :D
@ MV
ReplyDeleteYou Croats are a friendly bunch in my experience :)
It would be nice if my fellow short sighted England fans would see the attributes England have, instead of dismissing everything as worthless, except the grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side-will-solve-all-our-problems-is-all-we-need techinical ability. I hate that word. And we have plenty of it, more than they give us credit for. Obviously some countries have more, but anyone would think we spent all our time just hoofing the ball up the pitch and running after it. We could potentially field the fastest and maybe even fittest side in Europe, and that would cause teams problems. It wouldn't be a one size fits all strategy by any means, but it would be something for opposition teams to worry about.
So, what would your dream and nightmare group be like? How about a Croatian Vengeance Group? First Turkey, and now Ukraine, England, Croatia, France. France are there to finish off England and Ukraine. England have been owned by France as long as I've supported the team, so I badly hope to avoid them.
Yes, the media and HNS knew two wins over Turkey were needed to be in Pot 2 and it was asked to Bilic. But as MV (above) said, Bilic's main goal was to qualify rather than worry about which pot they would be in.
ReplyDeleteSome of the players after the match expressed disappointment for not winning and not being in Pot 2 and I'm afraid it will come back to haunt us....
I wonder how ranking would look like if all the games in four years give 100% points to team? No 20%, 30% or 50% matches at all, just 100% for every game in four years
ReplyDeleteMV wrote: "[...]and avoid Germany and Italy, against which we have a positive all-time score"
ReplyDeleteI just looked that up and Germany have a winning record over Croatia.
8 matches, 5 German wins, 1 draw, 2 Croatian wins, 18:10 goals for Germany. Or did you only meant Italy?
@ Anonymous
ReplyDeleteWell, with the FIFA site now showing the scores for all years, which includes scores before the weighting is applied, you can simply go to the FIFA rankings site, and add any country you please's total together.
My England would have 2,314.73pts. Spain 3,419.76. An interesting one is Egypt with 1784.37, I wonder where that would put them in the standings.
@ Lusankya
ReplyDeleteI was surprised by that so I looked into it, because even England have only played Croatia 7 times. And I discovered Croatia got a few internationals in before WW2, and three of those were against Germany, which were all defeats. Thus 5 games with the current Croatia, you get 2 wins a draw and 2 losses. Croatia wins on GD 8/6.
Based on the FIFA-ranking over 2011, I come up with this MOCK-draw:
ReplyDeleteGroup A: Poland, Germany, Sweden, Rep. Ireland
Group B: Netherlands, England, Portugal, France
Group C: Spain, Russia, Croatia, Czech Rep.
Group D: Ukraine, Italy, Greece, Denmark
Obviously, group B is the group of death. As a Dutchman, I really, really hope this draw will not be the real draw. The Dutch could do with an 'easy' group to spare some energy for the games after the group stage.
@ Tobcoach
ReplyDeleteSo, you drew out one of the ultimate death group possibilities (Spain/Netherlands vs Germany/Italy/England vs Portugal vs France)
Group B was the group of death in my mock draw too, and it involved the Netherlands too. I think you'd much prefer my group of death to yours though! Total nightmare for my England if your draw was real! If we got through, it would probably be in 2nd, straight into the Germans...
The most equitable draw would be for example:
ReplyDeleteGroup A: Poland, Italy, Denmark, Portugal
Group B: Netherlands, Greece, Russia, France
Group C: Spain, Czech Rep., England, Sweden
Group D: Ukraine, Ireland, Germany, Croatia
and I hope that would be no group of death
I did dream draw for England's group only, and a mock draw. Here's my dream draw for the whole competition:
ReplyDeleteGroup A: Poland, England, Greece, Czech Republic
Group B: Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Denmark
Group C: Spain, Germany, Portugal, France
Group D: Ukraine, Italy, Croatia, Ireland
Group B has the least dangerous I could fit in after what I see as the least dangerous in Group A. Group C is the strongest. Group D, Croatia and Ireland are two teams who'd love to get a piece of England.
Just put England to Group C and Germany to Group D for the nightmare scenario.
Thanks for the Croatian insight :)
ReplyDeleteThe Footall Gods toyed with me! I watched my dream group come together, only to not get it. Fuck the Czechs. They cheated their way to Euro 2012 and don't deserve such a huge opprtunity. And what is it with Greece and gentle draws?
ReplyDeleteAll the talk about ultimate groups of death, what we got was the ultimate group of life. In my eyes Group A contains the weakest team from all 4 pots. Group B is the group of death, but will reward those who survive with a great opportunity to advance to the semi finals as they play a team from the group of life. After missing out on A, I wanted B for that reason. It wasn't a total loss though. Failing that, I wanted to avoid C, and England did. Group D is tough but not overly so. Certainly not compared to B and C, A has significantly raised the level of B,C and D.
Croatia pay the price for not beating Turkey again. Croatia would have been in Russia's ball.
ReplyDeleteCan Denmark best Portugal yet again? Germany vs. Netherlands! Grudge match! Great matches coming up! I also look forward to Spain's attack vs Ireland's defence.
@Lorric
ReplyDeleteYep, pretty mad at Russia and Greece too :D
Everybody seems to be quite content, though. The positive all-time score against Italy that I've already mentioned being the prime reason. They're forgetting Italy's trying to change their style now, to play more like Spain.
But...being in pot 3 we have to be content. You can't EXPECT a group of life scenario.
Thanks for the compliment. About friendliness. It depends on the mood, though. You were lucky :D Balkan people go from one extreme to another. Comes from extreme conditions that the region presented us with in previous centuries.
@Lusankya and Lorric
About the all-time records - the games played DURING THE WW2 (not PRE-) should'nt be taken into account. It was a team from a puppet state (established after the occupation of Yugoslavia). Hajduk Split team even ran over to the allies and played against the British army (and lost, those were the days, huh, Lorric? :D). And that's like Spain playing without Barcelona players.
@Edgar
ReplyDeleteNP, the pleasure was all mine.
Actually, Bilic said something interesting after the draw: "...even if we did beat the Turks, we might not have been in pot 2,..."
Seems they weren't completely aware of the situation after all. They've read about it in the papers and then misinterpreted it (which would be nothing weird, considering the nepotism in the association).
Perhaps I'm reading too much in this though.