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Wednesday, March 11, 2020

UEFA qualification World Cup 2022 simulations (March 2020)

Last week the groups for the UEFA Nations League 2020 were drawn. Now that also that schedule of matches is known (6 match days to be played this Autumn) a first peek can be offered at the probabilities for each UEFA team to land in each pot for the draw of the UEFA qualification groups for the World Cup 2022. This draw will take place on November 29th and the teams will be seeded according to the FIFA November 2020 ranking. There will be 10 groups (5 of 5 teams and 5 of 6 teams) drawn.



I've made 10.000 simulations of the complete schedule of matches for UEFA teams this year. Incorporated are all scheduled friendlies, the complete EURO 2020 final tournament and all UNL group matches. So, a lot of high valued matches to be played before the draw, some things will certainly change in the meantime...
I will keep track of these changes in the seedings throughout the year after each FIFA window and of course after EURO 2020.

 NB I will focus on the UNL 2020 in detail only after the EURO has been played.

 Here are the probabilities (in %) for each team to land in each pot. The teams are ordered by their average ranking position for UEFA teams in the November ranking (avg).
team      pot 1      pot 2      pot 3      pot 4      pot 5      pot 6        avg
Belgium 100,00 0 0 0 0 0 1,97
France 100,00 0 0 0 0 0 2,11
England 98,78 1,22 0 0 0 0 4,73
Spain 95,62 4,38 0 0 0 0 5,38
Portugal 95,11 4,89 0 0 0 0 5,80
Netherlands 87,43 12,57 0 0 0 0 6,95
Croatia 87,28 12,72 0 0 0 0 7,22
Italy 77,22 22,78 0 0 0 0 8,02
Denmark 70,53 29,47 0 0 0 0 8,79
Germany 66,77 33,23 0 0 0 0 8,97
--------------------------
Switzerland 54,91 45,09 0 0 0 0 9,69
Sweden 31,08 68,88 0,04 0 0 0 11,49
Poland 9,01 89,47 1,52 0 0 0 14,18
Ukraine 6,87 88,77 4,36 0 0 0 14,99
Wales 4,88 88,96 6,16 0 0 0 15,55
Turkey 4,53 75,01 20,46 0 0 0 17,21
Slovakia 3,97 56,79 39,24 0 0 0 18,95
Austria 0,94 62,24 36,82 0 0 0 19,28
Serbia 0,50 55,95 43,55 0 0 0 19,95
Republic of Ireland 1,28 47,20 51,52 0 0 0 20,36
--------------------------
Russia 0,57 45,95 53,18 0,30 0 0 20,82
Romania 0,77 31,44 67,79 0 0 0 21,84
Czech Republic 0,58 34,07 64,54 0,81 0 0 22,13
Iceland 0,24 27,62 72,13 0,01 0 0 22,29
Northern Ireland 0,56 24,85 74,58 0,01 0 0 22,51
Norway 0,15 19,76 79,76 0,33 0 0 23,68
Bosnia-Herzegovina 0,42 10,04 86,85 2,69 0 0 25,79
Scotland 0 1,28 77,32 21,40 0 0 28,80
Finland 0 3,74 58,27 37,99 0 0 29,11
Hungary 0 0,57 61,52 37,91 0 0 29,76
--------------------------
Greece 0 0 65,49 34,51 0 0 29,88
Bulgaria 0 0,10 16,30 83,60 0 0 32,49
Montenegro 0 0 4,26 95,74 0 0 33,26
Slovenia 0 0 2,89 97,11 0 0 33,77
North Macedonia 0 0,92 7,79 91,29 0 0 34,51
Albania 0 0 0,47 99,53 0 0 34,57
Belarus 0 0,02 0,74 98,51 0,73 0 37,55
Georgia 0 0,02 2,36 93,35 4,27 0 37,61
Israel 0 0 0,01 85,56 14,43 0 39,32
Cyprus 0 0 0 75,90 24,10 0 39,64
--------------------------
Luxembourg 0 0 0 29,68 70,32 0 40,99
Armenia 0 0 0 3,36 96,64 0 42,62
Estonia 0 0 0 1,99 98,01 0 43,22
Kosovo 0 0 0 8,35 91,57 0 43,66
Azerbaijan 0 0 0 0,07 99,93 0 44,69
Faroe Islands 0 0 0 0 100,00 0 45,60
Kazakhstan 0 0 0 0 100,00 0 46,34
Lithuania 0 0 0 0 100,00 0 48,68
Latvia 0 0 0 0 100,00 0 48,93
Andorra 0 0 0 0 100,00 0 49,37
--------------------------
Moldova 0 0 0 0 0 100,00 51,24
Malta 0 0 0 0 0 100,00 52,24
Liechtenstein 0 0 0 0 0 100,00 52,56
Gibraltar 0 0 0 0 0 100,00 53,96
San Marino 0 0 0 0 0 100,00 55,00

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Software engineer, happily unmarried and non-religious. You won't find me on Twitter or other so called social media. Dutchman, joined the blog in March 2018.

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7 comments:

  1. nogometMarch 18, 2020 at 5:25 PM

    I would imagine the postponement of EURO 2020 all but solidified the current pots for the WC qualifying. The weighting of Nations League games is not high enough to allow much movement, except for the 2-3 places in each pot, right?

    ReplyDelete
  2. EdMarch 18, 2020 at 9:16 PM

    You imagine right, nogomet. Quick simulations without March friendlies and the complete EURO show that for each pot only 2 to 3 teams are uncertain. But the fight for the higher pot is fought between the same teams as in the preview above. The EURO-matches don't turn out to be decisive in that aspect.

    When there's more clarity about when NT-matches can be scheduled (and played) again, I will perform new simulations. Until then readers, please take good care of yourselves.

    ReplyDelete
  3. nogometApril 2, 2020 at 11:49 AM

    With the postponement of the end of the club season to August, I don't see any way that the UEFA Nations League will take place this fall. UEFA obviously put the club football as priority, so national teams games will have to be removed from the schedule so that all CL and EL games can be squeezed in a short season. UNL cancellation makes even more sense given that EURO 2021 was supposed to be played only a week after UNL Final Four, which would significantly devalue the UNL brand.

    My guess is, UNL 2020-21 will not be played at all, and will continue in 2022 with the same groups as those drawn for 2020 edition. This would mean that 2022 WC qualifying pots are already set, and the only question that remain is - will they change the qualifying format back to 9 groups, with 9 group winners qualifying directly, and 8 best runners-up fighting for the 4 remaining spots in the play-offs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousApril 3, 2020 at 1:36 AM

      I can't see any way they can have 9 groups as this would mean 8 groups of 6 and 1 group of 7, with the group 7 needing additional matchdays in an already crowded schedule.
      Likeliest scenario must surely be 10 groups with the group winners going through, and the 10 runners-up plus 2 best 3rd-place teams entering the two-stage play-offs for the final 3 spots.

      Delete
  4. RobertApril 4, 2020 at 6:42 PM

    One possibility for the Nations League could be to play half the fixtures over two months rather than the full set over three months. Every team would play each other once rather than twice. You would need to sort out who plays one home game and who gets two, which may be contentious due to revenue issues, but it's a possibility rather than scrapping it if the normal UNL schedule can't be played. I imagine the national associations would rather play a half schedule than nothing at all? That's assuming a scenario where most of the continent has recovered sufficiently by then of course.

    ReplyDelete
  5. mickMay 2, 2020 at 7:11 AM

    Another solution for unl is to play semifinal and final in each group rather than full group stage. If we suppose that euro 2020 playoff will be played in september this year(since original date march 2020 and june 2020 are suspended) let them play unl in october and november 2020. In october semifinals from each group pot 1 vs pot 4, and pot 2 vs pot 3. Group finals are planned for november. However, other question is how they will organize wc 2022 qzalifiers since june 2021 will not permit qualification matches

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousMay 21, 2020 at 7:55 PM

    football without supporters is like fishing. uefa only thinks about money.

    ReplyDelete

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