2018 World Cup preliminary draw
- Thread starter Luis Taint
- Start date
This is my first time following the World Cup,from the begining, are all these games going to be available on TV or online?
Group I could become tough...
Edit: turned out more or less easy with last two teams.
Netherlands and Spain got the tough draws, obviously. No killer groups (like if you swap Iceland+Croatia with France+Netherlands, that would have been tough).
Edit: turned out more or less easy with last two teams.
Netherlands and Spain got the tough draws, obviously. No killer groups (like if you swap Iceland+Croatia with France+Netherlands, that would have been tough).
Bailey10 said:
You call that luck and don't mention getting Wales as the top seed in Ireland's group instead of, well, anybody else?
I still can't fathom how a country which a) hasn't reached the World Cup since 1958, b) hasn't come particularly close to reaching the World Cup since apart from 1994, and c) has NEVER played in the European Championship finals merits a top seed in any qualifying draw. (Wales may have rectified the third of those facts by the time the qualifiers start in late 2016, but still...)
riboflav said:
Basically, the entire world is broken up into confederations within FIFA:
CONCACAF: North and Central America, the Caribbean, and for some reason, the South American countries of Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana
CONMEBOL: Most of South America
CAF: Most of Africa
UEFA: Europe, and a handful of Asian and African countries, such as Israel (basically to avoid them playing other Middle Eastern countries in qualifying)
AFC: Most of Asia, plus Australia
OFC: New Zealand and a bunch of Pacific Island countries
Each confederation gets a number of berths into the World Cup. In some cases, a confederation is awarded a half of a berth, which means the lowest-ranked qualifying nation in that region will have to play a playoff against a team from another confederation for the spot in the tournament. For 2018, the berths are as follows:
UEFA 14 (Russia gets one of those automatically as host)
AFC 5
CONMEBOL 4.5
AFC 4.5
CONCACAF 3.5
OFC 0.5
It's up to each confederation to determine how to choose who gets their berths. UEFA breaks everyone up into groups, those groups play, and all the first place teams qualify, with some of the second place teams having playoffs for the last few spots. CONCACAF has several rounds of qualifying, with the final 6 teams (the Hex) each playing a home-and-home against the others, and the top 3 qualify with the 4th place team going to the inter-confederation playoff.
What happened today was the draws for each of the confederation tournaments. We are still a long way from knowing exactly who will qualify for the World Cup Finals. Once we know the 32 teams that will play for the World Cup, there will be a draw to place those teams into groups.
Last time it was actually pretty hard to find some CONCACAF qualification games on tv. Not even all of the USA road games were televised here, especially in the round before the final hexagonal, unless you are proficient with streaming. I am not familiar with the contracts this time around, but my guess is that at a minimum given increasing interest, all ten games the USA plays in the hexagonal (obviously, assuming they get there) will be televised. A big game on matchday eight between Costa Rica and Honduras with major implications for the rest of the group? This, I imagine, will continue to be hard to find unless it happens to be on Univision or, again, you are proficient with streaming.Luis Taint said:
UEFA qualification was hard to find last time. I hope it is more generally available in the USA this time.
Fox and ESPN are splitting the UEFA qualifiers for Russia 2018, much like they are for France 2016, so they should be easy to find.DennyDoyle'sBoil said:
Here's the Euro draw: http://www.uefa.com/worldcup/news/newsid=2267048.html#world+cup+qualifying+draw
England in the same Group as Scotland should be entertaining. Group A looks hard as Sweden got screwed.
Fixture dates:
Matchday 1: 4–6 September 2016
Matchday 2: 6–8 October 2016
Matchday 3: 9–11 October 2016
Matchday 4: 11–13 November 2016
Matchday 5: 24–26 March 2017
Matchday 6: 9–11 June 2017
Matchday 7: 31 August–2 September 2017
Matchday 8: 3–5 September 2017
Matchday 9: 5–7 October 2017
Matchday 10: 8–10 October 2017
Play-off first leg: 9–11 November 2017
Play-off second leg: 12–14 November 2017
England in the same Group as Scotland should be entertaining. Group A looks hard as Sweden got screwed.
Fixture dates:
Matchday 1: 4–6 September 2016
Matchday 2: 6–8 October 2016
Matchday 3: 9–11 October 2016
Matchday 4: 11–13 November 2016
Matchday 5: 24–26 March 2017
Matchday 6: 9–11 June 2017
Matchday 7: 31 August–2 September 2017
Matchday 8: 3–5 September 2017
Matchday 9: 5–7 October 2017
Matchday 10: 8–10 October 2017
Play-off first leg: 9–11 November 2017
Play-off second leg: 12–14 November 2017