redfiona99

After much drawing of ~~rabbits~~ balls out of hats, we have the European qualifying groups for the 2018 World Cup.

Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D	Group E	Group F	Group G	Group H	Group I
Netherlands	Portugal	Germany	Wales	Romania	England	Spain	Belgium	Croatia
France	Switzerland	Czech Republic	Austria	Denmark	Slovakia	Italy	Bosnia-Herzegovina	Iceland
Sweden	Hungary	Northern Ireland	Serbia	Poland	Scotland	Albania	Greece	Ukraine
Bulgaria	Faroe Islands	Norway	Republic of Ireland	Montenegro	Slovenia	Israel	Estonia	Turkey
Belarus	Latvia	Azerbaijan	Moldova	Armenia	Lithuania	Macedonia	Cyprus	Finland
Luxembourg	Andorra	San Marino	Georgia	Kazakhstan	Malta	Liechtenstein

Gibraltar are only a UEFA member, not a full FIFA member, which is why they're not on here, and Russia have pre-qualified as hosts (I think). Some of the group members are sick of each other, with several being in the same Euro 2016 qualifying groups. I think that's a side-effect of the potting process.

I understand why they do that, to help mix everything up a bit in these things, but there's some thing very fishy about the most recent group drawing rule change, making the "big" teams play in the six-member groups, because the TV companies want more of the "big" teams, even though they might not be pot 1 standard. Because that's fair!

I don't mind when FIFA/UEFA do things like not drawing Spain and Gibraltar together or Armenia and Azerbaijan because of political tensions, because, first do no harm makes sense on these occasions, but TV ratings are not a good reason for doing this.

If you do it straight out of the FIFA rankings,

Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D	Group E	Group F	Group G	Group H	Group I
Germany	Belgium	Netherlands	Portugal	Romania	England	Wales	Spain	Croatia
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Denmark	Iceland	France	Czech Republic	Switzerland	Italy	Austria	Slovakia
Ukraine	Scotland	Poland	Hungary	Sweden	Albania	Northern Ireland	Serbia	Greece
Estonia	Montenegro	Faroe Islands	Bulgaria	Norway	Republic of Ireland	Israel	Slovenia	Turkey
Cyprus	Latvia	Armenia	Finland	Belarus	Macedonia	Azerbaijan	Lithuania	Moldova
		Andorra	San Marino	Malta	Georgia	Liechtenstein	Luxembourg	Kazakhstan

Okay, so it means that Germany and Belgium don't get to play as much which they'd probably complain about, and Austria's draw sucks something awful, but the groups do seem more even. I can also see an argument that this kind of rigidly ranking-based draw would make rank mobility less likely. So you could do it the way the draws used to be done, where top 8 are pot 1, next 8 are pot 2 and so one, but do it clean and not let the TV companies interfere.