Who Has The Most Difficult And Who Has The Most Easy Group In World Cup 2010?
Looking at the World Cup groups, and being a geek, I’ve worked out the average opposition ranking for all the highest ranked teams in their respective world cup groups. Obviously this exercise is erroneous in many respects as everyone would be sure that North Korea will find Group G more difficult than Brazil will. So I’ve compared the average opposition ranking for all the highest ranked teams in their groups to show which ‘BIG’ team has the least excuse to go out in the first round. 
Also, remember that these group difficulties are only as true as the FIFA World Cup Rankings, but seeing as these decided the seedings of the draw, we might aswell use them!
AOR (Average Opponent Ranking)
Group A – France – AOR = 40th
Group B – Argentina – AOR = 29th
Group C – England – AOR = 25th
Group D – Germany – AOR = 26th
Group E – Netherlands – AOR = 27th
Group F – Italy – AOR = 47th
Group G – Brazil – AOR = 35th
Group H – Spain – AOR = 24th
This means that, in order, top to bottom, of most easy group to most difficult it goes -
Italy
France
Brazil
Argentina
Netherlands
Germany
England
Spain
I reckon this just proves that Maths has NO place in football, as I would say the group of death is easily Group G, and the group of…erm… easy, is Italys.
If we take into account the ‘seeds’ ranking aswell, we get a very clear picture of the difficulty of the group ‘overall’ for all the teams.
Group ‘H’ = Group of Death with average ranking of 19th.
Group F = Easiest group with average ranking of 36th.
I would say the only reason for Brazil, Portugal, Ivory Coast and North Korea not being the mathematical group of death is because North Koreas ranking is so low (84th) that it drags the average right down. As it would be an average of 7th without them.
What do you all think?
What Do You Think Of The Fifa World Cup Rankings?
http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/i…
Canada moved up one position to NO. 81
Do you think they’ll qualify for World Cup 2010?..LOL
