Everyone has been talking about the new draw that has been released for the soccer world cup and who has the hardest group. Like every year, the Australians are complaining that we have the toughest group. Even the FIFA world cup website suggests that Germany and Brazil are in arguably the toughest two groups. Perhaps the other teams in those groups don’t have it tough for some reason.
But who has the toughest group? And who has the easiest run? Well we can roughly work that out once and for all. Using the World Football Elo Ratings, we can add up all the rankings for all the teams and determine which group will be the hardest.
Results are shown below:
Group A Group B Group C Group D
South Africa 1508 Argentina 1876 England 1957 Germany 1933
Mexico 1875 Nigeria 1741 United States 1784 Australia 1773
Uruguay 1793 South Korea 1733 Algeria 1580 Serbia 1805
France 1863 Greece 1757 Slovenia 1641 Ghana 1683
7039 7107 6962 7194
Group E Group F Group G Group H
Netherlands 2002 Italy 1928 Brazil 2081 Spain 2067
Denmark 1774 Paraguay 1739 North Korea 1510 Switzerland 1764
Japan 1774 New Zealand 1538 Cote d’Ivoire 1763 Honduras 1729
Cameroon 1771 Slovakia 1636 Portugal 1843 Chile 1858
7321 6841 7197 7418
| Group H |
7418 |
| Group E |
7321 |
| Group G |
7197 |
| Group D |
7194 |
| Group B |
7107 |
| Group A |
7039 |
| Group C |
6962 |
| Group F |
6841 |
So there we have it, according to the Elo ratings, Group H which consists of Spain, Switzerland, Honduras and Chile have the toughest group, whilst group F which consists of Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand and Slovakia have the easiest draw.
And Australia? Germany and Brazil? Group D and G are listed as third and fourth. A little tough, but nothing to write home about.
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base on that…you could say Australia 2006 world cup group was harder with a ELO rating of 7382
Yep you’d be right there LRBC, although Australia has increased in ranking since the last world cup (I’m guessing) and other teams have changed.
Thank you for the truly great write-up. With the world cup coming around your are beginning to get significantly better discussions on sports all over the world. Keep writing please. The internet needs it.
I love soccer, not sure about this ball for the world cup though. Do you think it is good for the game?