December 13-2013
by Warren L. Nelson
Iran’s national soccer team got the best break it could hope for in the World Cup draw Friday and has a fighting chance of achieving what it most wants to achieve—advancing beyond the first round of play in next summer’s World Cup finals.
Iran has been in three previous World Cup finals. But in all three, it has been eliminated in the first round, what is called the group round, when the 32 teams are broken into eight groups of four for round robin play.
At the end of the group round, the bottom two teams go home and the top advance to the Round of 16. That is where Iran wants to be.
The draw dividing the 32 teams into eight groups was held Friday in Brazil. Iran was placed in Group F along with Argentina, Bosnia and Nigeria.
Most fans looked at Argentina, ranked third in the world in the latest monthly computer ranking done by FIFA, the governing body of international soccer.
But that was the wrong place to look. Iran isn’t trying to finish first in the group; it is trying to finish second. And that’s where the draw was good for Iran.
The accompanying table lists all eight groups by how high the second team in the group is ranked. For Iran’s Group F, the second-ranked team is Bosnia—and it is only ranked better by one slot than Russia, the second team in the lowest group. That gives Iran a much better shot—still remote, yes—but a much better shot at second place than other low-ranked teams.
Then look at the third teams in each group. In Iran’s group, that is Nigeria, which has by far the lowest ranking of any of the Number Three teams. Another boost for Iran.
The last column in our table looks at the points that are used in calculating the FIFA rankings of the world’s national teams. That column shows the point difference between the 2nd and 4th teams in each group. Iran is 236 points behind Bosnia. Only one other 4th tier team does better and that is in Group E where Honduras trails France by 205 points.
Iran’s chances of advancing may still be small—and most pundits have already cast Iran into oblivion. But not all. Kevin McCauley, writing for SBNation, said, “Argentina should go through to the knockout stage of the World Cup as Group F winners, but there will be a very tight battle for second place.”
The main point of all this mathematical analysis is not that Iran has a good chance of advancing but that its chances of advancing are much better if it’s in one of the bottom three groups on the table—which it is.
Furthermore, in those other two groups, the second-ranked teams to be beaten are Russia and France, experienced and respected teams that have been to the World Cup finals before—nine times for Russia and 13 for France, while Bosnia has never been to a World Cup and doesn’t know the ropes. In fact, Bosnia is the only one of the 32 teams in the finals that has never been there before.
When all is said and done, Asia isn’t thought of very highly in international soccer. Four slots are reserved for Asia in the World Cup finals. And Asia’s four entrants all rank in the bottom five of the 32 finalists. Only Cameroon isn’t ranked better than every team in Asia—and it is still ranked better than South Korea and Australia.
To see how the luck of the draw has benefited Iran, look at the toughest group, appearing on the top line of the chart. The USA, rated 14th in the World, must face not just second-ranked Germany but also fifth-ranked Portugal. Just imagine if Iran were competing for second-place in a group with #5 Portugal rather than #21 Bosnia.
Iran will have to beat Nigeria and do no worse than a tie with Bosnia to have a chance of advancing—assuming a loss to Argentina. Even then, Iran could well end up tied with Bosnia on points and the tie-breaker would then be the goal differential—the team with a greater difference between goals scored and goals given up.
That suggests Iran will play a very defensive match against Argentina, not trying to win the game, but trying to prevent Argentina from racking up goals against Iran. One can expect an awful lot of dribbling and passing by Iran’s players to keep the ball away from the Argentines and very few Iranian shots on goal.
McCauley, writing in SBNation, said, “This is about as good a draw as Iran could have hoped for, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they could grab four points from Nigeria and Bosnia [three points for a win and one for a draw]. They’re a well-organized team that doesn’t give up much in midfield, but, unfortunately, they just don’t have the same high-end talent as their two competitors for second place. It seems more likely that they’ll end up with zero points than four, but they’re not to be taken lightly.”
Others were not so kind. The Washington Post said, “Iran is a long shot.” CBS News said, “Iran figures to be an also-ran.” CBS also suggested that Argentina not even bother to play its star, Lionel Messi, in the group round and just rest him up for some serious play later on.
The Ottawa Citizen, however, agreed with McCauley—in a backhanded sort of way. It wrote: “How joyful must Lionel Messi and Argentina be to have drawn Bosnia,… Iran and Nigeria? Group F is like tipping three minnows into the same pool as a shark. The only interest here could be who comes second, and that’s a toss-up.”
Alejandro Sabella, Argen-tina’s coach, was asked what he thought of the draw. “It has been a positive draw,” he summed up. “Another situation would have been tougher.” Running through the opposition, he said, “We know Bosnia. We played them recently [in a friendly match last month that Argentina won 2-0]. We know the African teams as well, like Nigeria; [they are] physically strong. We need to study Iran a bit more, definitely.”
The Washington Post published early betting odds for the teams. Brazil was posed at the top, with the odds 3-1 against its winning the Cup. At the bottom were Iran and Honduras, with odds of 1,500-1 for each of them.
Iran will play Nigeria first, on Monday, June 16. Then it will have five days to get ready for Argentina on Saturday, June 21, and another four days before facing Bosnia on Wednesday, June 25. (Times have been posted by FIFA with the caveat that they are not confirmed and many will likely change.)
The matches are being played at 12 sites scattered widely over Brazil, the world’s fifth largest country. Many teams—especially the USA—face very long flights between games that will consume most of a day. Iran will not face that challenge. It will play in Curitiba, then Belo Horizonte and finally Salvador.
