Infographic: Another Asian team has Group of Death in WC 2018

Niloufar

Football Legend
Oct 19, 2002
29,626
23
#1
You know the hard group we got for World Cup 2018? Most of the pundits claimed this is Group of Death.
So I dug into data more to see if Iran's group is really the Group of Death in all aspects or not.

Turns out South Korea has as tough group as Iran, depending on how you look at it.
The result of data shows that:
As group of Club players, Group B(our group) has the hardest group. bc players of the opponent teams have higher market value + majority play in elite leagues(Top division of top 5 European leagues)
But as National teams, Group F (South Korea's group) teams have achieved more National team titles since World Cup 2014, compared to other groups.

Here is the Infographic, and this is the link to the article with more details:
https://football-tribe.com/asia/2017/12/25/infographic-asian-group-death-world-cup-2018/


Infog.jpg
 

Sly

Elite Member
Oct 18, 2002
28,748
878
#2
Yes, I was just looking at group G as well. It's England, Belgium, Tunisia and Panama. It's not like Panama has a better chance of advancing from this group than us.

The only relatively weak teams who you can consider kinda lucky is Saudi Arabia (Russia, Egypt, Uruguay) and Japan (Poland, Senegal, Colombia) but their groups are not easy either.

All Groups are difficult and there is no way we could have had a walk in the park and advanced to the second round easily if we had ended up in another group.
 

TeamMeli

Elite Member
Feb 5, 2014
9,273
311
Las Vegas, NV
#3
You know the hard group we got for World Cup 2018? Most of the pundits claimed this is Group of Death.
So I dug into data more to see if Iran's group is really the Group of Death in all aspects or not.

Turns out South Korea has as tough group as Iran, depending on how you look at it.
The result of data shows that:
As group of Club players, Group B(our group) has the hardest group. bc players of the opponent teams have higher market value + majority play in elite leagues(Top division of top 5 European leagues)
But as National teams, Group F (South Korea's group) teams have achieved more National team titles since World Cup 2014, compared to other groups.

Here is the Infographic, and this is the link to the article with more details:
https://football-tribe.com/asia/2017/12/25/infographic-asian-group-death-world-cup-2018/


View attachment 39912
That is a good point but I think iran's group is the group of death HANDS DOWN. You have two pot one teams and those two teams happen to be Portugal and Spain. Even our four team, Morocco are certainly no slouches. They are only two ranks behind us, last time I checked and they did not concede a goal in WCQ. Now as for South Korea, I still say they are in a tough group because Germany and Mexico are good. However, I would say Portugal and Spain combined are stronger than Germany and Mexico. Sweden and Morocco, despite one being a pot 3 and one being a pot 4, they are about on par. It is very close but I still say OVERALL Iran has two teams in the top 6 and evryone in our group is at least in the top 40. I think South Korea is somewhere in the 59 so the overall combined rank for our group is higher. Germany might be #1 but Korea is #59 so that cancells out that. Our fourth place team is 19 spots ahead of Korea. Their group looks good, in terms of WC wins because of Germany. I will say this much though Germany and Mexico are going through, Mexico is going to kick the crap out of Korea. They play physical like us and Koreans usually struggle against physical teams, like Germany or Mexico and us, they play well against fines teams. Just my take on the situation but caveat, their group is not easy those are the two toughest groups, it is more like 1 and 1A.
 

Niloufar

Football Legend
Oct 19, 2002
29,626
23
#4
That is a good point but I think iran's group is the group of death HANDS DOWN. You have two pot one teams and those two teams happen to be Portugal and Spain. Even our four team, Morocco are certainly no slouches. They are only two ranks behind us, last time I checked and they did not concede a goal in WCQ. Now as for South Korea, I still say they are in a tough group because Germany and Mexico are good. However, I would say Portugal and Spain combined are stronger than Germany and Mexico. Sweden and Morocco, despite one being a pot 3 and one being a pot 4, they are about on par. It is very close but I still say OVERALL Iran has two teams in the top 6 and evryone in our group is at least in the top 40. I think South Korea is somewhere in the 59 so the overall combined rank for our group is higher. Germany might be #1 but Korea is #59 so that cancells out that. Our fourth place team is 19 spots ahead of Korea. Their group looks good, in terms of WC wins because of Germany. I will say this much though Germany and Mexico are going through, Mexico is going to kick the crap out of Korea. They play physical like us and Koreans usually struggle against physical teams, like Germany or Mexico and us, they play well against fines teams. Just my take on the situation but caveat, their group is not easy those are the two toughest groups, it is more like 1 and 1A.
Yeah depends on how we look at it. I'dnt and didnt count on FIFA ranking though to rate the National teams, bc the ranking changes if they play top friendly games.

As combined group of top notch club players, hands down our opponents are much stronger than S.Korea's group. But if we go with Championship titles and Top 8 finishes in major tournaments since WC 2014 (so, quite recent), Germany and Mexico have won 2 championship titles each, so 4 in total in that group. But in our Group, only Portugal has won a Championship, and Spain has only been in Round of 16 of Euro games, and Morroco in Quarter Final stage of African Cup of Nations.

Also, as National teams, coefficient of South Korea's opponents are higher, than our Group.

We have to see which one proves to be stronger: As groups of top club players, or as a cohesive National team.