Looking for this World Cup’s ‘Group of Death’? It doesn’t exist anymore. Here’s why…

Every time the World Cup draw is made, the main challenge is to decide which is the ‘group of death’.

But the boring answer is no these days. Changes in the structure of the tournament mean that the four true contenders are less likely to be grouped together.

This World Cup, however, is a bit special. To explain why, here’s a brief history of the death squad’s gradual demise.

There are three factors at play. The first factor is tournament expansion.

The term “Group of Death” was first used in 1970, when only 16 teams participated in the tournament. (There will be 24 teams from 1982, 32 from 1998, and 48 from 2026).

Therefore, the quality has deteriorated. When the concept of “group of death” was originally defined for this tournament, 50% of the sides would not have qualified for the tournament if it had been held.

The number of candidates for each World Cup is probably the same; 8 to 10 sides have a chance to win the competition. Once they were divided into four groups, then into six, and now into eight. The odds of getting two or even three in a group have steadily declined.

A second factor is distribution across different confederations. This is not the same as increasing competition.

Historically, the real contenders for the World Cup have almost always come from Europe and South America.

No African country has reached the semi-finals. No team from Oceania has reached the quarter-finals. In 2002, South Korea was the only Asian side to reach the semi-finals on home soil. And the only team from North America reached the semi-finals in 1930, USA.

England’s Bobby Charlton fights Brazil’s Clodoaldo in the original 1970 Round of Death (Photo: Syndication/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)

And while the South American contingent for each tournament expands roughly in line with the total number of nationalities, the European quota does not.

FIFA prioritized regional representation. This, finally, A World Cup. But this also means that the overall quality is poor; This means that Italy does not qualify when Saudi Arabia and Tunisia choose. That’s entirely fair, but it’s also fair to say that the reigning European champions would be the more obvious candidates for any potential group of death.

Indeed, the deadliest group in a major tournament was not at the World Cup, but at Euro 96. It included Germany (ranked second in the world), Russia (ranked third), Italy (ranked seventh) and the Czech Republic (ranked 10) and produced two finalists.

The third factor, perhaps the most relevant, is the seeding system.

Let’s go back to the first batch of deaths in 1970. It is no coincidence that that group of death appeared in the 1970 World Cup, not 1962 or 1966. The draw for these two tournaments is fixed. But after 1970 no agreement was reached on the seeding process, the draw was open.

A result? The last two winners of the competition, England and Brazil, were drawn in a group with 1962 runners-up Czechoslovakia. Despite defeating Czechoslovakia and losing by just one goal to England and Brazil, Romania were not too terrible in terms of reputation. FIFA was determined to never let that happen, and every draw since then has been seeded.

Seeding has taken various forms, but the system we’re used to is Pot 1, which includes the strongest sides in the world rankings (extra slots) and everyone else into purely geographical pots (rather than being seeded further down the rankings).

So a group could have included the top seed, plus a strong European side, a strong South American side and a strong African side, all of whom were among the top 16 nations in the tournament.

That system was used until 2014. Everything has changed since 2018. Now the draw is seeded as a whole, and pots are determined by world ranking rather than geography.

This meant that the deadliest group for the 2018 World Cup was less lethal than in previous years. In fact, according to the world rankings, the third-strongest side in a potentially lethal group has been weaker than the fourth-strongest side from potentially lethal groups in previous tournaments.

However, the 2022 World Cup has another challenge – indicated by an asterisk.

With some qualifiers postponed due to the pandemic and the war delaying Ukraine’s play-offs against Scotland and Wales, the draw for the 2022 World Cup took place before we knew the three teams, as they had yet to play a play-off. matches. Therefore, these play-off sides are placed in Pot 4 regardless of their ranking.

This was particularly relevant in the case of Wales, who beat Ukraine to secure their place. If this had happened before the play-off draw, Wales’ ranking of 18 would have put them in pot 3 (and would actually be the 2nd pot side if 51st-ranked Qatar weren’t automatically in pot 1) . Instead, they were in Pot 4.

So whichever group Wales are drawn in, FIFA would be tougher than originally thought. They are tied with England (5th place), USA (15th place) and Iran (21st place). It may not be as deadly as, say, 1970, but it’s far stronger than anything four years ago – and that’s excluding the England-Wales rivalry and the US-Iran standoff.

Do you think a group of deaths is a matter of opinion? But it will probably be deadlier than any World Cup grouping we’ll see again, due to the geographical spread it expands to a 48-team World Cup from 2026.

FIFA plans to use 16 groups of three for the 48-team tournament, with both sides going through to the playoffs. This has two implications for potential death squads.

First, the (highly unlikely) tournament features 48 of the world’s highest-ranked sides, and the assumption is that the draw will be made through a full draw, with each group featuring a side ranked 33rd or lower. Chances are, after taking into account the quotas of each confederation, the average rating of a pot 3 side is likely to be in the 50s or 60s.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, when two-thirds of each group succeeds, there is less death. A 67 percent chance of progression isn’t too scary. By 2026, the concept of the group of death will be dead.

(Photo by Marcio Machado/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)