European Playoffs Draw

The draw to determine the four European playoff matchups was held today in Zurich.  With the two more traditional powers France and Sweden in the second pot, top seeds Portugal were hopeful that they would not be too severely punished for not winning their group.  Hope did not salvage the Portuguese on this day as they drew Sweden right away.  The matchup will surely focus on the attacking battle between Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo against Sweden's Zlatan Ibrahimovic.  Portugal will be more disappointed to have again fallen into the playoffs, but Portugal did win playoffs to qualify for South Africa 2010 and Euro 2012.  Sweden finished third behind Portugal and Denmark in the quest for South Africa 2010.  The teams played to two scoreless draws during that tournament.

France drew Ukraine out of the first pot, so Les Bleus are probably ecstatic given that they avoided the three more established teams.  France will certainly be favored to move forward, but given the goalkeeping troubles they had against Belarus recently, Ukraine are certainly not going to feel that they are approaching an impossible task.  Ukraine are unbeaten in their last seven qualifiers and only conceded four goals in ten matches to date.  France did win 2-0 in Ukraine during Euro 2012.  France won a playoff to get to South Africa 2010 whereas Ukraine lost in the playoff round in the same tournament.

Greece, the only team to have tied for first place in their group, now get to assert their defensive prowess against a Romania side that has suffered two multiple-goal shutout defeats in qualifying, including a 2-0 reverse at home against Turkey.  In fact, after subtracting the two matches against Andorra, Romania had a negative goal differential over the other eight group matches.  Greece have only surrendered four goals over ten matches, and they are the masters of the 1-0 victory.  Greece qualified for South Africa 2010 via the playoffs.

Croatia were given surprise team Iceland, which actually suits both teams quite well.  Croatia are on the slide recently and were the worst second-place side to advance to the playoffs.  They have suffered two surprising losses to Scotland in qualifying this year, and coupled with a home loss to Belgium and a road draw with Serbia, they have failed to win any of their last four qualifying matches.  Iceland, on the other hand, are a team on the rise, having gone undefeated in their last four qualifiers.  Of course, Iceland did suffer three losses during the campaign and have never experienced the pressures that come with being so close to qualifying for a major tournament.

The four home-and-away aggregate-goals series are listed below with the home team for the first leg listed first.  The first legs will be played on 15 November 2013 and the second legs will be played on 19 November 2013.  The teams' current ELO ratings are listed.  These ratings again reinforce the concerns about the FIFA rankings, which seeded Croatia and Ukraine rather than Sweden and France.

11 Portugal - 15 Sweden
21 Ukraine - 12 France
19 Greece - 34 Romania
79 Iceland - 22 Croatia

The four teams that I see advancing to Brasil 2014 are Sweden, France, Greece, and Iceland.  For me, the hardest tie to pick is Iceland versus Croatia.

News Reports:
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/preliminaries/news/newsid=2201671/index.html?intcmp=newsreader_news_box_1

Video of Draw:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zxpXVw7fUM