We had a (kinda) brief diversion to follow the six continental championships. Those crowned USA, Australia, Nigeria, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Spain as winners.
Before that was the typically gruelling qualification campaign for this year's Draft World Cup. With FM's winter update out, we can now crack on with the finals! Here we're going to go through the draw and explain the rules of the competition.
These are the 32 qualifiers:
Before that was the typically gruelling qualification campaign for this year's Draft World Cup. With FM's winter update out, we can now crack on with the finals! Here we're going to go through the draw and explain the rules of the competition.
These are the 32 qualifiers:
The draw is based on the sides' ranking at the end of qualification (rather than after the continental championships). This is how the world rankings look after DWC qualification, compared to the start of qualification (use the arrow keys to cycle between pages):
Points haemorrhaged at the top of the table, as England and Portugal win all 10 games and yet fail to add even 10 points to their ranking. Ivory Coast have the honour of being the lowest-ranked team to make it to the finals, whilst Scotland are the highest-ranked team to fail - although they still moved up 4 places.
This puts the teams into 4 pots of 8 for the draw:
A bad qualification for South Africa - forced to go through the play-offs - means that all 5 African teams end up in Pot 4. The top 8 remain the same as last year, whilst Ukraine jump into the crucial top 16.
With those pots, the draw was made, with the following rules:
And this is the resulting draw:
This puts the teams into 4 pots of 8 for the draw:
- Germany, Spain, England, Italy, Portugal, France, Netherlands, Brazil
- Greece, Turkey, USA, Switzerland, China, Ukraine, Mexico, Argentina
- Hungary, Chile, Colombia, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Canada, Kazakhstan
- South Africa, Bolivia, Tunisia, Nigeria, Algeria, UAE, Egypt, Ivory Coast
A bad qualification for South Africa - forced to go through the play-offs - means that all 5 African teams end up in Pot 4. The top 8 remain the same as last year, whilst Ukraine jump into the crucial top 16.
With those pots, the draw was made, with the following rules:
- Top seeds go into 1st position (reigning champions Germany go into Group A)
- The remaining teams are placed in the order in which they play the top seed
- No group may have more than 1 team from the same continent - except European teams, which can have up to 2
And this is the resulting draw:
There's some match-ups that look exciting on paper, and some that don't but which may surprise us. We'll look into individual groups later when we do our group-by-group previews.
Rules
Each side has to name a 23-man squad, containing 3 goalkeepers.
Players who are eligible are those:
These last two rules are designed to give the smaller nations access to a wider range of players.
The group-by-group previews will show who has made each team's squad, and we'll start those next time with - controversially - Group A.
Rules
Each side has to name a 23-man squad, containing 3 goalkeepers.
Players who are eligible are those:
- Playing for a club in that country (e.g. Eden Hazard plays for Spain rather than Belgium). This includes loanees (e.g. Philippe Coutinho plays for Germany rather than Spain) and players who play for a team that ply their trade in another country's league (i.e. Toronto FC players play for Canada not USA)
- Out of contract, but are of that team's nationality
- Out of contract, but have that team's nationality as their second nationality, and haven't already been selected for another team's squad
These last two rules are designed to give the smaller nations access to a wider range of players.
The group-by-group previews will show who has made each team's squad, and we'll start those next time with - controversially - Group A.