Pre Round of 16 Confederations update

Confed	Tm	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	PNT	W%	PNT%
CSF	6	18	13	2	3	34	17	41	77.8	75.9
UEFA	13	39	18	7	14	62	52	61	55.1	52.1
CONC	4	12	5	3	4	13	14	18	54.2	50.0
CAF	5	15	3	3	9	18	28	12	30.0	26.7
AFC	4	12	0	3	9	9	25	3	12.5	8.3
OFC	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Give great deal of credit to UEFA teams for winning 5 of the last 8 games and losing none (two ties and one game between CSF & CAF). The only team UEFA team to not get the result they needed was Russia which led 1:0 most of the game but Algeria managed to tie the game and Russia failed to get the win they need to advance.

USA and Nigeria managed to advance with a loss since two UEFA teams (Bosnia and Portugal did the job for them) as a result the round of 16 is made out of 6 UEFA (new negative record), 5 CSF teams (new record), 3 CONCACAF (new record) and 2 CAF (another record). 

I have to admit, after the draw I thought that the only CONCACAF team with a chance to advance was Honduras. They had a group with Switzerland who they tied in what a must win for the Swiss 4 years ago. An Ecuador team who was win-less away from home in qualifying and was never very successful at sea level. And France who I didn't this will do as well as they have. Four points was a stretch, but I could see it happening I could also see then advancing out of this group with 3 ties.

On the other hand, Mexico was lucky to qualify, and had to deal with both Brazil and Croatia which I rated much higher. My expectation was a tie or a win over Cameron and two losses. Costa Rica was with Uruguay, Italy and England and to be fair I didn't think they can get a point, in other groups I could see them advance. USA was with two UEFA powers and an old nemesis I thought that a point and two small losses would be a success.         

What is really impressive is that CONCACAF 3 teams in the round of 16 are out of 3.5 spots allocations. While statistically more impressive, but in reality less so is CSF 5 knock out stage teams are out of 4.5 + 1 (host) spots allocation and . Based on these results both these confederation should have more spots in the WC. However, at this point neither should get it since it will mean that more than half the CSF team will qualify and to a lesser degree it would make CONCACAF qualification a useless exercise of some teams as well.

So how about, for qualification purposes, we combine the two confederations and give them 10 spots. If they can constantly get 8 out 10 teams to the knockout stage this is more than reasonable allocation. Even if they can only get 7 or 6 teams through, this is reasonable. If they can't this can be changed in the future and we can always go back to the current setup.

UEFA with 6 out of 13 and CAF with 2 out of 5 are in line or slightly over represented. The one that is way over represented in AFC. Not only have they gone 0 of 4, and all four finished last in their groups, but all four failed to even win a single game in 12 matches. This confederation now holds 4.5 spots, so let's reduce it to 3.

If we go with the above we get:

UEFA - 12.5 (Playoff with OFC)

Americas - 10

CAF - 5

AFC - 3

OFC - 0.5

Host - 1

Some thoughts.

Colombia must be sorry for winning their group. They have to face Uruguay and if they advance probably Brazil and if not Chile. The prize for getting past these two matches is Semifinals with the winner of Germany - France. If they were to finish second in the group, they would face Costa Rica and probably the Netherlands who faces Mexico. None of these, especially Netherland, is a cakewalk, but this is a much easier path to the semis and a possible date with the winner of Argentina - Belgium.  

Can Greece, pull another Euro 2004 magical run? Costa Rica is beatable, Netherland can have a bad game, Argentina has shown us (vs. Iran) that they have  a hard time with solid defenses and their own defense is suspect at time.