Game of Pots - India's ranking battle with Palestine and Iraq over Asian Cup seeding

THE INDIAN NATIONAL TEAM - the senior one, not the U-17 squad - is in a tight spot when it comes to achieving their seeding goals for the AFC Asian Cup 2019.

With 3 wins in their final round of qualifiers, India are just one victory away from getting a ticket to the continental championship which takes place in UAE in early 2019. But in order to get a favourable group, the Blue Tigers still have a tough task to accomplish.

The complex game of FIFA rankings comes into play when the 24 teams participating in the Asian Cup will be sorted into groups. They will first be divided into four pots of 6 each according to their current FIFA rankings. The main tournament will have six groups, with one team from each pot.

So, the trick is to get into one of the top pots so that you can be drawn into a group with minimum two teams ranked lower than you.

Now, currently India are 107th in the world with 316 ranking points to their name. But more importantly, in Asia, they are ranked number 13, just one spot below a coveted Pot 2 seeding. Ahead of India at the bottom of current Pot 2 hopeful list are Palestine (FIFA rank 91, 12th in Asia, 389 ranking points) and Iraq (FIFA rank 88, 11th in Asia, 400 ranking points).

Just ahead of Iraq there's Qatar (FIFA rank 85, 10th in Asia, 406 ranking points). But just to keep things simple, we're going to assume that the Gulf Cup of Nations Champions, Asian Cup regular and future World Cup hosts are not going to get dragged into this battle. They will be busy chasing Syria (FIFA rank 75, 9th in Asia, 465 ranking points). 

If India manage to leave either of these teams behind by April 2018, when the rankings will be cemented by AFC for deciding who goes to which pot, they will go into Pot 2, which means they will get 2 lower ranked teams in their group, which translates into a higher chance of progressing to round 2.

But the problem is that it has become tough for AIFF to get matches that would help them achieve that.

The plan was in place, though. India were supposed to play Palestine on 2nd October in an international friendly. If India beat Palestine in that, they would make significant progress in terms of catching up with one of the targets of their ranking hunt. A defeat could have left them far behind. It was a high risk - high reward situation but the Blue Tigers were ready to take the plunge.

But then Palestine pulled out.

Knowing what's going on with the rankings, the Palestine FA officials decided that it was too much of a risk to face India in an official FIFA friendly right now. They wanted to play an unofficial match but India didn't entertain that thought.

The match was made on the pretext of getting both teams some practice ahead of their Asian Qualifier matches in October; India are to face Macau at home and Palestine are visitng Bhutan. So it makes no sense for India to offer Palestine a vital practice game before they face Bhutan without getting a chance to get some ranking points out of it.

So the ranking prognosis comes to this: Palestine will almost certainly beat Bhutan. And if they do, their ranking points will go up to 418.

If India manage to defeat Macau, their ranking points will go up to 340. That still leaves a deficit of 78 points.

Now, let's come to Iraq. Until recently they had no match scheduled for the month of October. Their World Cup Qualifying campaign is over, and they have already qualified for the Asian Cup. So in this three-cart race, they were mostly a dormant observer.

Until they realised that with a win, Palestine would overtake them and India would close the gap between them. So they immediately scheduled an international friendly with Kenya.

Now, Kenya are tied in the FIFA rankings with Iraq. And playing them provides Iraq a win-win prognosis. If they win they will go up to 429 points. A draw would keep them at 413. And even a loss would mean a 5 points increase to 405.

It's obvious what they are doing; they don't want to be anywhere near Pot 3 come April. And they will schedule regular matches to ensure that.

So all 3 participants in this race are now active. And India are at a significant disadvantage compared to the other two.

Which is why even when the Asian Cup qualification becomes guaranteed, Team India cannot relax. They will have to play every Asian qualifier as a must-win game so as to make the most of the increased ranking points available from those matches.

And just playing the qualifiers will not be enough. They have to schedule friendlies too on every date possible. Because the other two teams certainly will. 

And there isn't much time left to organize matches. India have presumably missed out on the October FIFA friendly dates due to Palestine pulling out (unless they pull off some last minute miracle). The next FIFA matchdays are November 6th to 14th. India play Myanmar at home on 14th so they will have to get a good opponent to play a week before that. And then there is a 4 month gap for international matches in the FIFA calendar. The next FIFA dates are in March 2018, which means India will have one more chance to play a friendly before they take on Kyrgyzstan away from home.

Now, the FIFA ranking is a complex business and the writer of this article does not have a full grasp of it. There can be some factors in play that help India. Palestine and FIFA may suddenly lose a bunch of past ranking points that they cannot make up despite scheduling friendlies. (Iraq scored some crucial wins against North Korea, China and Yemen leading up to March 2014 and Palestine got a WAFF Championship draw with Saudi Arabia back in December 2013, and they will lose those ranking points before April) Or they may lose a match or two. The software engineer who is helping AIFF out with the ranking maths is definitely keeping an eye on all those possibilities but one cannot count on all factors to fall into place.

Which is why India's task to overcome either Iraq or Palestine with just about 4-5 matches to do it is such a tight prospect. Each match the Blue Tigers play will be must-win. And we may see India play a significantly higher ranked team by March in their attempt to turn the tables on the other two.

What India need is another Puerto Rico moment, and whether or not India manage to go beyond the first round of Asian Cup finals for the first time since 1964 may depend on it.

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