In Africa the last round in the group stage was played last weekend and the 10 group winners will next play play-off to decide which five countries that get tickets to Brazil. In group A, Ethiopia won the group after coming back from 0-1 in half time against CAR and winning finally with 2-1. In group B, Cape Verde won against Tunisia with 2-0 (goal by Platini!) and thereby also the group. In group D Ghana won against Zambia and thus also the group. In group E Burkina Faso won against Gabon and since Congo only drew against Niger, Burkina Faso will play in play-off. In group F Nigeria won against Malawi and thus also the group. In group I Cameroon won against Libya and thus also the group. In group J Senegal won against Uganda and thus also the group.

In Asia Jordan and Uzbekistan played 1-1 in Jordan, which means 0-0 at home is sufficient for Uzbekistan in order to advance to the next round (playoff against 5th South American country).

In North (and Central) America both favourites, Mexico and USA, lost against Honduras and Costa Rica, respectively. Mexico now falling down to fourth place behind Honduras.

In South America, Chile and Uruguay won their very important games. Chile very close to cash in tickets while Uruguay still struggling on 5th place but got some air down to Venezuela and Peru which lost these two important games.

In Europe, Belgium almost qualified as Serbia managed to draw against Croatia and Belgium is now 5pts ahead with two matches left. Greece got some hope in group G when Slovakia beat the group leader Bosnia and Herzegovina, which allowed Greece to climb up to the same points as Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Please see below for a more detailed analysis of the European groups and especially the question of which teams are risking to become the 9th runner-up and thereby missing the playoff.

As usual this table is based on 1,000,000 simulations and it shows the estimated probabilities that a team will qualify for the World Cup and the that they will win the World Cup. Columns 3,4,6, and 7 show how the chances have changed since Sep 1st and Apr 1st.

Country	Qual	Sep-01	Apr-01	Champ	Sep-01	Apr-01
Brazil	100	+0.0	+0.0	25.6	+0.0	+0.0
Japan	100	+0.0	+0.0	0.38	+0.0	+0.0
South Korea	100	+0.0	+1.8	0.26	+0.0	+0.0
Australia	100	+0.0	+21.4	0.13	-0.0	+0.0
Iran	100	+0.0	+58.5	0.017	-0.0	+0.0
Argentina	99.9999	+0.0	+0.0	8	+0.0	+0.0
Colombia	99.998	+0.4	+0.5	1.45	+0.0	+0.0
Netherlands	99.992	+0.0	+0.0	4.7	-0.1	-0.1
Spain	99.97	+0.4	+0.4	30.2	+0.2	+0.1
Germany	99.89	+0.0	+0.6	13.1	+0.0	+0.1
Italy	99.76	+1.7	+4.4	1.87	+0.0	+0.0
Chile	98.81	+5.3	+22.4	0.29	+0.0	+0.1
Belgium	97.9	+27.2	+47.3	0.14	+0.0	+0.1
United States	97.62	-1.7	+13.2	0.08	-0.0	+0.0
Ecuador	97.15	-0.2	-1.6	0.59	-0.0	-0.0
Costa Rica	95.93	+7.5	+48.3	0.009	+0.0	+0.0
Switzerland	95.2	-2.8	+0.4	0.24	+0.0	-0.0
England	94.5	+0.9	+1.3	4.5	+0.0	+0.0
Russia	91.5	+0.0	-7.5	1.14	-0.0	-0.2
Ivory Coast	89.6	-0.2	+1.3	0.66	-0.0	-0.0
Mexico	87.8	-9.0	-9.1	2.02	-0.3	-0.3
Portugal	83.4	+2.0	+9.8	2.21	+0.0	+0.2
Greece	82.7	+15.0	+15.0	0.18	+0.0	+0.0
Honduras	78.8	+30.0	+22.0	0.009	+0.0	+0.0
Egypt	77.7	-0.3	+3.2	0.021	-0.0	-0.0
Ghana	73.7	+13.5	+35.0	0.01	+0.0	+0.0
Uruguay	71.9	+28.8	+42.2	0.36	+0.1	+0.2
Croatia	70.3	-6.4	-18.4	0.64	-0.1	-0.2
Nigeria	68.2	+5.8	+16.4	0.002	-0.0	-0.0
France	66.5	-1.8	-2.0	0.47	-0.0	-0.0
Tunisia	64.4	-0.3	+7.8	0.002	+0.0	+0.0
Sweden	57.4	+7.4	-8.1	0.56	+0.1	-0.1
Bosnia and Herzegov	55.7	-19.8	-14.4	0.024	-0.0	-0.0
Cameroon	35.8	+10.5	+12.9	0.0002	+0.0	-0.0
Ukraine	35	+6.6	+23.7	0.018	+0.0	+0.0
Algeria	32.9	-1.5	+16.3	0.0002	+0.0	+0.0
Romania	30.1	+5.2	+5.7	0.031	+0.0	+0.0
Senegal	27.7	+6.6	+10.4	0	+0.0	+0.0
New Zealand	27.6	-8.4	-8.8	0.0003	+0.0	-0.0
Burkina Faso	18.4	+5.8	+13.5	0	+0.0	+0.0
Norway	17.4	+4.4	-2.0	0.007	+0.0	-0.0
Panama	11.8	-16.0	-44.1	0.002	-0.0	-0.0
Uzbekistan	11.6	-2.2	-63.0	0.0001	-0.0	-0.0
Ethiopia	11.5	-0.2	+7.8	0	+0.0	+0.0
Venezuela	9.5	-16.7	-45.6	0.005	-0.0	-0.0
Jordan	8.4	-1.7	-9.6	0.0001	+0.0	+0.0
Bulgaria	4.8	-3.7	-0.3	0.0001	-0.0	-0.0
Denmark	4.6	+3.7	-7.2	0.006	+0.0	-0.0
Montenegro	3.38	-2.0	-14.5	0.0004	+0.0	-0.0
Peru	2.54	-13.7	-6.3	0.001	-0.0	-0.0
Czechia	2.23	-15.9	-11.3	0.003	-0.0	-0.0
Iceland	1.65	+0.8	-0.6	0	+0.0	+0.0
Slovenia	1.12	+0.4	+0.9	0	+0.0	+0.0
Austria	0.97	-0.8	+0.6	0	+0.0	+0.0
Hungary	0.92	-5.7	-5.5	0.0003	-0.0	-0.0
Turkey	0.78	+0.2	+0.2	0.0004	+0.0	-0.0
Albania	0.63	-0.4	-0.5	0	+0.0	+0.0
Jamaica	0.5	-2.3	-21.5	0	+0.0	-0.0
Ireland	0.49	-6.6	-3.1	0.0002	-0.0	-0.0
Poland	0.39	-2.7	-5.1	0.0001	-0.0	-0.0
Israel	0.35	-1.5	-1.5	0	-0.0	+0.0
Slovakia	0.31	+0.1	-0.7	0	+0.0	-0.0
Armenia	0.17	+0.2	+0.2	0	+0.0	+0.0
Finland	0.08	-0.2	-0.2	0	+0.0	+0.0
Paraguay	0.07	+0.0	-0.6	0	-0.0	-0.0
Cyprus	0.0002	-0.0	-0.0	0	+0.0	+0.0
Estonia	0.0002	-0.0	-0.0	0	+0.0	+0.0

In Europe the nine group winners qualify directly and eight best runner-ups will play against each other to decide the last 4 countries. The last runner-up will, in other words, not get this chance in the playoff. To rank the runner-ups they are ranked with respect to their points, goal difference, etc. As some groups have 6 teams and one has 5 teams, the matches against 6th team in the group is ignored for teams playing in a group with six teams. The table below shows two interesting probabilities for all teams. Column 4 shows the probability that the team will get 2nd in the group. Column 3 shows the probability they will get to the playoff if they get 2nd in the group.

Group	Country	Playoff	2nd
D	Netherlands	100	0.025
I	Spain	100	0.530
C	Germany	100	0.957
A	Belgium	100	4.054
G	Bosnia and Herzegovina	99.998	60.495
F	Portugal	99.997	70.276
G	Slovakia	99.991	1.111
G	Greece	99.979	38.393
F	Russia	99.968	29.236
I	France	99.717	98.972
H	England	99.694	14.264
C	Sweden	99.024	90.987
A	Croatia	98.904	95.945
D	Romania	98.517	91.694
H	Ukraine	98.451	69.612
H	Poland	97.548	1.460
E	Switzerland	97.299	7.868
F	Israel	93.927	0.487
E	Iceland	93.208	17.189
I	Finland	92.439	0.497
C	Austria	92.004	6.161
D	Turkey	90.130	3.113
H	Montenegro	90.129	14.662
C	Ireland	83.505	1.893
D	Hungary	82.286	5.163
B	Armenia	74.413	2.297
B	Italy	70.597	0.331
E	Norway	58.186	60.457
I	Georgia	50.000	0.0002
E	Albania	48.626	6.121
B	Bulgaria	47.477	48.964
B	Denmark	41.911	28.440
E	Slovenia	39.191	8.346
B	Czechia	30.451	19.966
E	Cyprus	29.518	0.016
D	Estonia	27.500	0.004

The playoff in Europe will be seeded in such a way that the four best teams will play against the four not as good teams. This seeding is decided by the FIFA ranking and whether a country is seeded (as one of the better team) thus depends on which other teams that are qualified for playoff. The table below shows two probabilities. Column 5 shows the probabilities that a team will qualify for playoff and column 4 shows the probability that they will be seeded if they qualify for playoff.

Rank	Group	Country	Seeded	Playoff
1	I	Spain	100	0.5302
2	C	Germany	100	0.9570
4	B	Italy	100	0.2341
6	H	England	100	14.2209
7	F	Portugal	100	70.2746
8	D	Netherlands	100	0.0250
9	F	Russia	100	29.2272
10	A	Croatia	99.9994	94.8940
11	G	Greece	99.7572	38.3857
13	E	Switzerland	94.3283	7.6555
17	I	France	91.3758	98.6931
19	C	Sweden	51.4524	90.0999
20	A	Belgium	52.9867	4.0546
23	B	Denmark	7.2972	11.9197
24	E	Norway	5.7377	35.1779
26	G	Bosnia and Herzegovina	4.0429	60.4943
29	B	Czechia	0.2187	6.0802
31	H	Montenegro	0.0893	13.2155
32	D	Hungary	0.0730	4.2487
33	D	Romania	0.0778	90.3351
40	D	Turkey	0.0748	2.8063
41	C	Ireland	0.0063	1.5811
44	G	Slovakia	0.0450	1.1114
44	H	Ukraine	0.0007	68.5348
47	E	Slovenia	0	3.2712
50	B	Bulgaria	0	23.2470
56	H	Poland	0	1.4244
63	E	Albania	0	2.9765
68	C	Austria	0	5.6692
72	I	Georgia	0	0.0001
75	B	Armenia	0	1.7098
76	F	Israel	0	0.4578
83	D	Estonia	0	0.0011
84	I	Finland	0	0.4597
89	E	Iceland	0	16.0222
131	E	Cyprus	0	0.0049