World Cup Football 2014 - The Draw - Part 2

Part 1 on my posts on the World Cup Draw introduced what I am calling a relative ranking. I've calculated this for all of the 32 teams using their FIFA rankings as well as the FIFA rankings of their opponents in the group stage. Sorting from highest to lowers and then plotting gives me this ...

I've added some color coding to help you see where I have broken the progression. Below -10 is red - the lowest blue value is -3.7 (USA), the next lowest value is -13.0 (NGA). So - I think that is a pretty clear break.

The break for the better teams was a little harder to select - I ended up going with above 15. The value just below 15 is 12.3 (GER) and the value just above 15 is 16.0 (NED).

The teams with red opponent strength ratings aren't making the final 16 (in my opinion). The teams with green opponent strength ratings are making the final 16.

Next, I'll resort these into their groups and look at the various groups in more details.