Confusion over use of “avoir” vs “être” in “ne rien avoir de”

Question

I just read this sentence and while I understand the meaning, I don't understand what is going on in terms of the grammar or the alternative meaning for aura + rien. Is there some construction here that I don't know of.

Obtenir une place en quart de finale n'aura rien d'automatique.

Why aura and not sera? Why rien and not pas? Would ne sera pas automatique have the same meaning?

Answer 1

You can have these two forms:

Obtenir une place en quart de finale n'aura rien d'automatique.

Obtenir une place en quart de finale ne sera pas automatique.

The two have the same meaning.

The part n'aura rien d' is a conjugation of the exact expression: ne rien avoir de.

The nuance is that n'aura rien d' is stronger than ne sera pas: the former means that you are really really sure.

As @Aaron pointed on the comments, you can make a sentence with the same strength using “être” this way:

Obtenir une place en quart de finale ne sera en rien automatique.

In this case, we prefer avoir because with être the sentence is longer.

Answer 2

Yes, "ne rien avoir d'automatique" is equivalent to "ne pas être automatique", though a little stronger.

So why "ne rien" and not "ne pas" ? Well the opposite of the expression is "avoir quelque chose d'automatique" (rarely used, though) and the opposite of "avoir quelque chose" is "ne rien avoir" ("ne pas avoir quelque chose" is logically correct but less elegant).