Okay, so I might start dismissing New Zealand again. They just lost 2-0 to New Caledonia in the semifinals of the OFC Nations Cup. This obviously hasn't happened yet (the knockout stage of the 2012 OFC Nations Cup isn't part of qualifying this cycle), but the possibility is suddenly looking a lot more likely.
anything is possible in WCQ (I suppose). http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/preliminaries/news/newsid=1645657/index.html "the semi-final results means a Pacific Island nation will participate in the FIFA Confederations Cup for the first time" cool.
lots of space in that build-up from Regis to Kirovski to Jones. (RFK was shaking, really shaking, that afternoon after McBride scored.)
Yup, anything goes in CONCACAF qualifying. However.......................the cream always rises to the top at the end. AFter all the semi/hex matches, I almost always walk away thinking the 3 best teams have qualified. One thing that's changed dramatically over my time as a fan is the plummeting of the Caribbean nations. Both T&T and Jamaica have fallen out of the picture. Most people are predicting an all North/Central American hex this time. In the last hex, T&T was barely competitive. They only won one game, which was their home contest against El Salvador. Games in Central America are always a bastard. Games in the Caribbean never had the same vibe to me. The fans in the stands seemed to be there for one big party as opposed to a urine-throwing contest. Games in Central American make me quite nervous. I expect a couple of games like the one at Costa Rica last time, at which we're flattened. Oh, and the posters above are right. New Zealand are playing badly right now, barely getting by (and losing to) OFC minnows. I'd favor just about any Hex caliber CONCACAF team over them right now. I was looking at their roster for a recent OFC match and they had called up a guy in goal from the Fairfield Stags. That's a mid-major NCAA team for God's sake. You look at their roster and think..........damn, Canada would crush these guys right now.
maybe they won't get drawn into Brazil's Confed Cup group. maybe Brazil will revel in the delight of setting such a goal-scoring standard. could be good for the host country overall. yeah, but for the Pacific Islanders, it would/could be rough. although whichever of them gets the opportunity to go to the Confed Cup in 2013 it will be an overall "cool" experience, I am guessing. nice to see small(er) nations having success from time to time (even if that means "likeable/enjoyable" teams like NZ may miss out on some competitions).
did new zealand have all their players or was it domestic only?? all the jamaicans are running track these days thank you usain
they had access to all of their players (given it is a FIFA international date), but I'm not sure if they went with thier "best XI" -- as the match didn't have any bearing on WCQ (since the semifinalists all move on to the next round of 4 teams, although this current round will determine the Confed Cup representative from Oceania). Here's the game recap to see who NZ played and didn't play: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/preliminaries/oceania/matches/round=258398/match=300200739/index.html
Well, I suppose that there was one Confederations Cup where the host nation "randomly" didn't draw the OFC team -- although that was five tournaments ago, in 1999. However, both Spain and Uruguay (assuming both are excluded from Brazil's Confederations Cup group) are perfectly capable of scoring double-digit goals on New Caledonia or Tahiti. (New Caledonia and Tahiti aren't completely hopeless; they both had higher Elo ratings than, say, Antigua and Barbuda, even before the results of today's matches are taken into account. But the difference between Brazil-at-home or Spain and New Caledonia or Tahiti in Elo ratings gives a Elo win expectancy of 98.5% or higher. Unfortunately, I've never seen a good table of correlations between Elo win expectancy and expected goal differential.)
Ooh, ooh, we can estimate it from ESPN's Soccer Power Index, though: Brazil Attack 2.7 Defense 0.6 Spain Attack 2.6 Defense 0.5 New Caledonia Attack 1.1 Defense 1.9 Tahiti 0.5 Defense 2.4 Prediction systems often struggle to accurately characterize matches between teams with a large gap in quality, but let's plunge into it anyway. Brazil-at-home vs New Caledonia: (2.7 * 1.9) + 0.57 to (1.1 * 0.6) = expected 5.7 to 0.66 Spain vs New Caledonia: (2.6 * 1.9) to (1.1 * 0.5) = expected 4.94 to 0.55 Brazil-at-home vs Tahiti: (2.7 * 2.4) + 0.57 to (0.5 * 0.6) = expected 7.05 to 0.3 Spain vs Tahiti: (2.6 * 2.4) to (0.5 * 0.5) = expected 6.24 to 0.25 So double-digit goals might be stretching it.
how many goals did iran score on some oceania team i recollect 18 or something like that even the usa women don't do that
Iran 19-0 Guam may be the scoreline you're thinking of. Guam (part of the USA!) is actually an AFC team. They're also quite horrible; for example, New Caledonia 9-0 Guam was just last year.
THey had most of their players for this recent OFC match. They didn't have Ryan Nelson, who has been their inspirational leader. And they didn't have Winston Reid of West Ham. Other than that, they basically had everybody. And that "everybody" should still have been good enough to walk thru the OFC shrapnel. But we know how football goes......................the USMNT has struggled against minnows at times in the past. I think (could be wrong) some of the New Caledonia guys play in France. I don't think they're complete amateurs. Kinda like Guadeloupe. At least New Caledonia has been like that in the past..............
All of them play in France! Because, you know, New Caledonia and Tahiti are both parts of France. Kidding aside, Dominique Wacalie played in 2011-2012 for Sud Nivernais Imphy Decize, a club in CFA2 (the "A" stands for "Amateur"), at the fifth level of the French pyramid. Joël Wakanumuné played in 2011-12 for SO Chambéry Foot, also in CFA2. Judicaël Ixoée was a level higher, at FC Hyères in CFA. Iamel Kabeu played at AS Manu Ura in the Tahiti First Division. Other than that, the rest of the players seem to play in New Caledonia.
That flight from France back to N.Caledonia must be brutal, not to mention what it must be like for a Kiwi.
Except the overwhelming majority of players on New Zealand play in the Australian league. They do have some MLS guys, though. Jake Gleeson of the Portland Timbers, Dan Keat of the Galaxy, etc. Anyway, I think the point is that the 4th placed team in the Hex has a great opportunity to go thru. It's not like when Costa Rica had to play an eventual World Cup Semifinalist in order to make the trip. (Uruguay)
Good post. I agree in the main, especially about games in Central America. Panama is on the rise. Costa Rica and Honduras are always scary, and El Salvador and Guatemala almost always problematic. Still, I do see some hope for the Caribbean nations. T&T is on the slide, but I think Jamaica is recovering somewhat. And some of the other Island nations with some soccer pedigree (Haiti, Cuba, Guyana, Suriname) also appear to be heading up, somewhat. I think the switch in qualifying to give more games to mid-level teams will benefit them. As for the intercontinental PO, I heavily favor CONCACAF to beat Oceania. Moderate favorites over NZ, near to overwhelming against anyone else.
Haiti, Suriname and Cuba are on the decline their national teams saw better days in the earlier 2000's. Jamaica and the Puerto Rico Islanders are the only teams in the Caribbean that still compete in the region everyone else is being left behind and just beat each other. At this point the only non Caribbean teams that still loose to teams other then Jamaica or the Islanders are teams from Nicaragua and Belize however sometimes even they do better then teams like Grenada.
You seem to be conflating national and club teams. Which is problematic since Jamaican teams haven't been participating. I"m talking national teams. And though I tend to agree with your analysis: neither Suriname/Haiti/Cuba/Guyana are anywhere near where they were in their heydays, either winning CONCACAF or having club teams win CONCACAF, I think they are moving up from nadir a couple of year's back. Haiti from the earthquake, and their ranking of 71 is as high as they've been in quite some time (10 years). Cuba is qualifying for Gold Cup and made it to this round of WCQ with a bye, though they're ranking is low. Guyana is at least still alive at this point, which is progress of a sort. Harder to make the case for improvement for Suriname. I'm hoping we can get to the point where we can field 16 decent sides for the Gold Cup. USA + Mexico and the big 5 from Central America (Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala) and Canada seem a solid 8. Throw in Jamaica and T&T and you have 10. Seems like the best candidates for the next 6 are those Caribbean teams: Cuba, Haiti, Suriname, and Guyana among them. Maybe Nicaragua or Grenada for the other. Maybe I'm seeing those teams through rose colored glasses in my hopes they will improve.
I discussed national clubs because that gives you a sense of a nations football progress especially in CONCACAF were a lot national team players are domestic players. However if we are just looking at national team performance I would say Cuba, Suriname and Haiti are declining. Haiti's problems are understandable but its hard to say they are advancing given their recent performance in world cup qualifiers same thing is true for Suriname they both looked better in the 2010 cycle. Traditionally national teams are measured from WC cycle to the next and compared to the last cycle the top Caribbean sides look to be on the decline. Cuba's recent gold cup performance and the fact that they look no better today also makes it hard to say they are getting better. Last cycle they put up a fight in both the gold cup and WCQ this time it looks like they will come out pointless and badly beaten in both. Guyana has improved but not to a level they threaten anyone outside the CFU.
Can't say I disagree with anything you said, but I do believe things are looking up for the Caribbean nations. Jamaica I think has a legit chance to quality this year, though probably as the 4th team in CONCACAF. And I think the new qualifying schedule will help the smaller nations get more games. Though I will admit, progress is some cases is hard to measure in quantitative terms. Jamaica, Cuba, Guyana, and Antigua & Barbuda all did themselves proud yesterday. Relative to expectations, anyway.
The hex for the nats has always been about winning at home and drawing away (Save azteca and CR). As uninspiring as the A&B performance was, I don't see any reason why we cant that. The only team I see winning in the US is Mex, and that's only a maybe. For any other team to win here would be a "wheels come off" type of situation. So there's a whole bunch of points towards Brazil there. Those second tier nations do catch us or mex once in a while napping at home; but always seem to draw and drop a game at home they shouldn't. I don't see that trend ending. Further, we should be able to draw at 4 of these 5 (PAN, ES, GUA, HON, CR, JAM). Throw in a loss at Azteca, a surprise win away somewhere (HON? CR This time?) And we will be fine. I think part of the frustration comes from the fan base wanting us to win "pretty" with large padded scores. That just isn't how CONCACAF works, even for Mexico.
For the record, Tahiti are champions of Oceania. So, Confed Cup = Brazil (host) + Spain (Champs) + Uruguay (South America) + Mexico (CONCACAF) + Japan (Asia) + Zambia (Africa) + Tahiti (Oceania) + Europe. Group 1: Brazil + Spain/Euro + Mexico/Japan + Zambia/Tahiti Group 2: Uruguay + Euro/Spain + Japan/Mexico + Tahiti/Zambia