Draw for CAF qualification: Ivory Coast vs. Senegal Ethiopia vs. Nigeria Tunisia vs. Cameroon Ghana vs. Egypt (we all knew it had to happen this way for Bob Bradley, right?) Burkina Faso vs. Algeria Anyone have any guesses for who goes forward based on that draw?
Ivory Coast Nigeria Cameroon Ghana Algeira Would be the same five as last time, I believe. Egypt and Tunisia are the best bets to stop it from happening. Worst possible draw for Egypt. I'd make them favorites against anyone but Ghana, and maybe Cote d'Ivoire.
Why do I have a feeling I'm more likely to start dating Kate Upton than Jordan beating any SA side in that playoff?
Looking like you're gonna have to tolerate them being in again. We shall see. Can't believe who gets in is decided in two games. Makes me appreciate The Hex.
Which is why CONCACAF does it right, despite all the nay sayers. We give everyone a chance, yet we also eliminate the luck of the draw as far as the teams who have a realistic chance of qualifying. Not that it would work for Africa with so much parity, but Europe might consider looking at what we are doing. Perhaps they'd go to a similar multi-round tournament like Asia with more teams qualifying from the final groups than they have currently.
Just seems terrible to have so few games and have them be partially decided by plain old lady luck...or the weather...or...missing your best player to injury...etc. I hadn't looked at their qualification process in detail. Was shocked when I realized this is how it works.
CAF qualification sucks ass. Imagine steamrolling through a group with Honduras, Jamaica, and el Salvador. Reward? A home and home with Panama to see who goes to the World Cup.
To be fair, Africa only have this qualification method because they switched the ACON from even numbered years to odd numbered years, but even that, that's very little justification for the fact that a team could get upset over two legs and not make the World Cup. Then again, Africa isn't known for their consistency when it comes to teams qualifying (Tunisia was the only African team from the 2002 World Cup to also qualify for the 2006 World Cup. Ivory Coast and Ghana were the only holdovers from that tournament to qualify for the 2010 WC)
It's always going to be hard to have a good system out of Africa because they have a lot of teams, a lot of similarly talented teams, and only 5 spots. Europe's system works because they have 13 spots. CONMEBOL's system works because they only have 10 teams. Asia and CONCACAF work because they get rid of most of the minnows in early rounds. Designing a good system for Africa is harder.
CONCACAF had 35 members trying to qualify for 2014 CAF had 52. About half of CONCACAF is island nations of under half a million people that really don't ever have a chance to qualify for the World Cup. So having a couple opening rounds whittling teams 7-25 to only 6 teams and having them join the top 6 for two more rounds makes some sense. Still, if Panama finishes 4th and plays New Zealand, they'll have had to run a qualifying gauntlet of 22 games (4+6+10+2). Could have been 24 if the Bahamas hadn't dropped out of round 2. I don't think CAF has interest in playing that many games for qualification. But in order to have a more extended final round without playing more games, CAF would have to cut out a lot more teams earlier. EDIT: That's not to say they couldn't do better than this cycle, which had very few games. 2010 had a second group stage. 2006 had 6 team groups (though one group had Ivory Coast, Cameron and Egypt!). 2002 had everyone go through a two leg tie, eliminating half the teams right off the bat, then 5 groups of 5. But all of the systems had anything like the hex, Asia's final round, or CONMEBOL, with a final group or groups where multiple teams qualify from the group. In Africa, you're largely first or your out (except for 2010's first group stage, some second place teams advanced to the second group stage). Africa's process has always been difficult and unforgiving.
Actually it's too early to tell since we don't know how many teams from each confederation will be seeded. There could be anywhere from 2 to 4 seeded CONMEBOL teams (Uruguay and Colombia are both possibles), which makes it a huge variable. Anyway, don't look now but we've actually got a long but realistic shot at a seed. Not counting Brazil, we're sitting in 12th place and need to get up to #7. As it stands right now, four of the teams ranked ahead of us--Croatia, Portugal, Greece, and Uruguay--would be looking at going through a playoff to qualify for the WC. If any of those teams fail to qualify, that makes our task that much easier--if all 4 fail (highly unlikely), we would only need to pass one of the other teams ahead of us in order to get a seed. Right now the target would be Holland, which is 62 points ahead of us.
Isn't that largely the case for Africa too though?? The Nigers and Madagascars of the world are never going to qualify for the WC. 13 African teams have qualified for the WC, but of those four have only done so once. Africa's contingent of qualified teams is usually some combination of Nigeria/Cameroon/Ivory Coast/Ghana/Algeria/Tunisia/South Africa plus recently one or two random teams that squeak through and inevitably (with the exception of Senegal in '02) get jailsexed in the Finals. You could even add Egypt to that group as they're traditionally one of the strongest teams in Africa even if they've bombed out of qualifying every cycle since 1990.
Of course every region has minnows. But the situation between Africa and CONCACAF I really don't see as being comparable. Our minnows are much smaller in population with a lot less hope of ever qualifying. And even though Niger sucks, they managed to qualify for the last couple Africa Cup of Nations for the first time. They have 17 million people too, so it's not like they are Aruba or Grenada in terms of potential. So 9 African teams have qualified for more than 1 World Cup. Only 5 CONCACAF teams have. Bonus points for use of "jailsexed" but still, Africa's top teams are not nearly as dominant as CONCACAF's. Since the introduction of the Hex, the US, Mexico and Costa Rica have never finished outside the top 4. Meanwhile in Africa, look at 2002 to 2006. 10 total spots, 9 different teams qualifying, 5 of them first time qualifiers. Or to look at Africa's depth another way: Since 1990, 8 different nations have won the Africa Cup of Nations. In the same time period, only 3 nations have won the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Egypt actually helps my point. They won 3 straight Africa Cup of Nations from 2006-2010, yet failed to qualify for the World Cup during that time. Now they might qualify for the World Cup...after failing to even qualify for the last two Africa Cup of Nations. (They were last in their group for 2012 and fell in the first round to the Central African Republic for 2013) A team dominant enough to be champion 3 times in a row that can't make the top 5 in WC qualifying? And a team that might make the top 5 for 2014 but wasn't in the top 16 for 2012 or 2013? That's a perfect example of the depth and upheaval in Africa. Other recent examples: Zambia won the Cup of Nations in 2012 and Mali finished 3rd the past two Cup of Nations but neither has ever qualified for the World Cup and both didn't make it out of their group this cycle. A traditional power South Africa failed to advance over lowly Ethiopia, who has never qualified for the World Cup and whose 2013 Africa Cup of Nations appearance was their first in 30 years. Burkina Faso made the final of the 2013 Cup of Nations and is seeded in their matchup against Algeria, despite never having made the World Cup. Finally, I don't take much stock in rankings, but CONCACAF has 12 teams in the top 100 of the FIFA rankings while CAF has 26. Any way you slice it, Africa is much more internally competitive than CONCACAF. There are way more decent teams, and the top teams aren't as dominant.
Well yes, I imagine that's a big reason they aren't interested in a longer qualification cycle. CONCACAF has a long cycle because the top teams (US and Mexico) in essence subsidize the rest of the region with revenues from the Gold Cup. Until this past cycle, most CONCACAF teams were eliminated after only 2 or 4 games. Another (pointless) group stage was added because tiny Caribbean nations wanted to play more, and there's enough money in CONCACAF to make that happen, and they had the votes to force it.
There is absolutely no way that FIFA is seeding the USA ahead of the defending World Cup silver medalist, no matter how much they have to tweak the formula (and they obviously can put a defending World Cup silver medalist ahead of the USA very easily once they start basing part of the formula on World Cup performance.)
This is basically the issue. Canada is ranked 106 by FIFA. Canada actually did pretty well in their semifinal group. They picked up 7 points from Honduras, Panama, and Cuba at home. They beat Cuba on the road, and lost a tight game to Panama 2-0. They went into the last gameday with a chance to advance, and lost to Honduras. There are 30 CAF teams ranked higher than Canada in the FIFA rankings. These aren't minnows that deserve to be thrown out in an early home-and-away playoff like we eliminate the Caribbean minnows (and Nicaragua) in CONCACAF. This may be un-PC to say, but if CAF ever actually did better at the World Cup than CONCACAF than perhaps they could argue for more spots. But since 1990 CONCACAF teams have advanced to the knockout stages more often than CAF teams. They get 6 teams in, and only one advances every time. I personally think that if the 3rd (and/or 4th) CONCACAF representative does well in 2014, CONCACAF has a legitimate claim for a full 4th spot.
A lot still in the air as the seeds and teams go. But these are some of my realistic groups right now: Best Case: USA, Netherlands, Bukina Faso, Ukraine Middle Ground +: USA, Uruguay, Nigeria, Russia Middle Ground -: USA, Germany, Ivory Coast, Portugal Worst Case: USA, Brazil, Chile, Belgium This exercise has depressed me.