should counrty like usa ,mexico ,costa rica and others reveive byes

[ranul]

should certain countries recieve byes to the semi finals or should all country by treated as equals

[Sachin]

I vote no. Make everyone go through the same process. Just make the process shorter.

Sachin

[desertfox2]

I voted yes because teams like USA, Mexico, and Costa Rica deserve byes. These teams have proved that they don't need to play the weaker teams in this region early on. It's so dumb that they have to travel down to the carribean and defeat teams 10-0 and risk injury at the same time. Byes would avoid this.

[Crazy_Yank]

I agree. It is ridiculous for the top teams to play in the 1st round. How would the US blowing out Puerto Rico 20-0 help the sport? Not to mention these 3rd world back waters can't even maintain a proper field.

[EvilRick]

Hell Yes!
Next question.

[Various Styles]

Originally posted by Sachin
I vote no. Make everyone go through the same process. Just make the process shorter.

How would you make the process shorter without giving certain teams byes !?!? I liked the previous WCQ format because in the first rounds the weaker teams would get left out and imo had a better chance of advancing than they will by facing the stronger teams early on. This current process only forces all the teams to play extra meaningless games against countrys that dont even have football leagues or fans..

[Levante]

Originally posted by Sachin
I vote no. Make everyone go through the same process. Just make the process shorter.

Sachin

I vote Yes.

Also Sachin, you risk serious injury when teams play on fields that aren't kept up for international play.

[IASocFan]

If everyone makes money on the new format, then we'll see it again. Particularly if the seeded teams bring lots of fans to the D pot games, and sell lots of seats to their home games. The A pot teams can try new players, and put on a good show, then everyone can win.

If all the teams that deserve byes win their games by double digits and no one wants to see the games, then CONCACAF will probably rethink their plan.

The key is marketing to the participating members and their fans.

[ricostarica]

There should be these "byes" since injury is a big problem. Some of the not-so-big teams don't have the football to play well and result to more kicking (as some central american countries I will not mention). Also, some teams have important players in more prestigious leagues and would be hard to withdraw them for a game let's say against Barbados (sad memories). Teams such as the United States have players such as Friedel, Reyna, McBride and others in Europe and is hard for them to come to play against weaker teams. Such is the example which occured with Trinidad and Tobago where Sir Alex Ferguson became angry with Dwight Yorke since he came to as Fergie said, "worthless" games. With that (and night life), Yorke was dropped off the ManUre team. Oh, and one last thing, if a team plays without its star players against another team, it is more likely that they will lose the game seeing as how it isn't the country's actual starting eleven

[gabe]

no team should receive byes, every nation of the world should get as much of a chance to go to Germany, even though im Costa Rican of a country that wins some big games and loses to barbados, it isnt fair to those nations who have players who are carpenters etc who WANT to play, and this mexicans really piss me off "waste of time?" shut up!!!!!!!! i hope aruba pulls of a 10-0 on ur a**! good luck to costa rica, usa, honduras/guatemala/trinidad= i dont care who is the third,, any1 cept mexico

[Sachin]

Originally posted by Various Styles
How would you make the process shorter without giving certain teams byes !?!? I liked the previous WCQ format because in the first rounds the weaker teams would get left out and imo had a better chance of advancing than they will by facing the stronger teams early on. This current process only forces all the teams to play extra meaningless games against countrys that dont even have football leagues or fans..

My proposal in the other thread on this topic is simple. It's shortened here:

There are 23 teams who have registered to take part in World Cup qualifying.

Pot A: The six teams participating in the 2001 Hexagonal
Pot B: The six teams who made the semifinals but did not make the Hex.
Pot C: The six best remaining teams
Pot D: The leftover five.

Have 5 groups of 4 teams each and 1 group of three teams.

All six groups play every team in their group in a home and home league with the first place team advancing to the Hexagonal. For the 4 team groups, this means 6 games per team. For the three team group, this means 4 games per team.

The six group winners meet in a Hexagonal tournament where each team faces all others in a home and home league. All six teams play 10 games. The top three teams qualify directly to the World Cup while the 4th place team faces the playoff.

Teams play either 14 or 16 matches (depending on the first round group) or if they make the playoff then it's 16 or 18 matches. This is in comparison to 18 to 22 matches at present.

This system is simple and fair. The big teams do have to face a minnow or two but the total number of games goes down.

As for the injury arguement, injuries can happen on any pitch at any time.

Sachin

[Kevin Etzel]

Originally posted by IASocFan
If everyone makes money on the new format, then we'll see it again. Particularly if the seeded teams bring lots of fans to the D pot games, and sell lots of seats to their home games. The key is marketing to the participating members and their fans.

Just my opinion, but I foresee few Nats fans travelling to a Carribean island or Nicaragua next spring to watch the Nats crush the other team. There were much less than a hundred Nats fans that travelled to Jamaica and Costa Rica, for example, during the qualification for 2002. Perhaps there will be some ex-Pats seizing the opportunity to see the Nats play, but I doubt a sizable number. We shall see.

[ricostarica]

Originally posted by gabe
no team should receive byes, every nation of the world should get as much of a chance to go to Germany, even though im Costa Rican of a country that wins some big games and loses to barbados, it isnt fair to those nations who have players who are carpenters etc who WANT to play, and this mexicans really piss me off "waste of time?" shut up!!!!!!!! i hope aruba pulls of a 10-0 on ur a**! good luck to costa rica, usa, honduras/guatemala/trinidad= i dont care who is the third,, any1 cept mexico

That's pretty harsh to say to Mexico, but on your other argument I can't agree. If the teams are good enough to play with the "larger" teams, they should be able to beat other teams like themselves that haven't proven themselves. To make the "larger" teams is unfair because they can't field their true teams like Costa Rica's failed request to get Winston Parks. The little teams have a chance to beat teams that are "new" since they have nothing to lose

[nicodemus]

i voted yes. the teams that get the byes are the ones that made it to the world cup previously, so i don't see anything wrong with a little reward. if they suck, they'll get weeded out in later rounds and a different team will earn the bye next time. no problem as far as i'm concerned.

[Heist]

Originally posted by IASocFan
If everyone makes money on the new format, then we'll see it again. Particularly if the seeded teams bring lots of fans to the D pot games, and sell lots of seats to their home games. The A pot teams can try new players, and put on a good show, then everyone can win.

If all the teams that deserve byes win their games by double digits and no one wants to see the games, then CONCACAF will probably rethink their plan.

The key is marketing to the participating members and their fans.

I doubt many fans will go to games at D pot countries. Some would make nice vacations to be sure, but it isn't cheap to make that kind of travel arrangements. This probably mostly applies to Mexico, US, and Canada fans. Will others go in great numbers? I doubt it.
Will seeded teams get good showings at home games? I doubt it. I guess in the US we'll get a chance to play qualifiers in new cities with smaller stadiums. The top three teams won't all get into double digits, in fact I don't expect many double digit games. Still they won't be pretty. I expect lots of 6-0 or 8-1 types scores and a few 2-0 shockers.
I don't think the fans will be psychedA for this, nor will the players of the top teams. Pot teams should try some new players, but not a whole new squad...

Sachin, I like your system better than the one CONCACAF has proposed, but the only problem is if the Pot A and Pot B teams each win at home, not unlikely between say Trinidad and El Salvador or Jamaica and Guatemala or Hondras and Canada then it becomes a goal differential battle beating up on bad teams like Belize and Nicaragua. For some reason that doesn't sit well with me. I have the same exact problem with the way UEFA does their qualifying. Qualification (if we want to put the teams with the best chance in the Cup in '06) needs to be about how good teams perform against each other, not who can beat up on the weak team by the largest score.

[diablodelsol]

WCQ was one of the only things CONCACAF actually had right. Of course, they had to change it to remain consistant with all their other f-ups.

[SJJ]

Originally posted by Sachin
There are 23 teams who have registered to take part in World Cup qualifying.

Pot A: The six teams participating in the 2001 Hexagonal
Pot B: The six teams who made the semifinals but did not make the Hex.
Pot C: The six best remaining teams
Pot D: The leftover five.

Huh? Reread http://www.concacaf.com/news/article.page/1202

There are 35 teams mentioned, not 23. The actual pot D contains 23 teams. (It isn't that 23 is the overall total.) The actual pot numbers are A (3), B (3), C (6), D (23).

BTW, why three pots for the top 12 teams? Couldn't they just go into one large pot, and draw them into the 12 groups?

Maybe they want to put Pot A teams into Groups 1-5-9, B into 2-6-10, and C into 3-4-7-8-11-12. Then semifinal Group A would have winners of 1-2-3-4, B would have 5-6-7-8, and C would have 9-10-11-12. (Each semifinal group would have one Pot A team, one Pot B team, and two Pot C teams, if the seeded teams all won their groups.)

[Heist]

Originally posted by SJJ
BTW, why three pots for the top 12 teams? Couldn't they just go into one large pot, and draw them into the 12 groups?

Maybe they want to put Pot A teams into Groups 1-5-9, B into 2-6-10, and C into 3-4-7-8-11-12. Then semifinal Group A would have winners of 1-2-3-4, B would have 5-6-7-8, and C would have 9-10-11-12. (Each semifinal group would have one Pot A team, one Pot B team, and two Pot C teams, if the seeded teams all won their groups.)

Although it hasn't been confirmed (I don't think) that is exactly what everyone seems to be suggesting because they don't allow for any re-seeding after any rounds.