World Cup Qualifying

[EdG567]

Being new to the sport I enjoyed watching the World Cup. However, I still do not understand the principal of qualifying for it, as simple as it may be. I understand a certain number of teams come from each region. How many and from where? If some one could clarify this for me it would be greatly appriciated. Thanks. Looking forward to 2010!

[ECUNCHATER]

There are 6 confederations. CONCACAF (North America, Central America, and Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America), UEFA (Europe), OFC (South Pacific), CAF (Africa), and AFC (Asia).

Each region gets a certain number of spots. They all use different formats for qualifying. This past World Cup CONCACAF was given 3.5 spots, Asia 4.5, Africa 5, South America 4.5, Europe 14, and Oceania .5 spots. The .5 spots means a team had to play against someone else from a different confederation for a spot in the World Cup. The FIFA playoffs went like this. CONCACAF #4 vs Asia #5. Oceania #1 vs South America #5. Six of the second place teams from Europe also had to play against each other in European playoffs for the final 3 spots. Go to the World Cup website and click on "Groups & Standings," then click on preliminaries and read how each region qualified.

[EvanJ]

For the 2006 World Cup:

CAF (Africa) got 5 teams. Most teams played head-to-head two games (one home game for each team) to reduce the field to 30. Then there were 5 goups of 6 double round-robin (each team hosts and goes to each other team in the group). Each team that got that far played 10 group games. Togo, Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Angola, Tunisia, and Ghana were the five qualifiers.

UEFA (Europe) got 14 teams. The host Germany qualified automatically. The other 51 nations were drawn into 3 groups of 7 and 5 groups of 6 with all groups double round robin as described above. The 8 group winners and the two best second place teams qualified. The 8 second place teams were compared based on points (3 for a win, 1 for a draw, and 0 for a loss) excluding points the second place teams in the groups of 7 earned against the last place team in that group. The other six second place teams played three two-leg playoffs (each team hosts one game), with Switzerland defeating Turkey, Czech Republic defeating Norway, and Spain defeating Slovakia.

AFC (Asia) got 4.5 teams. The lesser teams played each other like in CAF to reduce the field to 32 teams who were drawn into 8 groups of 4 played double round-robin. The 8 winners were then put into two groups of 4 played double round-robin, with the top two in each group qualifying. Those teams were Japan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Korea Republic (South Korea). The two third place teams were Bahrain and Uzbekistan and they played a two-leg matchup (each team hosting one game). Bahrain won that and got the 0.5 spot which means they got a two-leg playoff with the fourth team from CONCACAF. Trinidad and Tobago beat Bahrain for that spot and Asia got 4 teams.

CONMEBOL (South America) has 10 members and got 4.5 teams to the World Cup. Each team hosted and went two every other team and each team played 18 games. The top four teams which were Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, and Paraguay qualified. The fifth place team was Uruguay and they lost to the first place team from Oceania (Australia) and CONMEBOL got 4 teams.

Oceania (OFC) had 12 teams competing for 0.5 spots. In the first round Australia and New Zealand were given byes and the other 10 countries were drawn into two groups of 5 which played single round-robin in one country. The top two from those two groups joined Australia and New Zealand in a 6 team final group which played single round-robin. Australia who finished first and Solomon Islands who finished second (New Zealand finished third and was eliminated then) played two games, one in each country, and Australia won easily and then qualified by a two-leg playoff against Uruguay.

CONCACAF (North and Central America and the Caribbean) had 34 teams competing and got 3.5 spots. In the first round the teams were drawn into 2 groups of 2 and 10 groups of 3, with one team in the groups of 3 and both teams in the groups of 2 receiving byes. The 20 teams not receiving byes played two-leg matchups. Then the remaining two countries in each group played two-leg matchups, and the 12 group winners made the semifinals. In the semifinlas, there were 3 groups of 4 played double round-robin (six games per team) with the top two in each group being the six teams that made the final round (Hexagonal). In the Hexagonal (played February through October of 2005), each team played 10 games, one home and one away against every other team. The United States (first), Mexico (second), and Costa Rica (third) qualified and Trinidad and Tobago (fourth) qualified by beating Bahrain from AFC as I mentioned before. Guatemala (fifth) and Panama (sixth) did not qualify.

Qualifiers for World Cup 2006 started in late 2003 and ended in November 2005. The World Cup draw was in December 2005.

[ECUNCHATER]

Also, South America was the confederation that started qualifying in 2003. If they use this schedule again then that means next year it all starts over again. You gotta love it.

[EdG567]

Thanks for the help. Kind of complicated with the berths and whatnot, but I think I get the idea.

[footballfreak]

Thanks for the help. Kind of complicated with the berths and whatnot, but I think I get the idea.

Yup, if you've never followed the qualifiers before make sure you do. IMO they're almost as entertaining as the finals themselves (and more painful if you're a Canada fan).

It starts all over again next year :D

Hopefully this time we can get 200+ nations starting (I think it was 197 for '06?).


Edit: Check out www.planetworldcup.com

Probably the one of the best world cup qualifying sites out there.