Could the USA qualify to the WC out of Comnebol?

[CHICO13]

Originally posted by Rafael Hernandez
Bolivia was pure crap and yet they had a huge run of being undefeated in La Paz. They crushed Brazil and Argentina had to get a miracle tie.

The team that endend the streak was Ecuador, not coincidently, the team the play in the second highest city.
I assume you are refering to our team that tried to qualify for the 2002 Cup. Our team that qualified for the '94 Cup won their fare share of road games to send us to our first World Cup ever.

Anyway, I think that the US team that went to Japan/Korea would have qualified in COMNEBOL.

2006?? Depends on what kind of team Bruce puts together.

[BudWiser]

CONCACAF countries:

Anguilla
Antigua and Barbuda
Aruba
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Bermuda
British Virgin Islands
Canada
Cayman Islands
Costa Rica
Cuba
Dominica
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
French Guyana
Grenada
Guadeloupe
Guatemala
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Jamaica
Martinique
Mexico
Montserrat
Netherlands Antilles
Nicaragua
Panama
Puerto Rico
Saint Lucia
Saint-Martin
Sint-Maarten
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Vincent and The Grenadines
Suriname
Trinidad and Tobago
Turks and Caicos Islands
US Virgin Islands
USA

[chaski]

Originally posted by Heist
The fact that the federation is in shambles and Salas is always hurt doesn't help your case. I don't expect them to make the top 10 in the next CONMEBOL qualification. I guarantee that Chile will make the top 10 in CONMEBOL. :p

[speedcake]

Originally posted by Alex_1
Are you suggesting that the venue would have very little in the outcome? Are you suggesting that Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador are crap teams?

I for one have certainly pointed out more than one reason why it would be far from a cakewalk for the US.

I'm suggesting that instead of pointing to team's strengths most in here are pointing to where we would play, to seemingly make up for the crap on the field. :)

And no, not suggesting that ALL those teams are crap, but none of them are world beaters. None of them are threats to win the World Cup. None of them consistantly make the world cup, nor do that well when they get there. (Of course I acknowlege that way back in the day Uruguay did very well at the WC.) Yadda yadda yadda...

Honestly, all playing aside, I would expect the U.S., and Mexico, to be among the teams to beat. No one can say we would or would not qualify. But to just write the U.S. off by claiming the venues are any tougher than central american venues, and Mexican venues, is a silly argument. Same silliness as saying the U.S. would undoubtedly qualify no matter what!

I'm just spewing fun trash in this meaningless thread. Is that so wrong?! ;)

[Alex_1]

Originally posted by Heist
How about lets just put the teams in tiers based on recent performances:

Tier - 1
Argentina
Brazil

Tier - 2
Uruguay (maybe 3)
Paraguay (maybe 3)
USA
Costa Rica (maybe 3)
Mexico

Tier - 3
Ecuador
Colombia (maybe 2)
Honduras

Tier - 4
Bolivia
Chile
T&T
Jamaica

Tier - 5
Peru
Venezuela
El Salvador
Guatemala
Canada

Sorry dude - I don't follow. How is this subjective? If it is recent performances, then IMO Brazil would be a tier 3 or 4. What constitutes recent performances? Friendly results or the World Cup almsot a year ago (or selective results that benefit the US position :D )?

[JohnR]

Originally posted by Heist
How about lets just put the teams in tiers based on recent performances:

Tier - 1
Argentina
Brazil

Tier - 2
Uruguay (maybe 3)
Paraguay (maybe 3)
USA
Costa Rica (maybe 3)
Mexico

Tier - 3
Ecuador
Colombia (maybe 2)
Honduras

Tier - 4
Bolivia
Chile
T&T
Jamaica

Tier - 5
Peru
Venezuela
El Salvador
Guatemala
Canada

This is a good way of looking at things.

I'll tackle the original question and consider the U.S. only in COMMEBOL.

Based on the past 5 years, with a bit more emphasis placed on 2001, 2002.

Tier 1

Argentina
Brazil

Tier 2

Colombia
Paraguay
U.S.
Uruguay

Tier 3

Bolivia
Ecuador
Chile

4 to qualify? Realistically, that leaves 2 slots for the Tier 2/Tier 3 teams.

I give the U.S. a 35%, 40% chance of qualification. Maybe 50%, if feeling generous.

Yep, I'm happy staying in CONCACAF.

[Fkesoccer]

Originally posted by JohnR
This is a good way of looking at things.

I'll tackle the original question and consider the U.S. only in COMMEBOL.

Based on the past 5 years, with a bit more emphasis placed on 2001, 2002.

Tier 1

Argentina
Brazil

Tier 2

Colombia
Paraguay
U.S.
Uruguay

Tier 3

Bolivia
Ecuador
Chile

4 to qualify? Realistically, that leaves 2 slots for the Tier 2/Tier 3 teams.

I give the U.S. a 35%, 40% chance of qualification. Maybe 50%, if feeling generous.

Yep, I'm happy staying in CONCACAF.

Well done!
USA doesn't have a chance, and any reasonable soccer fan would know this. The only team the USA could MAYBE beat would be Venezuela (and who knows even then, because they have improved greatly).

I may be wrong here,but the bottom line is that USA should be happy to stay at the CONCACAF.

[Alex_1]

Originally posted by speedcake

I'm just spewing fun trash in this meaningless thread. Is that so wrong?! ;)

I know what you mean. I definitely post differently here than I do in rivalries. It takes people off guard.

I don't think anyone is saying it would be impossible. I don't think it would be impossible. I'm just not as optimistic at the possiblity for the US to do so - if that were the case that they had to qualify out of South America. Just gave a few reasons why. Of course when you add up player for player, there are areas where some teams will hold an advantage, and areas where some teams will be at a disadvantage. But of course there are many things that can compensate for one or the other. From tactis, gamesmanship, skill to luck, etc.

But in general, I think the US would be at a big disadvantage. Clearly, the level of competition is even a factor.

[loloy_vinotinto]

Originally posted by JohnR
This is a good way of looking at things.

I'll tackle the original question and consider the U.S. only in COMMEBOL.

Based on the past 5 years, with a bit more emphasis placed on 2001, 2002.

Tier 1

Argentina
Brazil

Tier 2

Colombia
Paraguay
U.S.
Uruguay

Tier 3

Bolivia
Ecuador
Chile

4 to qualify? Realistically, that leaves 2 slots for the Tier 2/Tier 3 teams.

I give the U.S. a 35%, 40% chance of qualification. Maybe 50%, if feeling generous.

Yep, I'm happy staying in CONCACAF.

What recent results? If you wanna play that game , compute that in the second leg of the WCQ Venezuela went 4-1-4 (beating Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay and Peru... and tied with Colombia) and in intl firendlies 3-2-3 (beating Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador, tying with Cameroon and Colombia) So if you play it like that Venezuela should be higher up on your rankings... but you can't do this, you can't play with indirect results that happened sometime a go...
Example: Chile defeats world champions France in Santiago, so does this mean they're automaticly #1? no, because 3 or 4 days later they lose, in Santiago to Venezuela 2-0... so is Venezuela now #1 in the world? NO

This is stupid... I quit this thread... I'm tired of the what if's... anyone who is interested in this should just call Dean Warwick or any other fortune teller and get it over with... or wait till the US joins the best fed in the world :CONMEBOL

PS: tip for future post: how would Michael Jordan play soccer? would he be a good golie? or If the US took over the Americas, what would be your team line up?

[Soccernova78]

Originally posted by Alex_1
That takes me back. I did see both matches. I also saw the return legs - and the US far from dominated IMO. They held their own. But they didn't dominate. In fact, I'd say they were very lucky in the Guatemala match in the USA. But the result is all that matters.

You cannot undo the match. A shame things didn't go the way they would have wanted it do in Central America. The Costa Rica match was unfortunate for them. But that happens in football. Ask Spain or Italy after the world cup. Also - those were in a four nation group stage which, **shouldn't** be more difficult than the final qualifying round. Now... some fans think it is exactly the same in South America...





Give us a bit of credit. :p I follow and am a fan of the US - just because I don't post here doesn't mean I don't know a lot about them. I know that the US is alwaysdealing with a "major" injury or injuries. Could it be training? Fitness? Bad luck? It doesn't matter. It's an excuse that's outworn it's worth. You start crawling down the depth and what's this? Lack there-of perhaps?

When the situation is reversed, US fans always get pissed at the other team for saying: "We didn't have our best players" :rolleyes: Isn't it funny how losses are tarnished and wins are justified? If you put that same situation into South America, where the qualifying is considered by some to be the most grueling in the world, I don't see the injury factor being any easier for the US. In fact, it might be greater. I always hear of complaining about the pitch in Barbados and the Carribean...

Gotta disagree with you there my man. I have both games with Guatemala from 2000 on tape (I tape all US WCQers) and have watched them many times since then. In Guatemala we clearly dominated the first half and were unfortunate to have had only one goal by halftime. In the second half we got a little too defensive and Guatemala was able get an equalizer from a player who had just barreled into Keller and Robin Fraser on the same play minutes earlier. He clearly should have been red carded for those challenges. At RFK the U.S. didn't play that well but did have total control of a match in which Guatemala bunkered in defensively and rarely if ever challenged the U.S. goal. We even were reduced to ten men in the second half after Eddie Lewis was sent off and still managed to get the all-important winning goal. We were hardly lucky.

With regards to the Costa Rica game I agree that unfortunate things happen and that's just part of the game. Where I disagree with you is when you say that the US "struggled woefully" in these games in Central America. That's clearly not the case given the fact that we easily could have had 4 points from those games and moved on to the next round without a sweat. And the next round BTW we managed to beat Honduras on the road.

I also agree that injuries are a part of the game and that you have to play through them over the course of qualifying. Obviously this is exactly what we did since we were stll able to qualify despite numerous injuries. And this is precisely BECAUSE of our depth not a lack thereof.The U.S got off to a flying start in the second round even with a few injuries. What was difficult about the Honduras and Costa Rican games in particular was the sheer number of injuries and the key players who suffered them. Among them, our best forward(McBride),our best overall player(Reyna), our hottest player at that time(Mathis), our most versatile player(O'Brien), and two forwards (Razov and Wolff) who had made significant contributions to our qualifying effort up until then. This isn't to take anything away from Honduras and CR, but unless you're Brazil or Argentina most teams would have major difficulties dealing with such an unlikely combination of misfortune for a couple games. Certainly most teams around the world would feel put upon to have to deal with such a set of circumstances in important games like this. But the U.S. dealt with it, perservered, recovered and were able to get though it eventually. In my opinion they would be able to do the same thing in South America even though the opposition might be a little tougher (and even that's debatable).

[Heist]

Originally posted by chaski
I guarantee that Chile will make the top 10 in CONMEBOL. :p
Sorry for the typo... I meant the top half of the 10 in CONMEBOL. :)

Alex_1, I don't know how you can say a team that won the world cup and has many of the best players in the world is a Tier 3 team...?
That kind of statement makes me question everything you say. I'm not selecting results to help the US. They US has lost to Argentina and Brazil recently and it has beat Mexico in the WC and in qualifying. They beat Venzuela, El Salvador, lost to Honduras and beat them, and beat and tied Ecuador, they tied Jamaica. There were probably more games that i'm not remembering right now. If someone wants to put out the whole list feel free. They US is doing well recently and would come in the top 5 of a 11-team CONMEBOL. I have to assume that a CONMEBOL that includes the US would get 5 slots. If there are still only 4 slots to be had I think it is very realistic to see the US doing really well at home in qualifiers and coming in ahead of either Colombia or Paraguay.

[Heist]

Soccernva78,
I have to cite one game though...
"Where I disagree with you is when you say that the US 'struggled woefully' in these games in Central America."
The US did totally struggle in the game against Costa Rica when Costa Rica clinched its trip to the finals. That's as bad as i've seen them look in years. The US didn't 'struggle woefully' overall, but did get completely outplayed in that game.

[Fkesoccer]

FACT:

Qualifiers have NOTHING,ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with fact. Friendly games do not have any basis in stats, less crowds, worse team, relaxed atmosphere.

In fact? the problem is:

USA IS NEVER GOING TO CONMEBOL

so why bother to make all those stupid charts,stats,tables,predictions, when...

its not gonna happen.

Period.

Fkesoccer

[JohnR]

Originally posted by loloy_vinotinto
What recent results? If you wanna play that game , compute that in the second leg of the WCQ Venezuela went 4-1-4 (beating Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay and Peru... and tied with Colombia) and in intl firendlies 3-2-3 (beating Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador, tying with Cameroon and Colombia) So if you play it like that Venezuela should be higher up on your rankings... but you can't do this, you can't play with indirect results that happened sometime a go...
Example: Chile defeats world champions France in Santiago, so does this mean they're automaticly #1? no, because 3 or 4 days later they lose, in Santiago to Venezuela 2-0... so is Venezuela now #1 in the world? NO

I guess that you don't quite get this notion of talking about general quality, which is a (relatively) timeless exercise. As in Holland didn't make World Cup 2002 and Senegal advanced to the quarterfinals, but Holland is Tier 1 and Senegal ain't.

But hey, a lot of people are just like you. Which is why most folks bad-mouthed Brazil & Germany 12 months ago, saying that they had "no chance" to win the World Cup.

Forget all the short term noise, it doesn't help the analysis one bit. Argentina is first tier, the U.S. is definitely behind, and Venezuela is further back still, regardless of whether it had a 1-year hot streak or not.

This is stupid... I quit this thread

That's fine. There are many other threads on many other topics on these boards.

[Heist]

FACT:
No one that I have seen is saying that this move should/will/might/can happen. Its still fun to debate this kind of stuff I think...

I have to slightly disagree... and say that sometimes friendlies do have a lot of relevance. The games right before any World Cup can be relevant because they include most or all of the best players from a country. Of course they aren't the same, but there are so few full internationals that are in qualifying or competition we need something else to base some judgement on. They have to be taken with a big grain of salt of course... but to say they have no relevance is wrong.

[JohnR]

Originally posted by Fkesoccer
Well done!
USA doesn't have a chance, and any reasonable soccer fan would know this. The only team the USA could MAYBE beat would be Venezuela (and who knows even then, because they have improved greatly).

I may be wrong here,but the bottom line is that USA should be happy to stay at the CONCACAF.

Uh, I said the U.S. had about a 40% chance or so.

So I don't think that we're exactly in agreement, pardner.

But hell yes, give me CONCACAF. In CONCACAF, the U.S. is clearly one of only two Tier 1 teams, and can therefore be expected to qualify for almost every World Cup.

I don't see how any fan can argue with that. In CONCACAF, the U.S. should qualify nearly every time. In COMMEBOL ... well, how could anybody argue that the U.S. should qualify every time? Even "the land of the free and the home of the brave" Jack Edwards would choke on that statement. I think.

[JohnR]

Originally posted by Heist
I have to slightly disagree... and say that sometimes friendlies do have a lot of relevance. The games right before any World Cup can be relevant because they include most or all of the best players from a country. Of course they aren't the same, but there are so few full internationals that are in qualifying or competition we need something else to base some judgement on. They have to be taken with a big grain of salt of course... but to say they have no relevance is wrong.

Yeah, that's the right way to think about friendlies.

If you don't consider friendlies, then you start to sound like those Euroschmucks who argued 12 months ago "Friendlies don't count, the only thing that matters are results, and the U.S. was last in the '98 World Cup, so you suck and you'll go nowhere in '02."

Good thinking, Eurobrains. Next time, read what Heist writes and learn a little.

[Alex_1]

Originally posted by Soccernva78
Gotta disagree with you there my man. I have both games with Guatemala from 2000 on tape (I tape all US WCQers) and have watched them many times since then. In Guatemala we clearly dominated the first half and were unfortunate to have had only one goal by halftime. In the second half we got a little too defensive and Guatemala was able get an equalizer from a player who had just barreled into Keller and Robin Fraser on the same play minutes earlier. He clearly should have been red carded for those challenges. At RFK the U.S. didn't play that well but did have total control of a match in which Guatemala bunkered in defensively and rarely if ever challenged the U.S. goal. We even were reduced to ten men in the second half after Eddie Lewis was sent off and still managed to get the all-important winning goal. We were hardly lucky.

With regards to the Costa Rica game I agree that unfortunate things happen and that's just part of the game. Where I disagree with you is when you say that the US "struggled woefully" in these games in Central America. That's clearly not the case given the fact that we easily could have had 4 points from those games and moved on to the next round without a sweat. And the next round BTW we managed to beat Honduras on the road.

I also agree that injuries are a part of the game and that you have to play through them over the course of qualifying. Obviously this is exactly what we did since we were stll able to qualify despite numerous injuries. And this is precisely BECAUSE of our depth not a lack thereof.The U.S got off to a flying start in the second round even with a few injuries. What was difficult about the Honduras and Costa Rican games in particular was the sheer number of injuries and the key players who suffered them. Among them, our best forward(McBride),our best overall player(Reyna), our hottest player at that time(Mathis), our most versatile player(O'Brien), and two forwards (Razov and Wolff) who had made significant contributions to our qualifying effort up until then. This isn't to take anything away from Honduras and CR, but unless you're Brazil or Argentina most teams would have major difficulties dealing with such an unlikely combination of misfortune for a couple games. Certainly most teams around the world would feel put upon to have to deal with such a set of circumstances in important games like this. But the U.S. dealt with it, perservered, recovered and were able to get though it eventually. In my opinion they would be able to do the same thing in South America even though the opposition might be a little tougher (and even that's debatable).

Fair enough. We will agree to disagree with some things. I think you are being a bit facitious with my wording when I said "struggled woefully". That's okay though. I will say that I think the US "struggled" to obtain the result they desired if it's better on the ear. :D But just as the US won in Honduras (first match), Honduras won in the US.

Anyway, I think CONMEBOL qualifying is tougher than CONCACAF. at the end of the day, that's the way I'll see it. I don't see the US doing nearly as well in CONMEBOL qualifying as they do in CONCACAF. The strength of the two regions is different.

The injury bit - that actually aides the argument against the US. What would make anyone think that the US will ever have the "team they need" to qualify through a far more rigourous and demanding qualification schedule? That's one of the reasons why the injury thing doesn't cut it anymore with me. They're always facing injury. So it is just something they have to deal with. If someone says that it is a testament to the US's depth that they managed to do so, I say "fair enough". But I would also look at as a reflection of the relative strength (or lack there-of) of their region.

[Alex_1]

Originally posted by Heist
Sorry for the typo... I meant the top half of the 10 in CONMEBOL. :)

Alex_1, I don't know how you can say a team that won the world cup and has many of the best players in the world is a Tier 3 team...?
That kind of statement makes me question everything you say. I'm not selecting results to help the US. They US has lost to Argentina and Brazil recently and it has beat Mexico in the WC and in qualifying. They beat Venzuela, El Salvador, lost to Honduras and beat them, and beat and tied Ecuador, they tied Jamaica. There were probably more games that i'm not remembering right now. If someone wants to put out the whole list feel free. They US is doing well recently and would come in the top 5 of a 11-team CONMEBOL. I have to assume that a CONMEBOL that includes the US would get 5 slots. If there are still only 4 slots to be had I think it is very realistic to see the US doing really well at home in qualifiers and coming in ahead of either Colombia or Paraguay.

I threw that out there as a black letter to see how you were coming up with the allocation of teams to their respective "rating". I'm a full blooded CBF fan. Of course I know the selecao! Your chart is for show, of course - and I don't totally agree with all of the allocations. But then again, I don't agree with FIFA ratings either.

I think Colombia isn't getting much credit - but they will show what they can do this summer in the US. They recently have gotten the better of the US in many encounters - the last of which by Penalty kicks in the Gold Cup.

[Soccernova78]

Originally posted by Alex_1
Fair enough. We will agree to disagree with some things. I think you are being a bit facitious with my wording when I said "struggled woefully". That's okay though. I will say that I think the US "struggled" to obtain the result they desired if it's better on the ear. :D But just as the US won in Honduras (first match), Honduras won in the US.

Anyway, I think CONMEBOL qualifying is tougher than CONCACAF. at the end of the day, that's the way I'll see it. I don't see the US doing nearly as well in CONMEBOL qualifying as they do in CONCACAF. The strength of the two regions is different.

The injury bit - that actually aides the argument against the US. What would make anyone think that the US will ever have the "team they need" to qualify through a far more rigourous and demanding qualification schedule? That's one of the reasons why the injury thing doesn't cut it anymore with me. They're always facing injury. So it is just something they have to deal with. If someone says that it is a testament to the US's depth that they managed to do so, I say "fair enough". But I would also look at as a reflection of the relative strength (or lack there-of) of their region.


I agree absolutely that injuries have to be dealt with and teams rarely ever have their first eleven when they need them. The U.S. almost never had the "team they needed" throughout qualifying yet they still managed to qualify. I think they could do the same in South America. My point with the Honduras and CR games in the second round was that the amount of injuries were so numerous and so crippling and that it would have been hard for any team other than the elite (Brazil or Argentina) to overcome them. The fact that those games were played only a few days apart made matters
worse. The U.S. got a little bit healthier a month later and clinched against Jamaica.

You're also putting the U.S. in a no-win situation with your arguments. You say that the U.S. is always facing injuries and its something that has to be dealt with. Yet when I bring up the fact that they indeed dealt with it and qualified you say well they were only able to deal with it because of the weakness of CONCACAF. Throughout WC qualifying the U.S. compensated for injuries, they're just a fact of life and they would remain so in CONMEBOL.
But unless you think that teams like Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia are much deeper than the U.S. there's no reason to believe that the U.S. wouldn't be able to qualify in S America.

Finally, I grant that Honduras beat us at home. I only brought up our away victory to rebut your argument that we "struggled" (woefully?) in Central America.