The first qualifiers will be in Asia, with the draw for them in February. Tonight CONCACAF had the draw for their first two rounds. The first 7 CONCACAF countries to be eliminated will be one from each of these pairs: Bahamas-Bermuda British Virgin Islands-Dominica Barbados-U.S. Virgin Islands Turks and Caicos Islands-St. Kitts and Nevis Nicaragua-Anguilla Belize-Cayman Islands Curacao-Montserrat
Gibraltar is still in appeals with the Court of Arbitration for the 210th spot in FIFA and their case is scheduled to be heard at some point in 2015. While I would say there is nothing automatic with $epp and Co, I'd argue that precedent says Gibraltar are heavy favorites in that case.
Fun fact, this is the first Cup where literally everyone is showing up, at least as far as the applications go. Nobody's chosen not to apply for entry, nobody's suspended from qualifying. (Of course, now everybody has to actually put a team on the field, but already we're in uncharted territory.) This means it's set to be Bhutan's maiden voyage (full disclosure: that's my own blog). It was going to be a 2010 qualifier against Kuwait, who would have murdered them, and in fact DID murder them 20-0 seven years prior, but Bhutan decided their stadium wasn't ready and pulled out. This time they'll draw either India, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Cambodia, Chinese Taipei or Timor-Leste. None of which I think they'll beat, but it'll be nice to have them in the field for once. Presuming they deem their stadium ready this time.
I have a CONCACAF prediction contest at http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads...up-2018-prediction-contest-round-1-r.2015731/ @ioppolo Would you like to make score predictions and enter?
AFC 2018 World Cup / 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualifying Round 1 Ties to be played Thursday 12 March & Tuesday 17 March: India v Nepal Yemen v Pakistan Timor-Leste v Mongolia Cambodia v Macau Chinese Taipei v Brunei Darussalam Sri Lanka v Bhutan http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/y...for-first-step-on-road-to-russia-2522561.html
Well, the travel issues appear to be about as minimized as they're going to get, which is always a concern in the early rounds. Timor-Leste might balk a bit going to Mongolia, but they got to Nepal just fine last time, so they should be okay. The next question is, which of those games gets the honor of kicking off first and officially sending the Cup on its way.
It's curious that AFC decide to skim just a few teams in the first round. I mean only 6 teams will be eliminated. This means that in the second round there will be a team like Guam going to play 8 international matches. Maybe something more than in all their history ... Besides, I found somehow disconcerting that it was chosen the 5-team-per-group format given that only the winner of each group and the best 4 runners-up will progress to the third stage. I also wonder what is the purpose of a group like the following (it's just a prediction): Australia, Maldives, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Chinese Taipei. That is, who could ever be the winner?
Part of it is that the groups serve as World Cup Qualifiers and Asian Cup 2019 Qualifiers. What they could have done is reduced the number of countries to 30 and then played 6 groups of 5. The top two in each group would advance in World Cup Qualifying and the top four in each group (assuming the host finished in the top four otherwise the worst fourth place team wouldn't qualify) would qualify for the Asian Cup, which will have 24 teams.
Africa did the same basic thing in 2010, and there they had two different host nations to juggle as well. Trying to settle two qualifying campaigns at the same time can be tricky.
I knew about the AFC2019 qualification. However, and as you stated, another format could have been implemented instead of this quirky one. The solution you offer fits best.
Out of curiosity, WC1998 was a "cursed" edition for 8 teams because since it, they failed to qualify to any following one. Austria, Bulgaria, Jamaica, Morocco, Norway, Romania, Scotland and Yugoslavia (incidentally, that was the last chance to see a team called Yugoslavia at a World Cup). At WC2014, Colombia was able to break this spell cast in 1998. I wonder if some of the above listed teams have any real chance to qualify (apart Yugoslavia, of course). Maybe only Romania.
With the European teams it just depends a lot on the draw. Scotland have a very good chance at pot 3, Austria Romania and Norway will probably all be there too. From there, it's certainly not easy, but there's a number of teams in Pot 2 that you would fancy those teams against head to head for that second spot. I'm not sure what can possibly happen with Morocco, but since 98 we have seen a few African countries rise head and shoulders above the others and it's hard to imagine them relinquishing those spots with any regularity. Jamaica, they are always going to be a fringe candidate but in the CONCACAF hex format, you only need to be really good at home, and Jamaica has shown they can do that in the past.
Most of the times are now up at FIFA (http://www.fifa.com/world-match-cen...nts/fixtures-results/date=20150301/index.html), these are GMT/UTC (then local time): 12th March 2015 Timor-Leste v Mongolia 07:00 (16:00) Cambodia v Macau 09:00 (16:00) Sri Lanka v Bhutan 09:00 (14:30) Chinese Taipei v Brunei Darussalam 11:00 (19:00) India v Nepal 13:30 (19:00) The only one missing is Yemen v Pakistan, but that's a long way west. It's six hours behind Timor-Leste so they'd have to kick-off before 10:00 local time to be first. If the return legs are the first time that any teams will be eliminated (i.e. ahead of any other confederation) then Timor-Leste or Mongolia are in the frame for that too: 19th March 2015 Mongolia v Timor-Leste 08:00 (16:00) Nepal v India 10:00 (15:30) Bhutan v Sri Lanka 10:00 (16:00) Pakistan v Yemen 10:30 (15:30) Macau v Cambodia 12:00 (20:00) Brunei Darussalam v Chinese Taipei 12:15 (20:15)
No eliminations yet of course, but some surprising and interesting results in the Asian zone first round first legs today so far. The worst team in the world rankings, Bhutan, have won 1-0 away in Sri Lanka. As well as taking a lead to the second leg they will have guaranteed a rise from the bottom of the rankings. Brunei won 1-0 away in Chinese Taipei While there were good home wins for Timor-Leste (4-1 over Mongolia) and for Cambodia (3-0 over Macau)
And what is more, that Bhutan win means that they are the only country in world football to have a 100% in World Cup football! That was their first ever World Cup match, and they began with a nice win. Let's see how long that record lasts.
And to think that we were so close to having all 209 FIFA Members participating in the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers. YOU HAD ONE JOB ZIMBABWE
or Nigeria, or Sierra Leone, or Maldives. If not paying your coach is a capital offense there are a LOT of countries in trouble