2014 was tied for both confederations Ecuador beat Honduras 2-1 Costa Rica beat Uruguay 3-1 Brazil tied Mexico 0-0 in 2010 it was clear who had better results Uruguay beat Mexico 1-0 Chile beat Honduras 1-0 Argentina beat Mexico in the knockouts 1-0 and Uruguay qualified over Costa Rica in the play off in 2006 Ecuador beat Costa Rica 3-0 Paraguay beat T&T 2-0 Argentina beat Mexico 2-1 so in the last 3 world cups Conmebol sides beat Concacaf teams 7 times 1 Draw and Concacaf had 1 victory
Progress to knockouts only reflects performance of the best teams. If you are increasing or decreasing spots it should be based on the performance of the teams finishing at the bottom of the groups.
If that is your argument, than more so to give that place to another team from Conmebol, as since the last 3 WC's, only 2 teams from Conmebol has failed to go through to the knockouts at the WC (Paraguay in 2006 and Ecuador in 2014), where in both of their cases, they were 3rd in their respectful groups. The 2010 WC, remarkably, even saw all of them to go through, where the only team that didn't make it to the quarters for that WC, didn't do so by losing against another team from Conmebol at the round of 16 (Chile's case vs. Brazil) In the same lapse (3 last WC's), for Concacaf, 4 diferent teams (one of them, in 2 succesive WC's) didn't make it through to the knock outs at the WC (Trinidad & Tobago, Costa Rica and USA in 2006, Honduras in 2010, Honduras in 2014), where each and everyone of these teams, finished dead last in their respecful groups.
It actually needs to be the performance of the teams at the bottom of the groups against the teams not in the tournament. Which we can only post conjectures on. It will come as a surprise to many here (at least, it will to their analyses), that no matter how you choose the 32 teams - even if you choose the best 32 teams in the world - 8 teams will finish last in their group. If a confederation had the 29th, 30th, 31st and 32nd best teams in the world - then 4 last place finishes would be entirely understandable. And it wouldn't mean they shouldn't have been there. J
We could use the sheer amount (and validity) of arguments here to elaborate several thesis on the best and most reasonable allocation for any given confeds taking every single factor into account to make the best WC possible... But the realpolitik of FIFA boils it down to just money, potential viewership and political leverage of Feds, Confeds and nations...
If strengths were correct the six (five?) confederations would share bottom placed teams. Each confed should have 1-2 bottom placed teams. Confeds with no bottom placed teams were probably under represented, and confeds with 3 or more were probably over represented. At the last world cup it was our confederation that was over represented and Conmebol under represented. The one before Europe and Africa were over represented, Conmebol under represented again. In 2006 it was CONCACAF and AFC who had too many teams, and again South America with no bottom placed finishers. OFC also had no bottom placed teams, but only sent teams on two of the three occasions. As for my opinion and a way to address the point you raise about a confed having four teams ranked 25-32, I am in favour of more inter confederational playoffs to get a better balance of current strength.
No - not at all. If a confed has the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 100th best teams then their teams will only finish 1st in their groups if the seeding is correct. That would not imply that the 100th best team in the world should be added to the best 32 just because the confed they are in had no 4th placed teams in any groups. Again, in the correct seeding the 25th-32nd best teams in the world will finish last in their groups. I have no doubt that AFC teams aren't often in the top 10, or 16 in the world, so I expect very few of them to advance. Why would they - teams 17-32 in the world SHOULDN'T REALLY ADVANCE VERY OFTEN. You can argue that you THINK the allocations are wrong - and you might even be correct - but thinking that the number of 4th placings proves your point is actually not correct. At best (and that actually assumes that the seeding is fair - which you could probably argue from this edition onwards, but less so before) it shows they are not in the top 24. J
Exactly. It's the last teams that make the whole field weaker. There are 32 teams in world cup not 16. It's the teams that are in the top 24 that make the whole tournament competitive.
The group stage in the tournament with 48 teams will look like an intercontinental round before the real deal starts. And uefa and commebol having teams separated in each group and knowing there will be 16 seeds will get even more chances to have a run. You will have more asians and african teams in the world cups but less in the top 32. While i expect concacaf to remain more or less the same.
As Gab Marcotti pointed out recently on ESPN - if you want to get the best 32 teams, you don't play MORE interconfederational play-offs, you play NO GAMES AT ALL, you just say who they are (probably not using FIFA ranks though). Matches are inherently random, everyone but maybe Conmebol will be at the vagaries of the draw - and even Conmebol was affected by illegitimate player choices (I mean, no challenge on the Bolivian [?] guy and Chile is still alive). There is so much luck involved - personally I thought Australia 2002 were better than Australia 2006 - but guess who got lucky on the day (and thankfully so, I had a lot more money in the bank by 2006). The other issue with interconfed play-offs (with having a large number of them I mean) is that it makes selling TV rights much more difficult. The value of the US rights have been boosted by the fact that the US is guaranteed a spot* with 3 (+ a safety) in Concacaf. But imagine if that weren't the case - if it were just 1 spot + 5 playoff chances. This is not a game - this is a business (sorry to keep bringing this up) - it competes against other sports in the business market place - one that desires a level of certainty to ensure that money spent in advance has a solid chance of being turned into profits. J * - this is irony. Very funny irony I grant you (well, it's funny from where I sit before my guys head to San Pedro Sula as well)
Are you Gab Marcotti in disguise? This is pretty much his point from the ESPN discussion back in September. Frankly, the 48 team thing is going to be quite weird with a sort of intro phase with 48 matches of which half of the people are going to care about 5 of them (the random top seed v good 2nd seed) and the rest are going to care about how their "maybe we make the last 32 by beating that other useless team in the group". J
CAF - 9 games to qualify for the World Cup still some games to play CONMEBOL - 18-20 matches, and Brazil has qualified in March, 7 month ago... You will never figure out fair balance between such different systems. I would also note a huge disadvantage for UEFA: when CONMEBOL play 18-20 matches in qualifications with quite huge competition... Chile UEFA teams have 10-12 games with just about 2 serious teams on their way. I really would like to see our team having more competitive qualification matches on their way to the final tournament. That should make stronger squad as the result. p.s. The Only 100% fair option is to eliminate all confederations and make global tournament where all teams have same chances to meet each other. But in this case we will see much worse scores than Australia 31–0 American Samoa. No, thank you....
This is what I was thinking too. IOW, be careful what you wish for CAF and AFC. Difficult to see AFC teams outside the top 4 or 5 progress beyond the group stage as there is quite a drop-off in quality. Also one would expect the weakest 3-4 AFC teams to get relatively tough groups, including some with both a UEFA and CONMEBOL team in their group. Furthermore, one wouldn't expect all of the top 4 AFC teams to advance either. So yeah, "only" 17.5 UEFA+CONMEBOL teams get to the final 32 currently. With a combined 22 spots in the 48 team WC, its hard to see how less than 18 advance to the Round of 32.
It is not what i wish lol i know that most of the time i sound like i defend uefa a bit too much, this reaction started here from the hate i saw toward europe. The other day one guy from africa says it is cause of europe that africa is decades behind...sorry but what is the link between croatia serbia poland etc and the situation in africa? It is not all the countries from europe that went to africa to make their things. The guy thinks only africa suffered? Does he know about balkanic countries being under ottoman empire domination for 500 years? And war in ex yugoslavia in 90ies? When it was not roman empire? Austrian hungarian empire? I am sure the guy even doesn't know that tito and yugoslavia helped algeria in their independance war from france. Seems some people here don't get that many european places have been in middle of wars too for centuries. Europe is not only france germany uk spain italia and portugal. I agree with you about the 18 from uefa commebol reaching the top 32. I even think it could be 19-20.
The same thing happened when the World Cup expanded to 24 (and now 32) previously an Asian team was guaranteed a spot in the final 16, but since the World Cup expansion in 1982 there's been many times where no Asian team made it to the last 16 (1982, 1986, 1990, 1998, 2014).
Peru, a so-called top 10 team, can't even get a win against New Zealand (ranked 122nd, of the teams that can still qualify it's the lowest ranked one by faaaaaar). Peru were really poor, toothless, worse than dogshit, calling Peru llamashit would be too kind. Seeing the Peruvians were diving and fouling so much, the Kiwis deserve the lovable underdog tag even more so than before. Who knows, maybe the Kiwis will qualify with an away goal, maybe Peru will succumb to the pressure, ... It would be great if the Kiwis reach the World Cup (and as a pleasant bonus: no crappy Peruvian pan flutists).
I have affection for Peru due to my girlfriend and i hope they will go through. But there are people that think that this team is better than Poland? Seriously?
So what? You original suggestion was that Conmebol is more deserving of WC berths than Concacaf. Well, there should be other confederations to take spots from not called Concacaf.
That's the same idea, really. Teams from certain confederations going past group stages usually means teams from other confederations going out. Why should placing matter?
Even though Greece are all but eliminated and Croatia are virtually qualified for Russia ... Serbia can still end up in pot 3 ... it doesn't matter if Honduras or Australia qualify (either team is ranked lower than Serbia) ... what they need is the Kiwis to pull off the upset win over Peru ... at this point that's more likely than Greece ending up in pot 4/eliminating Croatia/helping Serbia into pot 3. Oh yea Peru's elimination could help Croatia into pot 2 instead of pot 3 (avoiding much stronger teams).
I know that if Croatia goes through and that one of Peru Italia Swiss does not, Croatia will get pot 2. But i prefer to have the best opponents there even if it means pot 3 and pot 4 for Croatia and Serbia. Actually it's the first time since a while i even don't care about the pots. I feel our time came to have a run again whoever we got to face. if Croatia is in. Teams that would have to face Croatia in few months are in trouble. Whatever our pot is.