Finally getting some reactions from Federation presidents (translated)... Gerardo Paiz (GUA): I really don't know who made that decision. I can tell you that we only get notifications from Concacaf. I have only been at the head of the Federation for a month, so I imagine that decision was made in a Concacaf Congress. Yves Jean-Bart (HAI): We feel discriminated against in this decision. Manuel Arias (PAN): I didn't know anything about Concacaf making this change until this past weekend. Pedro Chaluja (former head, PAN): These changes were made back in 2017, that making the Hex would depend on FIFA rankings.
I am beyond shocked. Concacrap indeed. Worst and most ridiculous decision they have ever made. And they are known for making hilarious decisions. I think this was a move to get Canada in at last, like they will get enough points to get into top 6. Tiers, tiers, tiers, lets make all of our competitions have tiers. Hey, lets call FIFA and make 2026 with few tiers.
How? They are losing points after the Gold Cup, with only a win against Cuba, ranked around 190 or something, and a loss to lower-ranked Haiti. In the upcoming Nations League, they'll surely gain little by walloping Cuba twice more, as they are ranked so low ... unless they can somehow beat the USA ... twice. Canada's only hope is being best of the rest. Though perhaps that, and a home-away against number 4 is the best hope ...
Thanks. IF anyone else finds anything, please post. I'm very interested to find more info on how transparent this was or was not. Really have to wonder if some kind of vote buying was involved here.
Yeah. This is going to be very interesting. I know you get more points by beating better teams; but, if I am Canada, Panama, etc. - I am making sure I schedule friendlies for any open FIFA dates/paying Puerto Rico, Turks & Caicos and Virgin Island to play if necessary to build up any points. You even have to wonder, why not pay off some 3rd world dictatorrship to throw out a D team against you and grab some rankings points.
The limit depends on how many competitions there are. CONMEBOL doesn't have a Nations League. For 2018, Concacaf used 22 matchdays. If you add in the 2 that weren't used between Round 3 and the Semifinals, the 2 that weren't used because of the 2016 Copa America, and the 2 that weren't used between the Semifinals and Hexagonal, you get 28. There are 10 per year, and Concacaf had 3 years available minus November 2017 for interconfederational playoffs. This time, Concacaf is starting in September 2020, which is 14 matchdays later than when they started WCQs for 2018. World Cup 2022 will be later in the year, but the last qualifiers between two Concacaf teams will be in October 2021, which is equivalent to when the Hexagonal ended on October 2017. If Concacaf wanted more matchdays, they could have made some teams start in March 2020 during the Nations League A finals, but then the FIFA Rankings used for seeding could not have included those games.
Thanks. I wasn't aware that CONMEBOL doesn't have a nations league. With all the talk always of combining the 2 confederations, it would be interesting to see a combined nations league even if COPA and Gold Cup are maintained. Regarding qualifiers, obviously, I'd prefer to see a different format, even if it required starting the qualifiers earlier/during Nations League finals somehow.
I dont know why people think CONCACAF and CONMEBOL should combine. DC to Buenos Aries is 5200 miles. DC to Moscow is 4800 miles.
Yes, but doesn't mean Concacaf should emulate the largest distances. A woman said it was a 9.5 hour flight from Philippines to Qatar.
I believe the greatest distance in the AFC is between Beirut and Manila of 5400 miles (I think Guam is farther). EDIT: I forgot about Australia. Sydney and Beirut distance is 8800 miles. That's huge. But I agree with you, I was just providing an example that it's still possible. Small countries in Concacaf will never have a chance to qualify. The US and Mexico have much better chances in a combined confederation.
Two of the last four World Cups had a first-time qualifier from Concacaf in Trinidad and Tobago in 2006 and Panama in 2018. What do you mean that "the US and Mexico have much better chances in a combined confederation"? The US and Mexico have an easier chance at qualifying in Concacaf. CONMEBOL have five of the top 16 in the FIFA Rankings and another team in 21st. The confederations get 8 spots combined, and USA is eighth in the FIFA Rankings combining them. USA is only 3 spots ahead of Venezuela, who won 3-0 at USA on June 9. USA fans say that playing CONMEBOL teams will be better preparation for facing top teams in the World Cup, not that qualifying would be easier if the confederations combined. In World Cup 2030 with 48 teams without USA hosting, USA should not have to worry about qualifying. FIFA doesn't know how to list countries. https://www.fifa.com/worldcup/qatar2022/preliminaries/#nccamerica says there are "42 participating teams." Even with the non-FIFA members, there's only 41, Clicking on "SEE ALL TEAMS" goes to https://www.fifa.com/worldcup/qatar2022/preliminaries/nccamerica/teams/ which has multiple mistakes. It lists Saint Barthelemy, which isn't one of the 41, and that makes 42. It lists Guadeloupe twice, and left out Saint Martin. If Saint Martin was left out on purpose, it would only be 41. of the non-FIFA members, Bonaire, Saint Barthelemy, and Sint Maarten are marked with a *; but French Guyana, Guadeloupe, and Martinique are not marked with a *. It's obvious that the * is for non-FIFA members, but that doesn't explain why it only marked some of them, and nothing on the page explains what the * means. The top of the page says "AFRICA" because there's a flaw that makes the first confederation in alphabetical order show up at the top of the page for every confederation. You can see that the first link has a # in it, and that means the page changes rather than going to a new page. Wikipedia pages have a clickable table of contents, and clicking on a link goes to that part of the page and makes # followed the section name go in the end of the URL.
Update: this format has been acknowledged (and presumably authorized) by FIFA. ...so yeah, Nations League's gonna be cutthroat now
And friendly results could make the difference for the 5th and 6th spot in final rankings. Anyone have info on friendlies scheduled on open Nations League dates by Panama, Canada, Haiti, Curacao, Honduras, or Costa Rica?
I don't see many friendlies have been announced. Honduras and Costa Rica are the only ones that could play friendlies in the September break. The rest of the teams listed have two CNL games.
I found one relevant friendly: Friday, September 6 Costa Rica v. Uruguay That could be a good boost for Costa Rica. I'm sure we'll hear about more games soon.
Here are the new FIFA rankings for the top 15 of CONCACAF. Not much changed. Haiti moved to 10th. St. Kitts and Nevis moved up to 13th. Trindidad & Tobago and Nicaragua each dropped a spot. 1. Mexico 2. USA 3. Costa Rica 4. Jamaica 5. Honduras 6. El Salvador ========== 7. Panama 8. Canada 9. Curacao 10. Haiti 11. Trinidad & Tobago 12. Antigua and Barbuda 13. St. Kitts and Nevis 14. Nicaragua 15. Guatemala
Considering that Haiti moving up the glacial FIFA rankings into the Top 6 is a longshot, I'll be keeping a keen eye on Guatemala in particular - as in, I hope they overtake Nicaragua and get a top seed in the everyone-else tournament, 'cause I would hate to have them in our group.
Yes, that will be interesting. Haiti basically needs to win Nations League to qualify for the Hex. For the teams not qualifying for the hex, a couple of groups could get tricky - I think it will really be interesting to see if some of the countries can get eligible players with dual eligibility to commit to them in the new system (Bermuda, etc).
Not sure if being in the HEX really improves your chances of qualifying. Canada wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of finishing top 3 above Costa Rica in a 10 game tournament. So either way they are left fighting for the playoff spot
I'm not so sure. Costa Rica is aging, and hasn't looked that great to me recently. I think that after Mexico and the US (and I don't even trust the US right now), it's pretty wide open/even amongst the next 7. A surprise result somewhere, and I could see them sneaking in. I'd certainly want the opportunity if I was Canada.
Canada is eighth (second among the bottom 29) in the FIFA Rankings. If you give them a 90 percent chance at winning a group, an 80 percent chance in the next round, a 60 percent chance in the round after that, and a 40 percent in the round after that (where they would face Panama who's ahead of Canada if all teams' performance matches the FIFA Rankings), that's a 17.28 percent chance at reaching the Concacaf playoff. Make a Hexagonal of Mexico, USA, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Honduras, and Canada (taking out El Salvador who's sixth in the FIFA Rankings) and assume that the first three will finish in the top three in some order. If the bottom three were equally good, they would have a 1/3 (33.3 repeating percent) chance at finishing fourth. If Canada is worse than Jamaica and Honduras but not by a ton and you give them a 20 percent chance at finishing fourth, that's higher than 17.28 percent.
We the Nations League starting up, I'm going to try to track the rankings as the results come in. Before today we had: MEX 1604 USA 1548 CRC 1445 JAM 1425 HON 1350 ELS 1342 -- PAN 1331 CAN 1312 CUY 1309 HAI 1288 TRI 1226 ANT 1136 No real need to go below those 12. Antigua & Barbuda have no real shot, but I'll keep a nice even number of 12 teams to track. I'm computing the FIFA formula for each match. I probably introduce a little bit of error by rounding off each game's point total to an integer, as I suspect that FIFA uses fractional point values and just rounds off for its released ranking tables. For each result there is a point value computed, and this value is added to one team's total and subtracted from the other team's total. If there is a winner, the winner gets the positive points. For a draw, the lower-ranked team gets positive points. It was announced this week that the Nations League games will double as Gold Cup qualifiers and thus get a weighting factor of 25 instead of the expected 15. Friendlies played during FIFA windows have a weighting factor of 10. The weighting factor serves as a theoretical maximum point value that a single game could be worth. An easy way to think about it is that win by the higher-ranked team will always be worth less than half of the weighting factor, and a win by the lower-ranked team will always be worth more than half of the weighting factor. Today had two games for the teams in the top 12: 5 September League A Bermuda(972) vs. Panama (1331) 1-4 1-(1/(10^(-359/600) + 1)) = 0.2014 25 * 0.2014 = 5.035 PAN +5 BER -5 Friendly Honduras(1350) vs. Puerto Rico(940) 4-0 1-(1/(10^(-410/600) + 1)) = 0.1717 10 * 0.1717 = 1.717 HON +2 PUR -2 Updated Rankings MEX 1604 USA 1548 CRC 1445 JAM 1425 HON 1352 (+2) ELS 1342 -- PAN 1336 (+5) CAN 1312 CUY 1309 HAI 1288 TRI 1226 ANT 1136 (point change since last official rankings) Next up: 6 September League A Martinique vs. Trinidad & Tobago (will not count for the rankings due to Martinique's non-FIFA status) League B Jamaica(1425) vs. Antigua & Barbuda(1136) Friendlies Costa Rica(1445) vs. Uruguay(1637) USA(1548) vs. Mexico(1604)