The best thing that can happen is that USA finishes in fifth place and all the plans of Concacaf $$$$$$$$$$ are ruined...
Who in Concacaf doesn't have to fight over one lousy intercontinental playoff spot (possibly against a tough opponent): July 2019 ranking 1. Mexico (1604) 2. USA (1548) 3. Costa Rica (1445) 4. Jamaica (1425) ------------------------------ 5. Honduras (1350) 6. El Salvador (1341) The chasing pack: Panama (1331), Canada (1312), Curacao (1309) and Haiti (1288). Others are more than 100 points behind El Salvador. In the CNL they can improve their ranking before the all-important June 2020 ranking. The multiplier isn't much better than the one for friendlies. Haiti would need to be almost flawless in the CNL (odds of reaching the Hex are really long). OTOH Mexico, USA, CR and Jamaica are nailed on seeing movement in the rankings is very slow. You're in luck if your FIFA ranking gives you better odds of reaching the Hex than when you had to advance from your group. And tough luck... (vice versa). For the teams that can reach (or miss out on) the Hex looking for good value in friendlies can be very alluring (could even try bribing your way into the Hex).
I'm still struggling to believe that Concacaf is serious about a qualifying system that robs most of their members of a chance of qualifying for the World Cup by defeating teams within Concacaf. Surely the 29 nations robbed of that chance (maybe the number is higher now? haven't checked Concacafs Full FIFA member roster for a while) wouldn't be in favour of such a system.
Not so sure. The way I read it, the 5th and 6th-place teams in the HEX are eliminated straight-away. And the 4th-place team has to play 2 playoffs instead of 1, the first of which will be against the CONCACAF playoff winner (so guaranteed to be a team in really good form). I think this actually works against the US because they looked so bad in 2018 qualifying, having the HEX start sooner in this cycle is not a good thing. If I'm the US, I wouldn't want the HEX to start until the second half of 2021 to give me as much time as possible to rebuild the team and its confidence. Of course they should still qualify. Not sure why CONCAF are going with such a batshit format for 2022. This would make more sense for 2026 qualifying. But it seems they figured out a way to ensure Mexico-US qualifying matches for 2026 qualifying and beyond when CONCACAF gets more spots.
As you stated, CONCACAF announced the Hex starts 2 months earlier, which isn't that big of a deal for the US. I guess the 2 extra months with a batch of friendlies helps but it's still 14 months away instead of 16. I'm wondering though with the WC itself not starting until November of 2022 instead of the usual June, why wouldn't the Hex be delayed along with the tournament, at least by a few months? Why is CONCACAF actually starting it sooner, it makes no sense to me. With 3 teams decided by September 2021, that's a full 14 months before the WC to play warm up friendlies. I wonder if a Hex date change could happen? This schedule doesn't make sense, but then CONCACAF often does things that don't make sense. I'm not asking because as a US supporter I want it delayed. I dug around a bit and read that most other confederations haven't announced their qualification process yet. Maybe those other ones will slide later to correspond with the later WC. I also read that the Inter-continental playoffs are in March 2022. So again, why would the Hex end in September 2021 and then have a 6 months wait to decide if the 4th CCF entry will go?
Based on current form, I think that Jamaica and Costa Rica are most helped by this - Costa Rica likely makes the hex; but, no guarantee. I'm not at all convinced that Jamaica would. Haiti and Canada are the most screwed, as I think both countries would have had good chances/been favored to make the hex based on recent trends. The way the CNL stacks up, Jamaica and El Salvador are really helped also. Extra games being in League B, and could easily go without any losses or draws, so they'll be gaining more points before the final June ranking. Panama should schedule as many friendlies against minnows to scrape up points as possible.
this is just one factor that makes using FIFA rankings so flawed. Instead of deciding it out on the pitch in an understandable format (get enough points in actual matches and qualify), teams can get creative and game the ranking system formula by doing things like "schedule as many friendlies against minnows to scrape up points".
Concafaf have 3 direct World Cup Spots and 35 nations capable of entering the tournament. At the stroke of a pen 29 of those 35 will not have the opportunity to compete for one of the direct spots. Why would they do this? I get the feeling that in the future they will be happy to have 2 Gold Cups and two nations leagues running in each cycle and use those to determine World Cup spots.
AFC Round 2 draw results Group A: China PR, Syria, Philippines, Maldives, Guam Group B: Australia, Jordan, Chinese Taipei, Kuwait, Nepal Group C: IR Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Cambodia Group D: Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Palestine, Yemen, Singapore Group E: Bangladesh, Oman, India, Afghanistan, Qatar Group F: Japan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Myanmar, Mongolia Group G: UAE, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia Group H: Korea Republic, Lebanon, Korea DPR, Turkmenistan, Sri Lanka
http://www.football-rankings.info/2019/07/concacaf-nations-league-2020.html These projections are pretty much in line with my expectations below. Mexico, USA, CR and Jamaica are indeed nailed on for the Hex. Honduras and El Salvador not that far off. Even though Haiti and Curacao are both longshots to make the Hex it's a small surprise Haiti isn't bottom. And as expected the teams that are more than 100 points behind El Salvador don't have a prayer to reach the Hex.
Thinking about it - the more I start to say (from the point of view of teams just outside the Hex zone) Why Not?. Before you were competing for 3.5 spots against USA, Mexico, Costa Rica (who are all clearly a level ahead of you), plus Jamaica and (say) Honduras. Now you are competing for 0.5 spots - with just a one off play-off at the end against a team that doesn't quite succeed in the Hex. Three fewer spots with the best of your rivals going out the top before you need to play them - seems like the calculus could have swung in your favour. Particularly when you consider teams like Canada can't even get into the Hex because they get at least one of the big three plus another team in the semi groups - they now avoid all the teams that keep stopping them making the top six, until you go into the one-off lottery play-off (well, two one-off lottery play-offs). J
So Canada should be happy that they'll be playing WCQ with Montserrat and TCI instead of Mexico and T&T?
If you are arguing in terms of their making Qatar - Yes. If you are arguing in terms of their long term development - maybe not. But they wouldn't just play TCI and Montserrat in case A - and they rarely (if ever) even get to the Mexico phase in the old case. J
I'd also argue that the previous format did a better job at finding the best 4 teams in CONCACAF to send to the WC/playoff. So in that sense, teams that are not among the best 4 (e.g. Canada) have a shot under this mickey-mouse format. Though I guess whatever format is used a team like Canada will just find it extremely difficult to qualify until the # of spots given to CONCACAF increases. Just makes no sense to go to this new format given that it simply doesn't work for 2026 qualifying (when only 3 teams qualify and there is no playoff). So they'll just have to abandon it after one try no matter what. Would've made more sense to wait until 2030 qualifying to experiment.
Ok then, same question to you: if the new tournament is a better opportunity for the lower-ranked teams, should El Salvador tank the Nations League so that they can avoid the Hex and go the tourney route?
Which is tougher, I think, comes down to the point-of-view of the individual countries. If you're a favorite like Mexico, no-way would you want to take the risk of going through the multiple KO rounds that the 30-35 "lower" nations have to get through. One bad away match in Panama or a stroke of bad luck like drawing CONMEBOL in the playoff and they could be in trouble. Whereas the 10-game HEX provides them room to suffer a couple of shock defeats. But if you're an underdog you'll take the shortest route possible to Qatar. The more games the likes of Canada or Haiti have to play to qualify, the more likely they'll get found out.
It works for 2026. 3 teams qualify, but 2 teams go to playoffs as well. You get your 3 teams and 1 playoff team from the hex, and one playoff team from the rest. It could work for 2030 too. Something like top six in rankings qualify automatically and the others fight for the playoff spot.
Have you tracked his projections previously and found them reliable? I'm curious because at first glance - I don't buy them. The 4 teams at 100% in his hex projections set off alarm bells - I don't think that's correct. It almost appears like he didn't factor in June/July results (friendlies and gold cup) to his hex projection...
Agree with this. The old format is guaranteeing teams "in form". The new format allows teams to skate in based on past successes, some teams who may be trending down and in poor form.
Also, a team can theoretically qualify by being in really good form in 2020 and early-2021, but by late-2022 may have declined somewhat. The previous format staged the HEX as close to the WC as possible.