Just a side note on Israel. They were in the Asian confederation but then they were exiled as other nations refused to play against them. IIRC they even were part of the Oceania confederation after being exiled from the AFC . They now qualify through UEFA almost exclusively because of political reasons.
I would actually like to see more half spots. Like concacaf gets 3 guaranteed spots and 2 playoff spots. Africa 3 and 2. Asia 3 and 1. Conmebol 4 and 2. Oceania still has only .5. Europe already has playoffs so their exempt. The numbers might not work perfectly the way I did it, but it confederations ebb and flow each cycle, this would reward confederations going through an upswing and penalize those who are weak that cycle. Concacaf would have to change their structure because if 5/6 teams move on that would be pretty weird. I'm sure some of the other confeds would have to change as well, but I think yall probably get what i'm saying.
I thought about it a little more and came up with this: UEFA: 9 and 9 concacaf : 3 - 2 Africa: 3 - 2 Asia: 3 - 1 SA: 5 - 3 Oceania: 0 - 1 This gives you 23 guaranteed spots and 18 playoff teams. Those 18 then go to a playoff that can be determined however you want it, we'll stick with 9 home-and-away series for now. If Algeria, Honduras, Cameroon, Iran, etal deserve to be in the tournament then they'll have to prove it. Only rule would be series can't pit teams from the same confederation against each other, which would basically mean you end up with a Europe vs. someone matchup in each pairing.
I think Panama, Jamaica and Canada(longer shot) are the next CONCACAF teams to take their programs to the next level. The CAF should really be worried about losing spots because, generally,(in my lifetime) they are very poor and end up being eliminated in the group stage more often than not. I can't remember the last time 2 CAF teams made the knockout rounds. I wouldn't mind seeing CONCACAF getting 4.5 spots.... Doubt it happens in my lifetime though,
Asia got a huge boost from the Saudi's advancing and the Korea/Japan Cup, where S. Korea made the SF (with some generous decisions vs. Spain) and Japan advanced. Africa also had a nice run in the 1990s: Cameroon minutes away from beating England in the knockout rounds, Nigeria with Okocha, Senegal in 2002, and Ghana in 2010. Not to mention teams like Morocco and Tunisia have looked decent in defeat (as S. Africa did last time) and Algeria getting hosed by W. Germany/Austria in 1982. Point being, these regions are a bit deeper (still) than CONCACAF, though Mexico and the US are consistently better than any team in any of those regions. Plus, you know FIFA wants to hold that 0.5 spot open in Asia in hopes China gets their act together and joins the party. Or a middle-eastern squad.
I agree. As MLS grows and continues to get bigger/better every year and Liga MX where it stands, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind CONCACAF teams will only get better and more competitive from here on out. Specifically Canada, Panama, and Jamaica from North, Central, and the Caribbean. Respectively. And also, I don't think CAF or AFC have a league that can compete with MLS or LigaMX. Maybe the J-League although the A-League is still growing. Point being CONCACAF is better than both CAF and AFC, in terms of leagues and nations, therefore we deserve more representative at WC.
Somewhat apropos, here's a post I've been updating on reddit with the records of each confederation...Asia and Africa bringing up the rear big time. http://redd.it/28eh30 Edit: Mods, I can't remember the rules on things like this, so if the link isn't cool feel free to remove it.
Almost every confederation involves large travel distances. UEFA - Lisbon to Almaty - 4294 mi AFC - Sydney to Beirut - 8824 mi CAF - Rabat to Johannesburg - 4750 mi CONCACAF - Toronto to Paramaribo (Suriname) - 2999 mi CONMEBOL - Caracas to Buenos Aires - 3169 mi (There may be longer distances, I simply eyeballed it to pick what looked like the two furthest.) Not even gonna try to figure out which two microscopic OFC islands are furthest from one another. Anyway, the furthest travel distance in a merged CONCACAF/CONMEBOL would be Toronto to Buenos Aires at 5572 miles, which is considerably shorter than Asia's furthest trip (even if you don't factor in Australia, Tokyo to Beirut is 5588 miles). Additionally, the vast majority of those teams are located near the geographic center of the Americas--only Canada and maybe, depending on how you look at it, the US and the southernmost South American teams would be geographic outliers--and qualification in such a merged region would likely be set up to allow most of the lesser Carribean countries to knock each other out before the US, Mexico, and the South American teams get involved. Anyway, there's no argument that CONMEBOL is top to bottom the strongest confederation, and it isn't close--the South American bottom feeders, teams like Peru and Bolivia, are comprised entirely of fully professional players, many of whom play in very good leagues. There's no other confederation, including UEFA (for every Germany and Italy there's at least one Liechtenstein or San Marino) that can say anything even remotely close to that.
Exactly my point. FIFA and the AFC shouldn't reward bigotry by banishing Israel to a region they'll likely never qualify for the WC out of. They should play in AFC (assuming they want to), no special favors for anyone, if one of the Muslim countries gets drawn against them in official competition they can either take the field against them (including allowing Israeli fans and officials to travel to the other country's home game) or take a forfeit. If Iran and Israel are in the same qualifying group and Iran won't play Israel, then that's no problem--Iran starts the campaign 6 points in the hole.
Top to bottom, of course they are. There are 10 members of the CONMEBOL, disregarding Oceania with 14 members, the next smallest confederation is...CONCACAF with 41 members. It doesn't take much to be the best under those circumstances.
The last friendlies played by C-CAF teams vs. the weaker C-BOL teams went this way: Peru-Honduras in USA (Nov. 2009) : Peru won 2-1 Canada-Peru in Canada (Sep. 2010) : Peru won 2-0 Peru-Jamaica in USA (Sep. 2010) : Peru won 2-1 Peru-Costa Rica in Peru (Oct. 2010) : Peru won 2-0 Panama-Peru in Panama (Oct. 2010) : Panama won 1-0 Peru-Panama in Peru (Feb. 2011) : Peru won 1-0 Costa Rica-Peru in Costa Rica (Aug. 2012) : Peru won 1-0 Honduras-Peru in USA (Nov. 2012) : tie 0-0 T&T-Peru in T&T (Feb. 2013) : Peru won 2-0 Peru-T&T in Peru (Mar. 2013) : Peru won 3-0 Mexico-Peru in USA (Apr. 2013) : tie 0-0 Panama-Peru in Panama (Jun. 2013) : Peru won 2-1 In four years (July 2009-July-2013), Peru played 12 games, won 9, tied 2, lost 1 Paraguay-Costa Rica in Paraguay (Aug. 2010) : Paraguay won 2-0 Mexico-Paraguay in USA (Mar. 2011) : Mexico won 3-1 USA-Paraguay in USA (Mar. 2011) : Paraguay won 1-0 Panama-Paraguay in Panama (Sep. 2011) : Paraguay won 2-0 Honduras-Paraguay in Honduras (Sep. 2011) : Paraguay won 3-0 Paraguay-Guatemala in Paraguay (Feb. 2012) : Paraguay won 2-1 Paraguay-Panama in Paraguay (Feb. 2012) : Paraguay won 1-0 Guatemala-Paraguay in Guatemala (Apr. 2012) : Paraguay won 1-0 Guatemala-Paraguay in USA (Aug. 2012) : tie 3-3 Paraguay-Guatemala in Paraguay (Nov. 2012) : Paraguay won 3-1 Paraguay-El Salvador in Paraguay (Feb. 2013) : Paraguay won 3-0 Costa Rica-Paraguay in Costa Rica (Mar. 2014) : Costa Rica won 2-1 In four years (July 2010-July 2014), Paraguay played 12 games, won 9, tied 1, lost 2 Venezuela-Panama in Venezuela (Mar. 2010) : Panama won 2-1 Honduras-Venezuela in Honduras (Apr. 2010) : Venezuela won 1-0 Aruba-Venezuela in Aruba (May 2010) : Venezuela won 3-0 Venezuela-Canada in Venezuela (May 2010) : tie 1-1 Panama-Venezuela in Panama (Aug. 2010) : Panama won 3-1 Mexico-Venezuela in Mexico (Oct. 2010) : tie 2-2 Venezuela-Costa Rica in Venezuela (Feb. 2011) : tie 2-2 Jamaica-Venezuela in Jamaica (Mar. 2011) : Venezuela won 2-0 Mexico-Venezuela in USA (Mar. 2011) : tie 1-1 Guatemala-Venezuela in Guatemala (Jun. 2011) : Venezuela won 2-0 El Salvador-Venezuela in USA (Aug. 2011) : El Salvador won 2-1 Honduras-Venezuela in USA (Aug. 2011) : Honduras won 2-0 Venezuela-Costa Rica in Venezuela (Dec. 2011) : Costa Rica won 2-0 USA-Venezuela in USA (Jan. 2012) : USA won 1-0 Mexico-Venezuela in USA (Jan. 2012) : Mexico won 3-1 Venezuela-El Salvador in Venezuela (May 2013) : Venezuela won 2-1 Honduras-Venezuela in Honduras (Mar. 2014) : Honduras won 2-1 In four years (Mar. 2010-Mar. 2014), 17 games played, 5 won, 4 tied, 8 lost Mexico-Bolivia in USA (Mar. 2009) : Mexico won 5-1 Mexico-Bolivia in USA (Feb. 2010) : Mexico won 5-0 Panama-Bolivia in Panama (Mar. 2011) : Panama won 2-0 Guatemala-Bolivia in Guatemala (Mar. 2011) : tie 1-1 Bolivia-Panama in Bolivia (Aug. 2011) : Panama won 3-1 Bolivia-Cuba in Bolivia (Feb. 2012) : Bolivia won 1-0 Bolivia-Guyana in Bolivia (Aug. 2012) : Bolivia won 2-0 Bolivia-Costa Rica in Bolivia (Nov. 2012) : tie 1-1 Bolivia-Haiti in Bolivia (Feb. 2013) : Bolivia won 2-1 In four years (Mar. 2009-Mar. 2013), 9 games played, 3 won, 2 tied, 4 lost From these results, Peru and Paraguay come across as about as strong as CRC and HON, while Venezuela is between PAN and JAM, and Bolivia is between JAM and GUA. In a qualification involving all teams in the Americas, one could see the 8 berths distributed like this: 1. Brazil 2. Argentina 3. Mexico 4. Chile 5. Colombia 6. USA 7. Uruguay 8. Costa Rica ---- 9. Ecuador 10. Paraguay 11. Honduras 12. Peru 13. Panama 14. Venezuela 15. Jamaica 16. Bolivia * A union of C-CAF and C-BOL may be more convenient to Mexico, who has a better record against South American competition than other C-CAF countries.
That's darn good research. That's considering that teams more or less are the same during friendlies. I think in a combined confederation with 9 teams qualified 3 to 4 Concacaf teams would make it. It is not like every Conmebol team is Brazil or Argentina
Given 9 spots I don't see the US or Mexico ever failing to qualify barring a 2013 Mexico-type year (and I don't see the US ever having a campaign like that, Mexico's highs tend to be a bit higher than ours but our program is far more stable than theirs), and I think you'd see 1-2 other former CONCACAF teams join them more often than not.
Not yet. But in another generation we probably will be forced to field 2.5 teams just to spread the talent around and keep the competition fair. If they got to replace on of Mexico, the US, Honduras or Costa Rica, sure. If they replaced Jamaica or Panama, they'd finish in the same position, looking up at the 4 that made it. Swap the Concacaf qualifiers with most of the group winners in UEFA, and they're through too. Of course, swap them with any of the teams you mention that didn't make it, and its a dogfight to go. As to the subject of this thread….this is stupid. 3.5 spots is the right amount.
Here's a tough question for folks. When was the last time Canada actually won a game? I believe the answer is October, 2012......................a home WCQer against Cuba. They have been horrific, going all of 2013 and 2014 without a win. And there were some hideous losses in there including to Mauritania, Martinique, Belarus, etc. If Canada loses their next match, they'll likely fall behind Aruba in the FIFA rankings. As much as people like to think Canada is the "next big thing," they've actually regressed in the past 5 years. Right now they're approaching "minnow" territory. I have no clue, for instance, why CR and Honduras have to qualify for the Gold Cup.............and Canada gets an automatic spot. Canada has lost ground to at least three Central American nations (CR, Hon, Panama.................and arguably El Salvador as well) Keep in mind that Panama has been doing so well of late, I don't think them being at the next level would be any surprise. Panama is ranked ahead of Honduras, as we know. They've beaten both Mexico and the United States in recent Gold Cups. If it weren't for Graham Zusi's late header, they could easily be in this World Cup instead of Mexico.
If you're doing that you should post what hypothetical qualifying format you would use so that I can tell how many qualifiers CONCACAF countries would be playing against CONMEBOL countries. I would think there would have to be at least two groups in the final round because there aren't enough matchdays to reduce the number of countries to 10 and then play a group stage requiring 18 games each. One possibility would be for all 10 CONMEBOL countries and the top eight in CONCACAF to start in the Semifinals, with CONCACAF having a round with six groups and only the winners advancing before that. Then there could be 6 groups of 4 with two from each group advancing to 2 groups of 6. On second thought, that would be a bad idea because the final round wouldn't eliminate many countries. How about this: 45 countries enter (CONCACAF has 35 and CONMEBOL has 10) 9 countries start in the Second (Final) Round 36 countries play in 9 groups of 4 with the 9 winners advancing to the Second Round 18 countries play in 3 groups of 6 with 2 or 3 countries qualifying per group depending on the allotment. If the combined confederation had 8 spots, which is what CONCACAF and CONMEOL have now without the host spott, the top third place team would qualify and the other two would play each other for the eighth spot. If CONCACAF and CONMEBOL combined, I would move the Copa America to the same year as the Euros, with Copa America qualifiers played in between the World Cup and the Copa America. In the Copa America year (2 years away from the World cup on each side), there would be the First Round of World Cup Qualifying and the Second Round of World Cup Qualifying would be played when the Hexagonal is now.
Take a spot from Africa, give it to Samerica and I think FIFA got it right. I wonder if Africa would have better results if they changed their qualification system; however, that is up to them.
Do wonder what Egypt might have achieved in this World Cup but alas the Universe wanted Bob Bradley to spend some time in Norway