1-32: FIFA World Cup qualification timeline

Discussion in 'FIFA and Tournaments' started by Fuera del Area, Mar 24, 2017.

  1. Pipiolo

    Pipiolo Member+

    Jul 19, 2008
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Doesn't matter, he is not the same caliber of player.

    Historically it is.

    Uruguay is also very good at polo and rugby. In any event, it's not so difficult to be top tier in niche sports, but I give Croatia credit for making a presence in the massive sports of football and basketball.
     
  2. Nico777

    Nico777 Member+

    Olympique de marseille
    Croatia
    Oct 19, 2017
    3-2 is not 3 times more it is just +1 if you want...i was talking about right now i am not talking about the time people watched games in black and white or listened on radio.

    Croatia is independant only since 20 years...for a while the best croatian players never wanted to play for yugoslavia so they did not have any international career and i tell you that as a serbian-croatian. I am yugoslavian.

    Uruguay might be good somewhere....but when it comes to olympic games both winter and summer martial arts nba tennis etc etc they are nowhere to be seen...

    Croatia with only 4 million people took more medals in Rio than most south american countries.

    I am not talking about just participating at a decent level i am talking about high international level athletes in what they are doing. Croatia is not only participating in handball or water polo they are playing for gold. And the new croatian basketball generation will come back for medals as well just where Serbia is already.
     
  3. Pipiolo

    Pipiolo Member+

    Jul 19, 2008
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Uruguay would still have more great players from 1980 on than Croatia.

    Most of them are niche sports, you can feel proud of your country's achievements but greatness in soccer is worth more than all of those sports combined. For example, China is now an Olympic powerhouse. Now have a walk at your local Chinatown and tell me if the people look like the most elite athletes in the world.
     
  4. Nico777

    Nico777 Member+

    Olympique de marseille
    Croatia
    Oct 19, 2017
    Croatia is involved in both famous sports and olympic sports.
    And i can already tell you that if you go to Croatia one day you will see that people have been drawn for sport.
    We got that in blood.
    We have some of the best fighters in the world for a reason.
     
  5. vancity eagle

    vancity eagle Member+

    Apr 6, 2006
    You can probably add Panama in there too. I was surprised how poor Honduras was. They were atrocious. I think concacaf is the weakest this time around. Their hopes lie with Mexico alone.
     
  6. almango

    almango Member+

    Sydney FC
    Australia
    Nov 29, 2004
    Bulli, Australia
    Club:
    Sydney FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Australia
    Me too. I think they were poorly led off the field and their tactics were puzzling. I would have thought they would make more of an effort to get on top of us in their home game. We started off a bit tentative but after 10 minutes we weren't really under pressure and controlled the tempo of the game. Only poor finishing from us kept Honduras in it. We really should have had a goal or two lead after the first leg. When they got to Australia they were obviously distracted by drones and the media and for some reason were trying to build a siege mentality which wasn't good for their players. Then they tried to slow down the match in Sydney and waste time right from the start, with some grass rolling that would have made some of our middle eastern teams in AFC blush. I was expecting a tough time of it, but to be honest Syria gave us a much harder match.
     
  7. nooshcat

    nooshcat Member

    Jan 3, 2017
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Appearance streaks

    21 Brazil (1930)
    17 Germany (1954)
    12 Argentina (1974)
    11 Spain (1978)
    9 South Korea (1986)
    7 Mexico (1994)
    6 England (1998)
    6 France (1998)
    6 Japan (1998)
    5 Portugal (2002)
    4 Australia (2006)
    4 Switzerland (2006)
    3 Nigeria (2010)
    3 Uruguay (2010)
    2 Belgium (2014)
    2 Colombia (2014)
    2 Costa Rica (2014)
    2 Croatia (2014)
    2 Iran (2014)
    2 Russia (2014)
     
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  8. zahzah

    zahzah Member+

    Jun 27, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    Why is it that when you hear about such dirty tricks its almost always done by the CONMEBOL sides? You hear about lower key stuff in African qualifier, but nothing as despicable and mostly limited to witchcraft.

    Well... I guess it comes as no surprise. South American football has had a lax understanding of being fair in football for years now...
     
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  9. condor11

    condor11 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 2, 2002
    New Zealand
    don't quite understand nz reporters issue with the shaman shenanigans...i mean unless you believe in that sort of thing. They did their ritual outside the stadium and didn't physically come within 100 metres of players

    should have made them feel better that after 35 years, Peru probably did not have very good shamans
     
  10. Iranian Monitor

    Iranian Monitor Member+

    Aug 18, 2004
    Nat'l Team:
    Iran
  11. The Potter

    The Potter Member+

    Aug 26, 2004
    England
    Club:
    Stoke City FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    I do consider Croatia a great sporting nation p4p, ivanisevic is a cult figure in England for example.
     
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  12. The Potter

    The Potter Member+

    Aug 26, 2004
    England
    Club:
    Stoke City FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    I was gutted when Italy didn't make it, I expected to find it funny like I did with America but Italy are one of the special footballing nations.
     
  13. Rickdog

    Rickdog Member+

    Jun 16, 2010
    Santiago, Chile
    Club:
    CD Colo Colo
    Nat'l Team:
    Chile
    Well, lets just hope you get Pitana to referee one of Iran's next WC matches against a top contender (and better yet, if that match is decisive over your teams future in the tournament). When it happens you'll realize that Ben Williams is a saint compared to him. This guy doesn't even blush, when he is causing damage to someone, with his bad calls.

    Pitana, in Conmebol, and specially in Argentina where he comes from, is always very controversial as he always has bad calls favouring mostly home teams, which invariably affect final scores (at boca, for instance they don´t even want to see him in pictures, even though he has favoured them more than once, they still feel that most of the times it's the other way around). And that's not all, as his duties and subsequent damage, also includes his reports of the matches he referee's, which can be even more destructive, whenever he has it against one of the teams.

    His sole naming for this type of play-off match is highly suspicious on behalf of FIFA's interests.
     
  14. HomietheClown

    HomietheClown Member+

    Dusselheim FC 1971
    Sep 4, 2010
    Club:
    --other--
    Welcome to South America.

    Anyway, yet another reason why expansion to 48 is a positive.
    There will be no more intercontinental playoffs like this anymore. Just a tournament that will be held on a neutral site.
     
  15. BocaFan

    BocaFan Member+

    Aug 18, 2003
    Queens, NY
    Such a huge positive. NZ not having to hear fireworks one morning at 3h30 totally outweighs 2 years of uneventful qualifiers at a global scale and 16 awkward groups of 3. ;)

    On a serious note, I don't think this was a big deal. It's not like the players had a job to get up for at 6 in the morning. If NZ were smart they would've just stayed on NZ time. Go to sleep at 5:00a until noon when nobody knows you're sleeping. Boom! 7-8 hours of sleep, no problem. :coffee:
     
  16. HomietheClown

    HomietheClown Member+

    Dusselheim FC 1971
    Sep 4, 2010
    Club:
    --other--
    No one said it was a huge positive. Just that it was a positive (and I should say positives). There would be less gamesmanship like this by fanatics and less travel for players and fans and other logistical positives due to a neutral site playoff tournament.
     
  17. NaBUru38

    NaBUru38 Member+

    Mar 8, 2016
    Las Canteras, Uruguay
    Club:
    Club Nacional de Football
    Uruguay produces football players and little more.

    I mean, Pablo Cuevas is top 30 in tennis, Santi Urrutia is close to debuting in IndyCar, and Lola Moreira is winnning a lot despite her young age.

    But Croatia has CIlic, Kukoc, Giricek, Bogdanovic...
     
  18. NaBUru38

    NaBUru38 Member+

    Mar 8, 2016
    Las Canteras, Uruguay
    Club:
    Club Nacional de Football
    Well, some say that fair play was invented by Europeans to remove our advantage....
     
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  19. Nico777

    Nico777 Member+

    Olympique de marseille
    Croatia
    Oct 19, 2017
    #444 Nico777, Nov 16, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2017
    Saric is one of the best rookies in nba 2017. Hezonja Zubac and Bender are in nba as well being around 20. They got one of the best upcoming generations in the world in basketball. They will play for medals within 5-10 years.

    Coric one of the best u21 tennis players in the world. Janica Kostelic and her brother are all time greats in skiing.

    Hrgovic one of the most promising heavyweight boxers in the world.

    Crocop was one of the best kickbocker while Miocic is the ufc heavyweight reigning champ right now.

    Waterpolo world champions as well. Handball contender for gold.

    5 gold medals.in rio 2016 ten medals with everything while Uruguay got 0. It is more than 9 of the 10 south american countries there.

    A 2017 Gymnastics world champion too.

    Of course Uruguay will have some athlete there or there..but overall they are far to challenge Croatia when it comes to the amount of high level athletes.
    It is in Croatian people blood. The mix of slavics in south with influence of different empires roman empire austrian hungarian empire ottoman empire persia and the fact people there always had to fight for their land for thousands years developped them. The ex sovietic union did not reach yugoslavia.
     
  20. BRONCONOSE

    BRONCONOSE Member

    Dec 3, 2007
    Raleigh, NC
    Club:
    Sporting Cristal Lima
    Nat'l Team:
    Peru
    #445 BRONCONOSE, Nov 17, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2017
    To be fair, there is absolutely no way their charter was diverted as a trick.. And they made good time in a bus going from the airport to Miraflores as any local (and google maps...) will attest. The fighter jets werent at wee hours either, it was well daylight outside. I was mortified when I first heard about it but its pretty clear from the video theyre going about the coast and its meant to show support and hype the match, not to bother the NZ national team. Unlucky the Marriott is right by the coast, though it shouldnt really matter.

    The fireworks were definitely abhorrent and they were stopped, luckily as per NZ radio nobody lost sleep because of the sound proof windows. I'd add the laser pointer during the match to the list, but it only happened a couple times. Whoever did it was probably cussed out by some of the more intelligent fans.

    The shaman thing is just a South American thing if that bothered them I dont know what to say. I dont like it myself but ive learned to accept it, its part of the culture much like the Haka is part of theirs. I really dislike the victim playing on Hudson's part, he was clearly on edge coming off the plane delay but that's more than likely on NZ's federation.
     
  21. JLSA

    JLSA Member

    Nov 11, 2003
    I was interested in this - it seemed a bit overstated. The laser pointer got a bit of press in Australia.

    Compare it to Australia in Honduras.

    No-one had any problems with Honduras' treatment of Australia.

    Also we have a lot of experience with shaman. In fact, there was a story (which got more an more credence after 1997 etc) that our consistent failures from 1976 to 2001 were caused by a curse being put on us by a Rhodesian witchdoctor during the WC1978 campaign. An Australian TV person (best described as an Australian Louis Theroux for those interested) went to Zimbabwe in 2005 to get the curse lifted.

    We haven't missed a World Cup since.

    J
     
  22. Philip J. Fry

    Philip J. Fry Member+

    Mexico
    Jun 12, 2013
    Club:
    Borussia Dortmund
    Yay logic prevailed!
    Australia: They have some good players here and there (e.g. Mile Jedinak, Mat Ryan, Tom Rogic), play hard and are clearly one of the top teams of Asia, unfortunately they don't really have a young, outstanding player to bring them over the top and is quite concerning nobody outside a 37 y.o. Tim Cahill can score consistently. They won't make it past the group stage, but they won't embarrass themselves either.
    Peru: Plus: They're on the upswing, made it past CONMEBOL qualifying, are well coached and getting hot at the right time. Minus: They're not as talented, at least not to not miss a Paolo Guerrero. Overall: Provided they don't end up with two good European teams or a Nigeria-type of team, they can make it to the round of 16.
     
  23. UnitsE3

    UnitsE3 Member

    Oct 21, 2017
    Paolo Guerrero deserves to play at the world cup.
     
  24. Rickdog

    Rickdog Member+

    Jun 16, 2010
    Santiago, Chile
    Club:
    CD Colo Colo
    Nat'l Team:
    Chile
    Nope.
    I don't agree. Dopers, don't deserve any special treatment.

    Oh, btw, I love the player.
    But I will never accept cheaters, and doping is cheating of the worst kind, no matter how you want to see it.

    Oh yes, find me a doper sportsman whom admits openly that he pretended to really gain some sort of advantage, when they did what they did. For them it will always be something "accidental", or that they never intended to do what they did.

    In context, jails are full of prisoners whom insist that they are innocent and they were wrongly charged with all sorts of felonies. Should we liberate them all, just because they say so ?
    Regarding dopers it's about the same thing.
     
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  25. +PL+

    +PL+ Member+

    Jun 22, 2015
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Absolutely disgusting behavior by home team. I have seen worse in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In one particular match they didn't issue visa to a couple key players, didn't let the airplane land for 4 hours. While the team landed they were told they need to be finger printed but still that was not enough. They were said the finger printing machine was not working and another 4 hours delay keeping all players in airport. If you think that was enough you are wrong. They kept 3 players 3 more hours for problems on Visa that their own embassy issued!

    If you think that was the end, you are mistaking. They didn't let the club use the gym nor let them to practice in the stadium. There were horn sounds all night around the hotel and lack of security let some opponent fans to attack or curse our players. Lasers and throwing stones are the least problem during the match. That is how they treat Iranian national team or clubs specially in Saudi Arabia.
     

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