CAF is a weak confederation that does worse than AFC at the WC. It's ridiculous to propose more spots for Africans.
Because as a very big diference to Iran, they have consistently qualified directly to the WC, ending among the top 4 once in their history (an achievement that only 25 teams of the world have ever achieved, since the begining of the WC history), without the need of playoffs or anything like it, since 1986 continuedly they've qualified, till the present one to be disputed next year. Sometimes they end as first, sometimes they end as second, but always they manage to get the tickets to the WC, without suffering almost till the last matchday of the qualifiers, like you guys did. Their reputation exceeds whatever given result they may have in a few games. More so, last qualifiers, they took early the lead of their group, and only lost it in their last match day, while you guys at certain moments of the qualifiers, seemed as being eliminated, through the process. As another issue, not minor within your qualification process, is that you guys in 4 games played in two diferent phases, only once you managed to achieve a draw against the tiny team of Qatar. And this sole issue, waters down whatever past success your team may probably have had. In my personal opinion, comparing Iran to South Korea, as football teams, is like comparing diamonds with coal, where South Korea are the diamonds, so you can imagine who the coal should be. That is why I rank South Korea over Iran. You don't like my opinion ?, well too bad, as either way it will not change
When it gets to OFC, in my opinion, as many Confederations get extra spots for their own, regardless of the weak level they may have due to that the WC, must be a "world" type of tournament. The same issue should be considered when it gets to OFC, so the correct thing to do, should be to give OFC, at least one direct spot in the WC. Besides, in the past, OFC has achieved lots more in the WC, than what some of the teams of other weaker Confederations have done, in the WC. By leaving them out of it, it seems as FIFA is stepping on its tail, on this one.
Merge? https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/threads/a-brave-new-world-in-world-cup-allocations.1994531/ @bungadiri @Caesar @comme @SwissGCZ
Bunp to merge with? https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/...-for-future-world-cups.1997091/#post-29098349
Thanks, I knew there was another thread following this topic, but couldn't grab enough time to go searching.
that is Australia´s and AFC´s problem If you accepted them, that´s your problem. And ANYWAY, that is only ONE country to travel to with such distance. If the ENTIRE OFC had been merged into AFC however, the quantity of matches involving 12 thousand kilometer trips would multiply by huge factor. There are too many south americans playing in Europe and other parts of the World. CONMEBOL would never accept such preposterous and pipe-dreaming suggestions of merging with CONCACAF. Imagine players having to travel 12 thousand kilometers from Europe to Argentina for a qualifying match there, than more 12 thousand kilometers for a match at the US than more 8 thousand kilometers back to Europe. Your arguments for a CONMEBOL and CONCACAF merger lack any logic and fail at simple LOGISTICS too. Furthermore, it WILL NOT HAPPEN, so there is no use in discussing your baseless wishes on this forum. Ah, one more thing. It WILL NOT HAPPEN. And before I forget, let me add: IT WILL NOT HAPPEN.
just to be more precise: Australia is the single country so far away from AFC. Therefore, while it´s a problem to Australia (but it was THEIR CHOICE) to travel to Asia all the time, for Asian countries, they RARELY will have to travel to Oceania to play against Australia. How many times have Iran travelled to play Australia in this qualifiers? However, if the entire OFC had merged with AFC, Iran would have to travel SEVERAL times to Oceania to play against different Oceania countries. Finally, the league format of CONMEBOL qualifiers strenghten CONMEBOL countries. A CONCACAF and CONMEBOL merge would mean the league format would have to go, because there are not enough dates for a league format involving so many countries. That would ALSO (on top of everything else) be bad for CONMEBOL.
whises that are not SO baseless have bigger chances of happening. This old and impossible CONCACAF + CONMEBOL merge (it´s always someone from outside CONMEBOL wishing it, of course ) is just as useful to the forum as discussing playing football on micro-gravity on Earth´s orbit. Actually, there is a bigger chance of that happening in the next 50 years.
to be fair, there is one technological advancement that would make possible to join CONMEBOL and CONCACAF... it will take at least 15 years at least however. That is the development of cheap hypersonic craft, like the LAPCAT concept. Hypersonic craft would be able to fly at mach 5 and do Brussels to Sidney in 2-4 hours. Even if it took 6 hours from Buenos Aires to Vancoucer, that would already be enough to remove the hurdle of travel time from discussion about a CONCACAF/CONMEBOL merger, although there would still be other hurdles, including many political ones.
I believe that the more sensible proposal is for the qualification to stay mostly the same, but with the play-off WC spot being always locked to AFC vs NZ, so both avoid the stronger teams from CONMEBOL and CONCACAF. And with NZ (or OFC champion) participating AFC cups. Of course, is unfair since AFC + OFC doesn't deserve that extra full spot, but what can we do about it?
Can we merge all the confederations into one and just have a big tournament to figure out who the best teams are to send them to the world cup?
And I guess you could find nothing in a comparison of Iran's record viz a viz North Korea to justify thinking that perhaps North Korea wasn't as good as Iran, despite qualifying head of Iran in 2010? Qualifying ahead of Iran, mind you, despite losing to Iran. Despite not having done better in its history than the draw it got against us in Pyongyang, having lost 7 separate times to us since 2003... Despite North Korea being ranked some 50+ positions below Iran in the world, and way below Iran in Asia? You could find nothing in any of that to tell you that perhaps North Korea's qualification was indeed a fluke and that Iran was better? As for South Korea, lets be clear: while there have been many occasions where South Korea was clearly not a good as Iran in the past 15 years, there is no denying that: (a) no Asian team has South Korea's historic consistency in qualifying to the World Cup and (b) while that history of successive qualification used to end with no victories in the World Cup itself, with several Asian teams (North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran to be specific) beating South Korea to the punch when it came to registering their first wins in the tournament, no Asian team has or is likely to be able to match South Korea's 4th place finish in 2002 anytime soon; and (c) since 2002, South Korea has enjoyed the best record among the Asians in the World Cup, even when (as in 2006) it wasn't anything remotely close to being Asia's best team. Incidentally, despite ranking below Iran in both ELO and FIFA rankings, and despite their losses to Iran in the qualifiers, and despite the fact that the historic head to head results between the 2 teams favors Iran, I rank South Korea a bit stronger than Iran at the moment. Which isn't to say that I may not change my mind; Iran has done much better in the past 2 games than it was doing during the qualifiers and there are new players being recruited that might make Iran a better team. What you lack in logical fluency you compound with being shamelessly obstinate. Otherwise, by all means, you are entitled to whatever opinion you might have, even if it isn't always clear to me at least what you are trying to say and to what end? Well, to be accurate, I kind get that you don't like Iran much, but otherwise...
If there is any obstination being present here. That one comes from your own forum, as it seems that what most bothers you guys is that others rate your team lower than what you expect. The issue, is that you have a very big difficulty to keep your mind off from particular games, when what is more important is how teams end at the end of the whole process, from a belicist point of view of football, each particular game is only a battle, while the whole process is the sum of all those battles, which would be the whole war. You want to give more importance to battles, but you minimize the outcome of the whole war. And in this war, Iran has been reiteratively been beated, by diferent oponents of their own Confederation. In that line of thinking, you'll receive very low acceptance to any of your speeches. Fact is, which you don't want to accept, is that in WORLD football, Iran is very close to almost nothing, as lots of other teams, not only from AFC, with bad records are over Iran, while South Korea has already earned their name in it, with capital letters. Not only at continental level (where Iran may be at the top), but at WORLD level, which is much more important as it is at this level where we are all talking about here. For facts, I don`t have nothing in particular against the football of Iran. Why would I have ?, it would be like having issues over "almost nothing". Sincerely, I wish it would be diferent, but it isn't.
No, I expect people who don't know much about Asian football to rank teams from the AFC based on what they see once every 4 years at the World Cup. As such, I expect them to rank South Korea better than Iran. But what makes you obstinate is your refusal to admit the obvious. South Korea may be rated above Iran, despite finishing behind Iran and losing to us twice in the process. Despite being ranked behind us by FIFA and ELO. Despite having a worse head-to-head record against us. In fact, I have also ranked them (slightly) above Iran! That is not the issue that is behind our argument here. What is at issue is your refusal to concede that you don't judge a team simply by who ended up with the most points in a particular qualifying period. If you have more facts to base your judgment on, you will obviously rely on those facts as well! Actually, I don't concentrate on any individual battles here. I focus on the big picture. The picture shows Iran rarely losing football games to anyone, except teams that are ranked much higher than us. Losses to everyone else are rare which explains why Iran's football ranking is generally very good by Asian standards, but those losses do happen once in a while. In our case, its just that they used to happen at quite predictable moments: the semifinal of the Asian Cup (1984, 1988, 1996, 2004), usually on penalty kicks and, in the knock out rounds (we missed the knock out rounds only once, in 1992), never in regulation, although we lost out on penalties (to S.Korea despite dominating the match itself) instead in the quarterfinals in 2007 edition of that tournament. And it seemed like we were beginning to establish another pattern for World Cup qualifiers as well, leading our group twice in a row from day 1 until the last day, when in each instance we lost to a team that hitherto until then we had never lost before! (Qatar in WC98 qualifiers, and Bahrain in WC02 qualifiers). Fortunately, that pattern was broken. Of course I accept that in world football, Iran is almost a non-entity! And I recognize that South Korea is different in that regard, albeit not necessarily as emphatically as you try to make it out to be. The issue is not what I accept or don't accept, but what you accept or don't accept! The only thing is that I see no evidence that you "sincerely" wish it was different. But that is your perogative anyway.
The current allocation is fine. It is not based on merit but with a view to getting as wide an audience as possible and improving the standards of football on all continents.
Oh really? From 1986-2010; the number of times a team from the "weak" CAF reached the WC knockout stage: 7. The number of times an AFC team reached the WC knockout stage: 5. Japan and South Korea accounts for 4 of the 5 occasions for the AFC, while Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal accounts for the 7 CAF occasions. The one thing that can be said is that AFC did have one team in the semifinals in that span, something that CAF has not done. Also, I suspect you didn't watch this year's final round of qualifying in CAF. Let me reiterate, I was very surprised by the quality of the games. While some of defending was suspect, the skill level overall was pretty good.
CAF has shown potential for a long time now. What it hasn't shown are results which are commensurate with that potential. To be sure, I wouldn't call CAF weaker than the AFC, but the truth is that their record as it presently stands is at best comparable to the AFC. In fact, slightly worse. If you look at the historical record, counting Australia (and Australia, being presently in the AFC would count as well because the issue is the strength of the confederation at this time, not back before Australia joined) 5 different Asian teams (North Korea 1966, Saudi Arabia 1994, South Korea 2002 and 2010, Japan 2002 and 2010, and Australia 2006) have made the knock out rounds 7 times versus the same number of teams and the same number of times for CAF. Looking at only the last 3 World Cup, on the other hand, the record starts to favor the AFC. In the last 3 World Cup, the following Asian teams have qualified to the knock out rounds: 2002: South Korea (semifinalist), Japan (R16); 2006: Australia (R16); 2010: South Korea (R16) and Japan (R16). That is 3 different Asian sides, having qualified 5 times, compared to 2 different CAF sides (Senegal, Ghana, and Ghana) qualifying 3 times. (Even if you don't count Australia, which I don't think would make sense, it would be 2 different Asian teams qualifying 4 times versus 2 different African teams qualifying 3 times). What's more, in this period, the head-to-head matches between CAF and the AFC have slightly favored the AFC as well. In 2002, Cameroon beat Saudi Arabia 1:0, while Japan beat Tunisia 2:0. In 2006, South Korea beat Togo 1:0, while Iran and Angola tied 1:1 and Saudi Arabia and Tunisia tied 2:2. In 2010, the Ivory Coast beat North Korea 3:0, while South Korea tied Nigeria 2:2, Australia tied Ghana 1:1, and Japan beat Cameroon 1:0. Thus, the overall record in 9 matches is 3 Wins for the AFC, 2 Wins for CAF, and 4 draws. What's even worse for CAF is that they really didn't perform well in the first World Cup hosted in Africa! One would have really expected a much better record from African teams in the last World Cup. The fact that the hosts didn't even qualify to the knock out rounds, the first time that has ever happened, simply highlights how disappointing it must have been to see only one CAF team from the 6 that were competing in that tournament make it beyond the group stage. Anyway, I am not presenting this record to suggest the AFC is stronger than CAF. But to suggest that CAF has really not performed at all commensurate with expectations, barely equaling the AFC (if that) in their World Cup record.
Asia and Oceania to discuss WC slots... http://sports.yahoo.com/news/soccer-afc-oceania-talks-over-combining-world-cup-013930002--sow.html
Bumping this thread as AFC and CAF are currently a combined 1-4-8 this World Cup. It's an absolute joke that they get an equal or greater (!) number of bids than CONMEBOL. I get that they want to grow the game, but it's not like there's billions of television dollars just waiting to grow in Africa, and letting teams who have practically no shot to advance whatsoever (i.e. Australia, Iran, Algeria, Cameroon) play in the World Cup Finals devalues the whole tournament. I think the best solution is to give both continents 2 bids, and then make them play for the rest against real teams from UEFA and CONMEBOL. That way the cream can rise to the top in actual games. Here's how I'd set it up: UEFA: 8 guaranteed, 10 play-in teams CONMEBOL: 5 guaranteed, 2 play-in teams CONCACAF: 2 guaranteed, 3 play-in teams CAF: 2 guaranteed, 4 play in teams AFC: 2 guaranteed, 4 play-in teams OFC: 0 guaranteed, 1 play in team That's a total of 12 home-and-away series where you could pair them by random draw as long as Pot A is [UEFA, CONMEBOL] and Pot B is [CONCACAF, CAF, AFC, OFC]. I'm guessing that under this system, CAF and AFC would be lucky to win 1 out of their 4 play-in series, and if they did win, it would be a legitimately deserving team like South Korea or Ghana. You'd still get the occasional stinker winning one of the Top 2 spots from their confederation, but overall this would be a great way to improve the quality of the World Cup while still giving developing countries the chance to qualify if they're good enough to legitimately earn it.
I kind of agree re C-Bol, however if they want more spots then IMO they should combine (for qualification at least) with C-Caf. No one should be allowed more than 50% of teams to qualify. Then I look at the teams you singled out: Australia has performed better than Spain - the champions in the last cup - in each of it's first two games. I would challenge you to pick a team not at the cup (and I could include most teams that are here as well) that would have performed better than Australia in the games v Chile and Holland. Iran has already drawn v Nigeria, and IMO were slightly the better side - at least through the midfield - and I think you'll find they will be hard to beat for Bosnia as well, and should even provide a bit of a test for Argentina. They are the highest ranked and were best performed for all Asian qualifiers which shows that you are just picking names instead of actually knowing what you are talking about. Algeria were unlucky to lose their first match against a highly fancied Belgium and would be on par with both Korea and Russia. In Cameroon you have a point, but as you admit yourself every confed should be allowed a stinker now and then. If you want to pick out the worst teams so far at the cup (and it is early admittedly) then it would be Greece, Portugal, Spain and Honduras at least as worse than the other 3 you mentioned. I also want to know why you used Conmebols form (a valid point) to add teams to UEFAs quota - if confeds are going to lose spots it should be based on their bottom teams, and it is UEFA that had 3 teams finish bottom last time (along with CAF) and my prediction would be 3-4 for them this time, and only 1-2 for each other confed. It is UEFA teams that would fill out most of the "worst teams" in a list from at least so far in this cup.
I think it's unfair to criticize Portugal too much for a loss to Germany, and that game should not be used to justify a change in allocations because it was UEFA vs. UEFA.