Battle of the Confederations: 2018 Edition

Why is there debate?

1. UEFA

Has the largest number of quality teams and also the largest number of teams capable of rising to a good level every now and then

2. Conmebol

Only a small confederation but has a high quality throughout. Usually only has one or two teams each cycle that wouldn't be worthy of a place in a World Cup. No real minnows, but comes second to UEFA on numbers as I think there are 20 UEFA nations equivalent to the 10 Conmebol nations

a big gap

3. CAF

Gets it on depth mainly Has the occasional surprise team at a World Cup, but then so do AFC and CONCACAF. There are probably 15-20 nations of a strength equal to AFC's top 10-12 and CONCACAF's top 6-8.

4. AFC

Depth over CONCACAF

5. CONCACAF

Is top heavy as Mexico is consistent performer and you don't see that in CAF or AFC. When another nation or two does good at a World Cup it makes them seem stronger, but the next time its usually only Mexico again. I think the quality drops off rather quickly once you get away from the top 6-8 teams.

6. OFC

New Zealand. Not bagging New Zealand, but they are only a middle strength team that would probably qualify every third World Cup if in one of the 3 confederations above them. The others are minnows.

 

I agree with almango for the most part, although the fact that in World Cup 2014 Concacaf had 3 of its 4 teams advance from the group stage makes it harder to place Concacaf below the AFC which had 4 teams (including mine) each finish last in their group. And, frankly, the expectations from the AFC in this World Cup aren't high either although the same can be said of Concacaf.

But to look at the issue a bit differently, lets assume you had a World Cup minus UEFA and CONMEBOL. Instead, all 32 teams came equally (10) from CAF, AFC, Concacaf and 2 from the OFC. What would be my sense of (a) the number of sides from each of them that would qualify to the R16; (b) the number from each that would make the quarterfinal, (c) semifinal (d) final and winner? Nothing mathematical in my speculation below, but it gives an indication of how I see these confederations compare to one another.

In my scenario, for the R16 you would likely have, from CAF, around 7-8 teams advance from the group stage. The number from the AFC would be 4-5. The number from Concacaf would be 3-4. The number from OFC would be 0-1. Moreover, I would expect the last place team in each of the 8 groups to be disproportionally from the OFC and Concacaf. This would mean that, in terms of depth, I rate CAF strongest, then the AFC, then Concacaf (with OFC of course last regardless).

For the quarterfinals, I would expect 2-3 Concacaf sides, 2-3 AFC sides, 2-3 CAF sides and none from the OFC. The differences between the confederations for this stage would begin to narrow IMO. For the semifinals and beyond, however, I would expect the AFC to fall behind a bit and the contest to become mostly one between CAF and Concacaf. In other words, I do rate the Concacaf and CAF top sides above the top sides in the AFC. Not by all that much and very likely you could still see 1 AFC team in the semifinal or even make it to the final and beyond. But the chances that the semifinals and finals would be mostly contested between CAF and Concacaf would be greater.

This is how I really see the balance of power between the 3 lesser confederations (CAF, CONCACAF, and the AFC).

 

The CONCACAF teams have an average of 267.51 FIFA Ranking points, which is slightly more than 262.71 for AFC. CONCACAF has more teams in the Top 50, 3 to 2. AFC has more teams in the Top 100, 12 to 11, but that's a higher percentage of the teams in CONCACAF.

In the last four World Cups, CONCACAF has had USA and Costa Rica reach the Quarterfinals and Mexico get eliminated in the Round of 16 every time, with none of the World Cups in CONCACAF. AFC hasn't had a Quarterfinalist since they hosted in 2002.

 

On balance, Concacaf has better record at the World Cup. That advantage was magnified significantly by Concacaf's record in World Cup 2014 but the advantage existed even before that tournament. I accept and concede that point.

With respect to depth, I consider the AFC to have better depth. The issue is suggested somewhat by the FIFA rankings but is even more evident when you look at ELO rankings which aren't influenced by some of the flaws in FIFA's ranking methodology. ELO lists 11 Asian teams among its top 100 while only 5 Concacaf teams place in that category.

 

In general, I would rank like this (just to be clear, I’m talking about the teams that play in the World Cup from these confederations, not about the entire confederation from top to bottom):

1. CONMEBOL (regularly sends almost every team to the knockout phase)
2. UEFA (sends lots of underachievers / chokers, but also tend to have the best team, if not best 2 or 3)
3. CONCACAF (at least 75% of their teams make a good showing at the WC Finals)
4. CAF (always seem to send 1 or 2 good teams, though often unlucky not to make KO phase more often)
5. OFC (basically just NZ)
6. AFC (not only has the lowest success rate in terms of getting past the group stage, but the tournament’s #31 and #32 teams often hail from AFC)

That said, for 2018 I think CONMEBOL might fall to #2. CONCACAF also look weaker than usual. Zero CONCACAF teams in the knockout phase looks quite possible.

 

hmmm... hasn't the US done just as well as Mexico over the past 4 WCs?

 

No. Even if you ignore the current one its still no.

 

Over the last four World Cups, Mexico has an average rank of 12.5 and USA of 15.0.

 

This will be such a good thread for nuclear testing by july 2018...

 

To me conembol is better than uefa.

Every team in the WC is likely to qualify foe the 2nd round. Cant say the same for uefa.

 

I disagree with your comment that the tournaments #32 and #31 often hail from Asia. Only one Asian team has finished 31 or 32 in the last 3 world cups (North Korea in 2010). Interestingly China and Saudi Arabia filled the last two spots when Asia hosted, with USA and Japan filling the last two in France. Asia was often in the last two spots when we first expanded (3 out of 4 from the first two tournaments), But its been rare since then. I can only surmise your ranking of OFC above Asia is an attempt at a troll.

 

While the World Cup represents football at this its pinnacle and highest stage, I fundamentally disagree with the notion that what transpires in a tournament involving a few games once every 4 years is all that needs to be looked at to determine the quality of various teams. Indeed, even if the OFC had a more substantial presence in the World Cup than New Zealand's admittedly laudable performance in World Cup 2010, and could somehow have shown a better record in the tournament than the AFC, that would itself merely prove my initial point and not detract from the wealth of evidence, results, and logic which would clearly show that any comparison with the AFC and OFC is simply the work of a troll with no clue about anything relating to the subject.

 

I clearly indicated in my post that I was speaking only about the teams that qualified for the World Cup. I wasn't ranking the quality of confederations from top to bottom.
Hence why I have OFC > AFC.

 

Fair enough. When I look more carefully I see that somehow AFC teams avoided the #31 & #32 spots in 2014 despite all 4 of them finishing bottom of their group.

But in the group stages of the last 3 WCs, AFC teams had a total of 5 wins and 22 losses with a few draws thrown in. Pretty poor. In fact, worse than any other confederation.

 

So a confederation that has never gotten to the knockouts is better than one which has made the semi finals and 2nd round a number of times?

 

From my perspective, there is no comparison between OFC and AFC no matter how you approach the issue. A confederation that has qualified and had a representative at the World Cup only once in recent memory can't be even compared with any other confederation in football. In this regard, and to illustrate the point, lets assume for the moment that New Zealand was even much better than they were in 2010, had found a great talent or two to boost their workman life and overachieving side in that tournament, and was in fact a top 10 team in the world that year. Lets assume that commensurate with its ranking, in that one single period, New Zealand even advanced out of the group stage and to the quarterfinals. Lets assume that every other New Zealand/OFC side before or since would be rubbish and wouldn't even rate among the top 100 teams in the world. Nor would they qualify to any other World Cups. That still would't make OFC comparable, much less better, than the AFC or anyone else.

 

Why all the assumptions? Lets just take the fact that NZ got 3 points in WC 2010 which is more than 9 out of 12 AFC teams got in the last 3 WCs. Add to that the fact that there were no weak teams in their WC group. Iran would probably declare a national holiday if they ever tied with the WC champs and a good Paraguay team in the same WC!

I admit the sample size of 1 sucks, but we have to rank the confederations with the data we have. It'll be easier to compare when the WC expands and NZ is in every WC.

 

Actually, Australia was an OFC team in 2006 and made the knockout round (and could have easily gone further, given that Italy won their R16 match on a pretty obvious dive). So in that sense OFC's record is even stronger.

But OFC hasn't really been a confederation in any meaningful sense, after Australia left. You can't be a confederation with only one viable side.

Anyway, AFC vs. OFC? I have to say, this is a rather weird debate.

 

I guess its weird. It just materialized after I gave my ranking of the confederations from 1 to 6. Its also difficult to compare a confederation that gets 13-14 WC spots versus one that gets 5, yet people often compare UEFA with CONMEBOL.

fyi, here is how AFC compares with CAF and CONCACAF in the last 3 WC group stages:

Confederation ..... points per match
CONCACAF .... 1.03 (i.e. 34 points collected in 33 matches)
CAF ................. 0.79
AFC ..................0.67

{OFC is 1.17}

 

IMO (just in case, '~' means 'as good as')
1. In the World Cup:
1.1. Historically: UEFA ~ CONMEBOL >>>> CONCACAF ~ CAF > AFC >> OFC
1.2. Last 5 WCs: UEFA > CONMEBOL >>> CONCACAF ~ CAF ~ AFC > OFC
1.3. As of today: UEFA ~ CONMEBOL >> CAF > CONCACAF > AFC

2. Including all members in the confederation (for this I consider the median team in the confederation), I believe no much difference in last 20 years:
CONMEBOL > UEFA > CAF > AFC > CONCACAF > OFC

 

This is very illuminating data.

It is important to note, however, the extent to which the 2014 results shape these overall points-per-match figures. And as we all know, 2014 was an exceptionally good tournament for CONCACAF teams, and an exceptionally bad tournament for Asian nations.

In both 2006 and 2010, Asian teams actually did (marginally) better than CONCACAF teams on a points-per-match basis in the group stages. The comparisons between AFC, CONCACAF and Africa in those two tournaments, listed from best to worst, are:

2006:
CAF - 0.8 points per match (12 points from 15 games)
*AFC (excluding Australia) - 0.58 (7 points from 12 matches)
*AFC (including Australia) - 0.73 (11 points from 15 games)
CONCACAF - 0.5 (6 points from 12 matches)

I've included two options for the AFC figure - with and without Australia - as Australia technically competed as an Asian side (they joined the AFC in January 2006), even though they qualified via Oceania and the subsequent Oceania v CONEMBOL play-off. Either way you get the same order - CAF, followed by AFC, followed by CONCACAF.

2010:
AFC - 1.17 (14 points from 12 matches)
CONCACAF - 1.11 (10 points from 9 matches)
CAF - 0.78 (14 points from 18 matches)

Then you come to 2014, where CONCACAF teams (Honduras aside) performed magnificently and, for the purposes of this exercise, blew both CAF and Asia away. Asia, by contrast, was terrible.

CONCACAF - 1.5 (18 points from 12 matches)
CAF - 0.8 (12 points from 15 matches)
AFC - 0.25 (3 points from 12 matches)

So in other words, the disparity BocaFan has highlighted definitely exists, but it hasn't been consistently present across the three tournaments in question. The interesting question going forward is whether 2014 was an outlier for both CONCACAF and Asia (CAF's fortunes haven't fluctuated much at all), or whether it's a sign of things to come. I guess we'll see.

Comparing the three confederations, it's interesting how they've rotated through the different spots on the above tables. They've each had a turn at best, second and worst - which perhaps suggests they're more evenly matched than what a lot of people think? If you go back to the 2002 tournament, there's a different order again - CONCACAF, followed by AFC, followed by CAF.

Anyway, it's all food for thought. Apologies for the painfully long post!

 

A lot of it depends on what criteria you use to rank them. My rankings at the top were purely subjective and considered the confederation as a whole at this point in time. As a result they are mostly based on gut feel along with some observations of results. Others have done as you did and compared performances of teams in world cup finals on a historical basis. To me there is not much difference, with weight of numbers contributing to overall depth. Africa is deeper than Asia which is deeper than CONCACAF IMO, and that aligns with the size of the confederation. All have had moments where teams exceed expectations, but CONCACAF has the only nation that has maintained a consistent standard over the years.