This will probably help the lower teams in the confed, but really screws over any team not names USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, or Honduras (maybe Panama) because who you play in friendlies will matter as will winning.
While I don't want to make too many assumptions about whether, and if, CONCACAF is thinking, it does seem like they would have had the 2026 expanded World Cup in their minds when coming up with this format. Perhaps it's something that only needs to be tweaked a bit for 2026.
Watch Canada not qualify for the hex now............way to go Victor.........wonder he finally gets the boot?
This is one of my main issues with this. Team #7 gets screwed beyond belief. There is no specific way for them to pass team#6. FIFA rankings should not be used to determine our 3 guaranteed spots. That is what this does. All other teams only get a shot at our 1/2 spot.
Assuming all three hosts are granted auto-bids, CONCACAF will end up with 3 direct spots plus playoffs up for grabs, so it could do pretty much the same thing for 2026. For 2030 with everybody in the qualifying pool, a hex won't work.
Do friendly results work into FIFA rankings? If so wouldn't this just encourage teams to schedule cupcakes for their friendlies, unless a 1-0 loss to France is the same as winning 1-0 against Bermuda?
Dumb. The Nations League is a dumb idea, IMO. What's the point. Winning it won't mean you're the best. Basically a friendly tourney. And now 6 teams get a dumb bye, while teams 5 and 6 will get skipped over by team #7 for the 4th spot. So dumb, and game show like. Maybe give spot #4 to the team who avoids the Wammy most. I'd prefer 4 large groups, enough to fill most Int'l dates. 4 group winners face off, winners of groups 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3 get direct tickets. The two losers face off for direct ticket #3, loser of that gets the Int'l playoff. This new format is lame. Some teams may regret being high ranked enough for the Hex since they will fear falling into the 5 or 6 slot, while teams beneath them will get a 2nd chance. What kind of ratings has the Nations League gotten so far. You won't attract new fans with a convoluted system of competitions.
There's actually a published formula for FIFA rankings: https://resources.fifa.com/image/up...ion-revision.pdf?cloudid=edbm045h0udbwkqew35a Now the problem is that you don't only need to figure out how to improve your score, but you also have to figure out how much everyone else's score will be increased or decreased, and you may not have all the information to calculate that when you're deciding what games to schedule. If you're Panama and you're trying to decide between a friendly against, say, the Jamaica or the USA you don't know if Canada is about to announce a friendly against T&T or Brazil. But the idea that these rankings come out of the ether with no knowledge of the teams is false. Anyone should be able to calculate these going into a set of matches for all possible outcomes. It wouldn't even be hard to whip up a program to do it.
You know what I meant. In a normal tournament scenario...you finish with more points than another team then you are above them. Now you could beat a team and still be ranked below them in FIFA rankings. This new set up is dumb plain and simple. It gives way to much value to meaningless FIFA rankings that aren't truely telling who is the better team. There is no reason to replace playing it out on the field with simply giving our 3 bids to the top 6 FIFA rankings. This benefits my team (US) and I am still wholeheartedly against it. It just cheapens everything and makes it undeserved. Concacaf is all about controlling it's outcome. By putting US, Mexico and costa Rica automatically in final 6 which 3 qualify...they are 1 step closer to guaranteeing they make it to WC.
Friendlies count, but beating a team far below you in the rankings gains you a tiny amount of points.
You are aware that ranking was used in prior CONCACAF qualifications as well, right? And they're currently used in AFC, OFC, and CAF qualifying? Separating the top from the bottom to avoid the US having to stomp all over St. Vincent in a game that benefits neither team is a good thing, not a bad one. How would you suggest they do that? This is the core of the problem, not using the FIFA rankings. As I pointed out earlier, even the other confederations that use FIFA rankings for byes don't give those teams byes directly into the final qualification round. I think adding the "secondary" competition and playoff against the 4th placed team was a good idea, but I think a system where the teams enter before the hex could have been devised.
I think that, whether you like the notion that the FIFA rankings allow team a "bye to the Hex", (it doesn't sit 100% well with me, but as others pointed out it does entirely accomplish the dual goals of providing meaningful and competitive games throughout the entire qualifying cycle,) people should realize that the FIFA rankings now - which are using an Elo-based system - are going to be a hell of a lot more accurate than the three previous points-based systems FIFA tried.
When the alternative is a bunch of totally meaningless friendlies, it's an upgrade. It's not a super meaningful competition, but it is a competition, and for the limited ambition of what it was I'd call the UEFA version a success. The other big advantage from a USMNT perspective is that it creates a regular schedule of road CONCACAF games, rather than having those come as a total shock in WCQ. I'm guessing maybe they'll try to have the Nations League "finals" at a site outside the US to balance out the Gold Cup? That would also probably be to our benefit.
So a team not in the hex will have to play 16 games. Winning a group stage, then home and away qf, sf, final... then knockout with 4th from hex... then another home and away vs whatever other confederation in order to get to the World Cup? While teams in the hex will play 10 and have a better than 50% chance of qualification from the start?....The most Concacaf thing I've ever heard. Canada has already been eliminated, roll on 2026.
Know the answer before i ask, (Cuz' CONCACAF) But why the Hex? Why not expand to 8 or 10 at the top? That would still eliminate most of the walk-over games, and eliminate the minor rankings difference between teams 5-9. #5 Honduras is currently(June 2019) FIFA #61, #9 Curacao is FIFA #79.
FIFA: over 200 Associations with 1 vote each Africa: 56 votes or 26% of overall votes. They were backing Morocco and Trump calling them a shithole... didn't help matters. South America: 10 votes - looking at 2030 to host for the 100th anniversary of the WC, Morocco was likely their choice to increase their odds. CONCACAF: Some Caribbean nations (31 out 41) were leaning Morocco, yes Trump also called that part of the world a shithole, and the latino "bad hombre"? Not helping. Asia: 47 votes. Middle-East (Muslim Ban), China and its satellites... not looking good there. Europe? Even France declared for Morocco, forget about Russia and others preferred Morroco for the proximity and scheduling. Europe looked like a split vote. Media had reported that a US bid was unlikely to get the majority of votes and some pointed the finger directly at Trump. Including Canada and Mexico allowed for a North American bid, which was easier to sell to other nations who would have normally snubbed a US solo bid. US could easily host on their own. It wasn't out of the goodness of their heart that Canada and Mexico were invited, a split World Cup was better than no world cup. Everyone helped one another, everyone wins. You're welcome
Play the games like before instead of just handing it to them. Again the whole "well they always win anyway" argument is not valid. If that is the case then why play any games at all? Let's just award the WC to Belgium and move on. Also just advancing the top 6 and giving them a 50% of advancing (actually higher when you throw in the 4th still had a chance) doesn't sit well. Expand to 8 or 10 at least. Just using FIFA rankings to advance to the final round of qualifying is not right.
For the 26 Cup, pretty sure I read somewhere that CONCACAF would get 6 slots, with 3 on the line in qualifying. I dont know if they will go ahead and adjust the qualifying now or wait until 30.
The problem is teams who aren't members of FIFA. League C Group D has three teams, of which Turks and Caicos Islands is the only member of FIFA. UEFA doesn't use FIFA Rankings to determine starting round, but they use FIFA Rankings for seeds. CONMEBOL doesn't have seeds. If all three hosts get auto-bids and Concacaf gets about the same amount of spots from qualifying and keeps the same format, it will be easier to start in the Hexagonal because being 9th in Concacaf in the FIFA Rankings would let you start in the Hexagonal if all three hosts were above you. Furthermore, if USA and Mexico don't need to qualify and therefore have no danger of being eliminated before the final round of qualifying, I don't know if Concacaf would favor the top six again. I posted about how they're 8th in Concacaf in the FIFA Rankings. They need to pass at least two of Panama, Honduras, Jamaica, and El Salvador. The latter two have by far the best FIFA Ranking in their Nations League B group. Canada needs Panama to lose both games to Mexico and preferably drop points to Bermuda, and Canada needs Trinidad and Tobago to win the group with Honduras. Meanwhile, it makes the USA vs. Canada games more important for Canada. With matchdays needed for the Nations League, they wouldn't make a final group of 8 or 10. Having that many teams only works if there are two groups. Furthermore, if 10 teams competed in one group from 3 spots with fourth having to win two playoffs, there would be many games between eliminated teams.