https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...c33934-8e23-11e6-bc00-1a9756d4111b_story.html a terrible terrible idea. The last thing soccer needs is more meaningless qualifiers. Let's not replicate the abominable UEFA qualifying scheme.
I disagree lots of soccer programs need more games to have a chance at growing. Obviously the European system wouldn't work but the Asian model of two groups at the end could help Guatemala, Canada, Jamaica which shouldn't be dismissed as it has in the past
It could be worse. Say 4 groups of 10 in the first round (total 40 countries) that is 18 games, 1st and 2nd places advance. Then direct elimination 1st places vs. 2nd places random draw, home-away. eliminate 4 teams, that is 20 games. Semifinal with the 4 winners home-away, 2 winners book their spot to the WC. losers play for the 3rd and 4th spot, 22 games. losers final, winner makes the WC, loser goes to the FIFA playoff, 24 games for the winner, 26 games for the loser. May not have enough FIFA dates for this. Also it frees the 2 semifinal winners to have 4 extra FIFA dates to schedule friendly games before the World Cup. Can you just imagine how the groups would look like, lol.
USA-TRI will play each other four times. Same for MEX-HON and CRI-PAN. How about removing those repeated matches? For example, round 4 would have has two groups of six teams (10 matches per team). In round 5, teams would play the top 3 from the other other group (6 matches per team). Teams would carry points of matches with the other two qualified teams So it would be a six team group, except that they already played four matches. The final six teams would be decided four rounds later than with the current system. And the number of matches per team wouldn't change.
Generally, qualifying involves no more than 18 matches (Conmebol). I still think that teams progress by playing teams that are reasonably better than they are. I'm not sure how much 6-0 blowouts help. I might see something like taking the current 12 team round and just doing dual hexes, kind of like Asia. That'd get the teams a little further down the pecking order more games against better competition without clogging up the schedule with a lot of overmatched games that aren't useful for either participant. I still think that the preliminary thinning of the real minnows is pretty important though.
Is there any soccer competition that carries over games like that? I wouldn't like it if countries had multiple opponents that they played 4 times, but playing one opponent 4 times is fine with me.
No thanks, watching CONCACAF is bad as it is. Don't need more crap matches. The hex is the only exciting part, and I imagine a format including more crap nations would mean Mexico-US wouldn't meet at all during qualifiers.
home and away playoff until we have 28 teams, 7 group of 4, the 7 winner and the best runner up to the Octagono, and maybe 4th team playoff again NZ. 2+6+14+2:24 meaning full games. The 7 worst runner up can play a round robin to qualify to Gold Cup 2021 or 2023. (and Canada maybe can get into the best 8)
It would be a waste of 12 games (6 per team) to have a 4 team group with only one second team advancing because any team grouped with USA, Mexico, or Costa Rica would have very little chance to win the group. Playing USA, Mexico, or Costa Rica would hurt the second place team's goal differential compared to the goal differential of a team that finished second to Trinidad and Tobago. Points and goal differential would be need to compare second place teams in groups that would not be equally difficult. If one team or no teams could advance without winning their group, a group shouldn't have teams from 1 through 7 and teams from 22 through 28. Either the top teams should start later, the bottom teams should be eliminated earlier, or every group should advance two teams. How about the Top 4 start in the Semifinals and the other 31 start in 7 groups of 4 and 1 group of 3 with only the winners advancing. The bottom teams would all get at least 4 and probably 6 games. The bottom teams would lose some games by a lot, but they wouldn't face USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, or whoever was fourth in the CONCACAF in the FIFA Rankings used for the draw.
More matches for USMNT is good, because USMNT can cap-tied young promising dual citizens and provide minutes for bench players including the keeper. And the away trips will be fun experience for the USMNT traveling supporters. WC Qualifying Format 1st Round - 6 groups of 35 teams. 2nd Round "Hex" - 6 Group Winners.
That's a lot of games, especially for the minnows. 6 groups means 6 teams in most groups so every team plays at least 10 games. Only having the winner advance from the groups means a lot of meaningless matches but the small teams still have to pay to travel to those games.
Elimination round till you're down to 32. 4 groups of 8. Group winners advance, seeded based on pts and GD. 1 vs 4, 2 vs 3. Winners advance to WC. Losers face off for direct berth. Loser of that plays in intercontinental playoff. No one cares if Mex doesn't play u.s. again, the 4 Gold Cup finalists should draft the other 28 remaining into their groups. This gives the smaller teams more chances to raise revenue. They can play their home games anywhere they want and keep the cash, like Belice in Houston in 2008. Win-win.
The only confederations with groups that don't qualify any second place or worse teams are OFC (which doesn't have many good countries) and CAF (which still eliminates a majority of the teams before the Group Stage). I can understand some lesser CONCACAF teams wanting more games, but would they want to spend the money on traveling to 7 WCQs away (and more than that if they played their "home" games elsewhere)? I read about a Caribbean country having hardly any money for food when they brough their U-20s or U-17s to the USA for the CONCACAF qualifying tournament for the U-20 or U-17 World Cup. In addition, your proposal could have group winners determined by the goal differential tiebreaker with a team winning the group because of how many goals they beat St. Lucia or Montserrat by. I also don't like having almost every team in a Group Stage but not every team. I have a couple of proposals for Group Stages with more than the 12 teams the current format has while still not making minnows play too many games they have no chance at winning: 1. Similar to your format but with 4 groups of 6 instead. 2. 6 groups of 4 with the winners advancing to the Hexagonal. 3. 4 groups of 4 with the winners advancing to the Hexagonal and the second place teams playing two leg series for two spots in the Hexagonal. Rather than ranking the second place teams by points to determine opponents (which the CCL does but I don't know if WCQs have ever done that), I would do a draw beforehand so it could be second place in Group 1 hosting the first leg against second place in Group 3 and second place in Group 4 hosting the first leg against second place in Group 2. To get from 35 teams to 16 teams, I would play two rounds. In Round 1, the 18 teams from 18 to 35 would play to eliminate 9 of them. In Round 2, the 11 teams from 7 to 17 and the 9 Round 1 winners would play to eliminate 10 of them and advance 10 of them to join teams 1 through 6.
Much simpler way to get more countries involved. Simply have 16 nations qualify for the group stage before the Octagon (replaces the Hex). 4 groups of 4 (6 games per team). Top two from each group advance to 8-team 14-match Octagon. 1st-3rd qualify for World Cup. 4th goes to intercontinental playoff. This will generate extra revenue for EVERYONE involved, and thus CONCACAF can shelve the second (and meaningless) Gold Cup every 4-year cycle for a Copa de las Americas with South America. Basically a repeat of the Copa Centenario, but played on a rotation of hosts (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, USA).
Montagliani previously indicated to Grant Wahl that the single table final round would be maintained. He has indicated again today that an expanded single table is likely. I think some of the fear mongering over a double hex or a UEFA style format can be put to bed.
Two final groups is the better format for growing the game provided concacaf doesn't get extra wc spots. If it was an 8 team final table round there would potentially be a lot of meaningless games toward the end
I don't think there would be a problem of having too many meaningless games. An 8 team group would have 56 games (14 matchdays of 4). If you assume that the fifth place team will enter the last pair of games with a chance at finishing in the top four, the only games between two eliminated teams could be the 6 games between the sixth, seventh, and eighth place teams. It would also make it easier to clinch qualification earlier, although I think USA, Mexico, and Costa Rica would try to beat each other to finish first even if there was a game after both of them had clinched qualification. My problem with an Octagonal is how you structure the earlier rounds. Here are the possibilities: 1. Play a 16 team Semifinal Round. What I don't like about that is that the Semifinals and Octagonal would require 20 games, which I think is more than a team should have to play. Even if the top teams started in the Octagonal (which I don't think should happen), you would still have teams like Trinidad and Tobago playing at least 20 qualifiers. 2. Play two leg series until CONCACAF is down to 8 teams. I don't think the top teams should start in the Octagonal. If 35 teams attempt qualifying, it could be structured like this: Round 1: Teams 22-35 play to advance 7 of them Round 2: Teams 5-21 and the 7 Round 1 winners play to eliminated 12 of them Round 3: Teams 1-4 and the 12 Round 2 winners play to eliminate 8 of them UEFA has groups of six with at most two teams qualifying. CAF now has groups of four, but in qualifying for World Cup 2006 they had groups of six with only the winners qualifying.
I suspect these changes will only be a one-off for 2022 qualifying if the 48 team world cup is approved for 2026. For political reasons I think CONCACAF could get an allocation as high as 6. With that, a single table final round would make little sense.
http://www.starsandstripesfc.com/20...conmebol-world-cup-qualifying-merge-infantino proposal of expanding the World Cup itself to a 40 or 48-team format from its current 32-team field. It’s believed that Infantino will introduce both proposals to the FIFA Council to be held this month. If approved, both CONCACAF and CONMEBOL would compete against each other to qualify for the 2026 World Cup. It remains to be seen how exactly the 46 country field would be narrowed down from CONCACAF’s perspective with so many different countries involved in many different rounds.
Even with a reported 14 berths it would potentially mean little to no increase in world cup berths for CONCACAF teams. I suspect there will be CONCACAF resistance to this.
Round 1: Teams 12 to 35: 6 groups of 4----top 2 of each group and the best third to the Round 2 Round 2: Teams 1 to 11 and the 13 from Round 1: 6 groups of 4--- Top 2 of each group advance to the Round 3 Round 3: 12 teams: 2 groups of 6....winner of each group to the World Cup Repechage: runner-ups of each group..winner to the World Cup...Loser to the inter-continental repechage Each Team have at least 6 games....
Not bad. I might add the third place finishers in round 3 to the repechage round to lower the number of dead rubbers and account for any imbalance in the groups. And if the current CONCACAF rankings hold, the USA and Mexico wouldn't necessarily lose their lucrative head to head matches
The problem with that is with two repechage rounds and a playoff against a team in another confederation, there would need to be three pairs of matchdays after Round 3. Using a normal schedule, this would require Round 3 to end in June of the year before the World Cup, with repechage rounds in September and October and a playoff against a team in another confederation in November. World Cup 2022 will be played at a different time of year, so the qualifying schedule could be different.