FIFA 2019 WWC qualifiers

Korea's main food staple is kimchee. It's got a very distinctive taste......and smell! One bite is very invigorating & gives you a lot of stamina & energy. Just don't kiss anybody after eating it!

 

Kimchee is prominent, but isn't quite a "staple" because it's still only a fraction of your total daily intake. Kimchee is a side dish, being simply a pickled vegetable (cabbage) that you can eat all winter long. (That was, after all, its original design goal.)

Korean cuisine has a great triad of food groups/textures/flavors that make a perfect Venn diagram:
- steamed white rice = starch
- marinated meat = protein, savory (cut into bite-sized pieces with kitchen shears, so you can eat with chopsticks)
- kimchee = vegetable (cabbage), spicy/acrid/pungent

Any one of them is good. Any two of them work. All three in one bite works. You can't eat only rice and meat all winter long; you need a vegetable. They didn't have refrigerators, so they got creative. The spices evolved/converged to fill exactly the missing leg of the triad. Hence, kimchee today is kind of strong in flavor because it's meant to be used as a garnish with something else in each bite. (After a few months, you graduate to being able to enjoy kimchee by itself, slice after slice. It's healthier than french fries.) N.B. breakfast in Korea can be rice/meat/kimchee like any other meal, or as McDonalds-y (KFC, Dunkin' Donuts) as the West, so they can eat kimchee 3 meals a day if they wish.

China is going through a kimchee fad craze, as they discover the power of this triad. Ironically, China is now the world's #1 producer (and consumer) of kimchee, because 10% local demand is still more than Korea's entire population.

Germany's triad is bread/brats/sauerkraut, but you can't eat that every day. Other cultures have their own equivalents, for similar reasons. USA's triad might be pizza dough/pepperoni/tomato sauce

Kimchee upon a pepperoni pizza would be good. This proves its awesomeness.

 

Lebanon and Guam withdrew from Group C.

http://www.the-afc.com/afcasfeeds?view=all&id=199&type=Stage

 

They should move someone over from Group A as it still has 6 teams.

 

I'm assuming this is tongue-in-cheek?

If not, the Women's World Cup includes 5 spots for AFC teams. On that basis, there is room for both Korea's. They are both in the top five in AFC. If North Korea had been seeded for the qualifying draw, the way they should have been, then the AFC reps would almost certainly be Japan, Australia, China, North Korea and South Korea.

As for the rest, I don't know where you live but in the city where I live people eat Korean all the time. Korean Fried Chicken is huge in popularity with a new spot opening up almost every month it seems. Korean/Mexican fusion is huge. Korean food in general is very popular.

As for Japan being far superior, China being more prominent in manufacturing and Korea not dominating anything, do me a favor and name 5 Korean companies (there's a reason why I'm asking which I'll gladly share later).

 

Don't take Movement seriously.

 

I think I've been told this before and totally forgot.

 

the AFC qualifiers start tomorrow. How disappointing that they didn't move a team from Group A(6 teams) to Group C(3 teams). Or that they didn't accept a late entrant)if one applied).

 

As AFC qualifiers start and having read the first page, there seems to be a lot of fascination with the Philippines especially when it comes to Heather Cooke. Ironically she isn't even in the squad for qualifiers! lol.

Not only Cooke but a host of the better and more notable foreign based players are not in the squad! No recognized goal scorers (Shugg, Houplin, Cooke, Kreutz, not even the local Christina delos Reyes) or even any players that would give them some flair/spark going forward (Salvacion or De Ramos). Only noteworthy name in their for me is Ospreys midfielder Hanna Parado but she mainly plays a deeper CM role. Even Trojans and Panthers defenders Long and Tomanon who are in the squad are pants based on their last outing with the Philippines. Very weak squad to say the least.

Even with some of the better offensive players they only got a measly 2-0 win over Singapore last year. UAE and Bahrain are around the same level of Singapore give or take. Tajikistan are the unknown quantity as they haven't played any games at senior level yet. If they're at least half the level of Uzbekistan, the Philippines are definitely screwed. Jordan should easily top the group even if their standing doesn't matter. At best, it'll come down to goal difference and even then, it's looking very bleak for them.

 

started a new separate thread for the AFC qualifiers. Don't think they should all be bunched into on thread.

 

The 2018 Women's Copa America will be hosted by Chile.

2,5 places for Conmebol to France 2019

http://www.soychile.cl/Santiago/Dep...ra-sede-de-la-Copa-America-Femenina-2018.aspx

 

Here I bet on New... Caledonia!

 

Don't pencil in New Zealand just yet.
I had a dream recently that Tonga beat them in OFC qualifying.
We'll see if that turns out to be true or not.

Some dreams are premonitions.
Others are just weird dreams that have no chance of becoming true.
Like the one of Bruno Bini who became the new US Men's National team coach.
WTF? That was a weird dream.

 

Can I rep this multiple times?

 

Just wondering: does anyone know how OFC has kept firm support from FIFA, regarding WC qualification?

Since Women's WC started in 1991, OFC has registered zero wins.
Regardless, OFC has kept 1 ticket straight into the WC.

Do OFC officials hold any influential seats within FIFA, perhaps? Does OFC football have any relevant links to UEFA, perhaps?

OFC points earned throughout WCs (group placement), Australia in bold:

1991..2015: 0(4th), 0(4th), 1(3rd), 1(4th), 0(4th), 1(4th), 2(4th).

I can appreciate efforts for developing women's football, but how has OFC managed to keep FIFA's support?

 

Short answer? OFC represent a lot of votes.

Also, it's quite common that, with the exception of UEFA, the WC slots almost always include one nation at the bottom of each confed that sucks. CAF had zero wins through the first two tournaments and still got a second slot in 1999. CONMEBOL's second slot registered zero wins before getting a third entrant in 2015. Basically, the tournament will err on the side of getting a little bit extra than not enough.

And to be fair, even if OFC's single slot has earned zero wins, their performances have been much, much better than other low-ranking sides. Think of this:
1999 - AUS's losses were to SWE and CHN, both 1-3. 5 teams performed worse.
2003 - AUS's losses were worse teams than last time, but only 1-2, and they drew CHN. The other 3 fourth-place teams blew out by double-digits.
2011 - Like AUS in 2003, NZL were eliminated with just a -2 GD in a group with ENG and JPN. 4 teams performed worse on all accounts, and another had worse GD but more points.
2015 - NZL drew CAN and CHN and only lost to NZL by 1. Overall better than 5 other teams.

TL;DR - you can't take away from OFC's spot unless you want to re-contract the tournament to eliminate the other underperforming slots.

 

I can agree with what follows, but I am afraid that this was the main reason, especially in the highly corrupt Blatter-era.

I don't remember who they lost to (it wasn't a group I was closely following), but I suppose they didn't lost to... themselves!
Unless it is a witty way to say that they played so badly that last match that it was as good as a "self-elimination".

 

Second time in quick succession I mismanaged my abbreviations.... NZL lost to NED.

 

1 spot for OFC would be more justifiable, if all OFC members had equal opportunity at getting that spot.

As OFC qualifiers currently stand, NZL is heavily favored by FIFA. Something is fishy there.

Also, WC allocations were not decided by general vote. There used to be a FIFA Executive Council, where smaller confederations would have as many votes as their larger counterparts. That council went away after corruption *reform*.

NZL has found a way to free up its calendar to gain proper experience outside of OFC, while restricting OFC interaction to 2 matches over 4 years. OFC will remain stagnant, while NZL reaps subsidies from FIFA.

If NZL is really improving, then it would have no problems entering an intercontinental playoff. I doubt FIFA would agree.

 

Where are your sources that FIFA organizes the OFC qualification? As far as I know FIFA just assign spots and the confederation's decide how they ornazie the qualification to decide who get the spots/spot.