London 2012: Men's Olympic Football Tournament [R for ALL results]

i agree with this. we shouldnt allow overage players

 

Finishing 4th in AFC qualifying wouldn't give you a ticket to anything. I guess you could say North Korea didn't set the world alight in coming 2nd in the 2010 qualification pool, but other teams simply weren't good enough.

Many people said at the time that Iran and Saudi Arabia were better teams, but two years later and nothing's changed as such

It's all great saying crap teams get in, great teams don't, but the only factors we have is past history and do these factors really count when it really comes down to it.

As for UEFA, they have about 10 games, if a France for example didn't qualfiy, then they really shouldn't be at the show piece if they can't get it together in a 10 game series. In fact, UEFA qualification favours such big nations to have a muck up once in a while and still have time to turn it around. Upsets are uncommon as teams looking to really upset need max 6 games really to inflict damage, and extra 4 can hurt them.

 

AFC get 4 automatic spots, so finishing 4th gets you a direct ticket to the WC finals.

Upsets are uncommon under the current allocation system (ie 13 places for UEFA). What I'm saying is that if you took any less, like you suggest, then the margin for error would be ridiculously small that upsets would inevitably occur. It wouldn't just be the best 4 that qualify. Adding those other 8 UEFA teams makes it tougher to win a WC, just like adding an additional 3-4 CONMEBOL teams does, since most of those extra teams provide stiff competition.

 

Eh, what now? Am i hearing this? Top two from each group qualify, thats finishing 2nd to qualify. Sorry, but after the games are played, I don't add both groups together like you seem to be doing here.

Finishing 4th is like going out in round one with Pakistan, all means the same thing, no world cup.

 

All I'm doing is taken the last team to qualify from AFC to prove that you can stumble and still succeed in your qualification attempt.

DPR Korea "stumbled" in AFC qualifying last time out going 3-3-2 in the final round, in addition to dropping points to the likes of Turkmenistan in the preliminary round. Such a record in UEFA would never be good enough even though 13 teams qualify.

 

What logic is this? UEFA against AFC against two totally different ways of qualifying to begin with.

Like i said earlier, the Norks stumbled but no one else took it upon themselves to capitalise. Iran and Saudi weren't good enough. If UEFA used the same system as AFC then you would have had a similiar picture. Just imagine, you owuld have had England, France, Spain, Germany in similiar groups.

So, when we can compare to similiar systems, then lets debate, but to say North Korea came 4th because they qualified later than Japan but finished in the same position within a different group is just pointless debate. They could have finished in 3rd - is this your 5th or 6th slot? and still have qualified.

 

Actually, no. You don't have to face the team that Brasil is bringing, in the U-20. U-23 teams are better than U-20 teams. Add the overage players, and it's a hands-down more difficult task. The quality of teams makes it more difficult. Quantity means little.

Best call-up-limited U-23 side. Which is still the best youth team out there.

 

Not sure what you're trying to say(?). Are you saying, if you're lucky you won't have to play Brazil? Well, yeah ....that's true in any tournament. Even more so in the Olympics since teams like Argentina and Netherlands didn't even qualify.

 

I'm saying you have to defeat tougher teams to win Olympic gold, than you do to win the U-20 World Cup.

 

That doesn't make it more difficult since you too can call up over-age players, not just your opponents. So the playing field is still level, but there are fewer opponents from the strong confederations.

 

the quality of the opponents is greater. teams have had more development from age 20-23 just as 17-20 is a jump in player ability. just because you have big name brands that arent there doesnt delude the quality of play overall. all the missing countries had the same opportunities to qualify. in the conmebol they do u-20 WC qualifying and olympic qualifying at the same time and thats their choice.

because it is the olympics i believe the allocations are done more by population rather than strength of the confederations.

 

lol.

 

lol. you must think its like 1980 still

 

Asia consistently underperforms its allocation of places in WC finals. It may be improving, but it's still crap in comparison to other confederations.

 

compared to whom? caf? africa got 6 spots only one team made it out the group in 2010. 2006 they had 5 spots only 1 made it out the group. 2002 5 spots 1 made it out the group. now that is crap.

uefa had 14 spots in 2002 9 advanced. 2006 14 spots 10 advanced. 2010 13 spots 6 advance.

now afc 2002 4 spots 2 advance. 2006 4 spots none advance (im not including the aussies). 2010 4 spots 2 advance.

just think before you post please right now the allocations are fine but in about 2 WC cycles expect the "crap confederations" to get more as they get better.

and as the weaker teams get better i expect more "oh we dont care about the world cup now" type excuses from the old guard.

 

So, in summary that means

UEFA: 25 out of 41 = 61% (60% if you exclude the host nation)
AFC: 4 out of 12 = 33% (20% excluding host nations)

So UEFA has triple the success-rate.

CAF did slightly worse than AFC in 2010, but better in most WCs before that one.

That said, with Australia joining AFC and with the playoff spot now against CONMEBOL instead of New Zealand, it has become a bit better.

 

Similarly, looking at last-place finishers:

UEFA: 7 out of 41 = 17%
AFC: 6 out of 12 = 50%

So AFC has almost triple the "success"-rate.

 

i suppose but the playoff is done by lottery pick. and i only added uefa for perspective not because i think they are a "crap confederation". its obvious the top 2 are uefa and conmebol the ones after that people jumble in whatever order they want. ii would say uefa, conmebol, afc, concacaf, caf, ofc.

 

Percentage is one way of looking at it. Another correct statement based on your numbers is that UEFA has sent more more teams that finished last than AFC. Some may even conclude from those numbers that UEFA is more over represented than AFC.

 

A correct statement yes, but surely a flawed conclusion.

The WC tournament starts with 40% UEFA teams (13 teams out of 32), so as long as 40% of the final 16 are UEFA, 40% of the final 8 are from UEFA, 40% of the final 4, etc. then they are not over-represented.

In fact, in the last 3 WC's 52% of the teams surviving the group-stage are from UEFA and 54% of the quarterfinal teams are from UEFA. Finally, 75% of the semifinal teams are UEFA!

It would seem based on that, UEFA "deserves" 16 to 17 spots. Not that I want that. I think it's more fun to have at least 3-4 teams from each region of the world.

 

The conclusion was meant to be provocative. My own preference would be to reduce the gauranteed allocation of all Confederations by 1 spot (UEFA by two) and convert these spots to two playoff spots, all to be inter confederational. UEFA could get 17 if they won all their platyoffs and who could argue with that if it happened. All regions would have the opportunity to get extra teams in the Wolrd Cup, and the Confederational mix would more accurately reflect the current strength, rather than past strength.

 

It's the wrong thread to discuss this, but I doubt any of the weaker confederations would risk losing some of the currently guaranteed spots in this way.

 

Senegal beat Oman 2-nil. So the field of 24 is now set.

Draw takes place tomorrow for both men and women.

 

Who are the seeds and how are they determined?

 

seeds are britain, brazil, spain, and mexico

they never said how they were chosen.