You are right about the number of places in 2014. I was thinking abut the qualifying competition and had forgotten about the host. CONCACAF doesn't deserve additional places either. However, my comment wasn't about the wide issue of World Cup places generally, and every confederation's wish to get more of them. It was about Platini's proposal to expand the World Cup, and unless I've missed it, Platini's proposal is to give the additional places to Africa and Asia, not CONCACAF.
You are better at identifying the problem, than coming with a solution for it. Whatever the solution, it can't be in replacing some vested political interests (the interests of the majority of the countries of the world) with that of the interests of subsection that has qualified to the World Cup. To the extent you want to reduce political calculations in these kind of decisions, the answer will have to be in delegating responsibility for devising the right formula and proposals for allocation of World Cup teams to an "expert committee" composed of independent experts who cannot be removed easily, save for corrupt practices and the like. In any case, I certainly would not favor having only countries that have 'qualified' to the World Cup vote. Most of them are from Europe and no surprise that is the case: UEFA has always enjoyed the bulk of the allocations and there was a time when all of Asia did not even get one single allocations by itself.
From the OP Platini told the Times: "I totally agree with Mr Blatter that we need more African and Asian [countries]. But instead of taking away some European, we have to go to 40 teams. We can add two African, two Asiatic, two American, one Oceania and one from Europe." Now I don't know how the breakdown of the Americas would be, but I assume he's not talking about 7.5 of 10 CONMEBOL teams making it. He even talks about giving UEFA another spot, like they really need it.
I stand corrected. But I still don't think that any of the small confederations deserve more places. The multitude of small countries in those confederations isn't a justification for more places. Nobody is saying that Europe should be given more places to account for Andorra and Liechtenstein.
I don't like the idea of expanding the World Cup. I really hate the idea of a 40 team tournament. It's a huge jump to go from 32 to 40 and it's a format nightmare. If a WC must be expanded, 36 should be the number. 8 groups of 5 is no good because of the two extra matchdays generated and because every team can't play their final group match at the same time. 10 groups of 4 doesn't lend itself to a good knockout qualification format. Either 4 second place teams will have to get eliminated or you have to do a convoluted watered down 24 team knockout round in which some third place teams make it. I guess you could have the 10 group winners + 2 best 2nd place teams advance, with the 8 worst 2nd place teams doing wildcards. Group stage with 36 teams: 9 groups of 4 teams Knockout stage qualification: 9 first place teams, 5 best second place teams (most points/GD/GF tiebreakers) 4 worst second place teams play in a wildcard knockout game, the two winners join the 14 in the knockouts. Proceed with the 16 team knockout format. Only 8 extra games total required to implement
Like I said before, fvck it just go to 64 already 16 groups, watch some blowouts and add 1 extra round for the elimination games.
The host spot belongs to the host, not the confederation. CONMEBOL has 4.5 spots and Africa has 5. CONMEBOL doesn't always win the playoff, just most times.
I know where this is coming from: world population. And while Africa certainly deserves more teams, they have the quality and brutal qualifying setup, there is simply no way Asia deserves more teams. And CONCACAF is questionable as well. Of all the remaining confeds, I'd say they all deserve another team (or half spot) before AFC. There is NO WAY they deserve +2, even if we went to 40. Host = 1 Holder = 1 UEFA = 14 CONMEBOL = 6 Africa = 8 Asia = 4.5 CONCACAF = 4.5 Oceania = 1 ============== I'd make Panama a favorite over Jordan. Until AFCs 5th can beat CONCACAF's 5th regularly, they don't deserve another spot.
Why does Africa deserve more teams? They have 5 right now and only one ever makes it out of the first round. I don't think any of the three regions you've mentioned deserve more spots right now.
As I have said, I hate the idea of expanding the World Cup to 40 teams but insist that the issue of World Cup allocations must be decided on the playing field in intercontinental matches and not based on supposition. That said, I like to post in response to what you have said, what I had said elsewhere a while back, before either Blatter of Platini made their recent comments: There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that neither UEFA, Conembol, or Concacaf should get more automatic berths. The only issue is whether AFC or CAF deserve more slots? I don't think they deserve more guaranteed places, but I think the doors should be open for them to see more teams qualify through the kind of intercontinental qualifying system I have suggested elsewhere... In the case of UEFA, however, which has 13 guaranteed World Cup berths already, the idea that they deserve more is somewhat akin to saying Bill Gates deserves more money, comparing his achievements and contributions to someone who has zilch. Perhaps, but forgive me if making sure Bill Gates is richer doesn't figure in the list of my priorities! Same with the notion that UEFA should get more guaranteed places at the World Cup! In the case of Conembol, this time around they will likely see 60% of their members in the World Cup. The notion that they deserve a larger percentage is ridiculous. The weaker Conembol teams already get a tremendous boost in both their abilities and ranking just getting to regularly play the likes of Brazil and Argentina. That's gravy enough for them. As for Concacaf, I don't care if teams like Panama, El Salvador, or Jamaica are not entirely worthless and might, if they qualified, be able to go out in the group stage with respectable scores. I don't see what is added either to the tournament or to the game of football taking one of the 32 spots available and giving it to Concacaf? Senseless. The allocation for Concacaf is more than enough for them.
40 teams are really not a helpful solution: 8x5 will have 8 teams left stranded on the last match day and we will have more gijon 82 all over again 10x4 will mean, that 4 group winners will face each other already in the round of 16 and i see world press condem the system, when just by the luck of draw, germany will face brazil there, despite both having won their groups. if an enlargement makes sense, then there should be 36 teams but not 9x4. 9x4 with wild card matches won`t work. you can do stuff like this in the NFL but in a world cup schedule it should be avoided to have teams resting less than 3 days or more than one week and this isnt`possible with a wild card round. the best option would be to go 6x6, so to have 36 teams in six groups. The winners + runners- up + 4 third placed teams advance to the round of 16. Effectively, we would have 90 group matches instead of 48. and a total of 106 matches. Day 1: A1-A2 | B3-B4 Day 2: A3-A4 | A5-A6 | B1-B2 | B5-B6 | C1-C2 Day 3-Day 17: allways 4 or 5 group matches a day Day 18-Day 21: last group matches with 3 or 6 matches a day Day 22: Resting Day Day 23-26: Round of 16 Day 29-30: Quarter Final Day 34: Semi Final Day 37: 3rd Place Match Day 38: Final Consequences: Platini sees Euro spots not reduced. The 4 new allocations go to Concacaf, Africa, Asia and Europa/Conmebol. I would not grant Oceania a fix spot. Only six groups will great more competition with a group the big disadvantage of a Round of 16 in a 24 team field with 75% passing the group stage is blasted with 16 teams out of 36. the total length of the tournament is only increased by 6 days in comparison to Brazil Every team is guaranteed a tally of 5 group matches. The final four will end up with 9 matches instead of 7 today. 5 matches a day would finish the discussions on kick of times, as the whole day offers football and all time zones in the world are served quite well. I can imagine kick-off times at 12.00, 14.30, 17.00, 19.30, 22.00 Example: Pot 1: Brazil, Germany, Spain, Argentina, Columbia, Uruguay Pot 2: Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands, Italy, England, Portugal Pot 3: Croatia, Sweden, France, Russia, Bosnia, Romania Pot 4: USA, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Korea Rep. Japan Pot 5: Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Algeria Pot 6: Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Jordan, Iran, Australia Possible Draw (did it quickly myself): Group A: Brazil, Portugal, France, Korea Rep., Cameroon, Honduras Group B: Argentina, Netherlands, Romania, Japan, Burkina Faso, Panama Group C: Columbia, Belgium, Croatia, USA, Nigeria, Iran Group D: Uruguay, Switzerland, Bosnia, Mexico, Algeria, Australia Group E: Germany, England, Russia, Ecuador, Ghana, Jordan Group F: Spain, Italy, Sweden, Chile, Ivory Coast, Costa Rica
Never underestimate the power of Pele's curse I basically agree that the best way to deal with this is initiate intercontinental playoffs. I say that UEFA be limited to 8 direct qualifiers and the second placed 8 teams enter into playoffs games with representatives from other confederations (2 CONCACAF, 1 CONMEBOL, 2 AFC, 1 OFC and 2 CAF). All the teams from other confeds would have the same amount of direct qualifiers: CAF 5, CONMEBOL 4, AFC 4, CONCACAF 3. That brings a total of 24 direct qualifiers and 8 slots to be decided in UEFA vs Rest of the World playoffs. UEFA can gain as much as 3 extra slots through this system, so if they truely deserve the slots (being better than second tier teams in other confeds) they should be happy with the format.
If it is 48 teams, I believe the best option would be 8 groups of 6 teams each, where the 2 best from each group goes through to the knock outs. For 48 teams, the best option would be to give each Confederation, at least one member to each group in the WC, so allotment would be : 8 teams for Concacaf 8 teams for Caf (Africa) 8 teams for Afc (Asia) 7 teams for Conmebol 14 teams for Uefa 2 team for Ofc (Oceania) 1 for the host Each group would have, 1 from Concacaf, 1 from Caf, 1 from Afc, 1 from Conmebol, 2 from Uefa (For 3 groups, there would be a slight diference, one without a Conmebol team with one from Ofc instead, another group with only one team from Uefa with one team from Ofc instead, and at last one group with one Uefa team, in which the host would be in (in case of an Uefa host, it will still have 2 uefa teams, but if a team from another Confederation hosts, that Confederation would have 2 of its members in it, instead). The other possibility is to directly give 15 spots to Uefa (instead of 14), and for whichever Confederation gets one of its members to host the WC, one of the spots given to its Confederation would be for the host with one less spot open for the qualifiers for the rest of the teams from that Confederation. This issue, sure would be somethingto think about, when the vote to chose whom gets to host a WC, for teams from the same Confederation, as one less spot would be available for them. (I prefer this last option the most). No intercontinental playoffs, but almost everyone gets at least one of its teams in each group and at the end everyone plays everyone at Confederation level (in the case of Uefa, at least 6 groups will have 2 of its teams in it).
I wouldn't mind 16 teams vying for the final four to the WC or something like that. Kinda like how cricket does it (although it's really complex). So maybe... 28 teams straight to WC Brazil (host) AFC 3 CAF 4 CONCACAF 3 CONMEBOL 4 UEFA 13 16 teams competing for final 4 WC spots in a pre-summer tournament. So because some got bumped from the 32 to 28 cut, maybe something like... AFC 2 CAF 2 CONCACAF 2 CONMEBOL 3 OFC 1 UEFA 6 South Korea Jordan Tunisia Burkina Faso Mexico Panama Uruguay Venezuela Peru New Zealand Sweden France Romania Iceland Denmark Serbia Something like that would be kinda fun. Idk about how ideal though..
You want 8 CONCACAF teams? What you're telling me is that it would be the current Hex, plus Canada and Guatemala. Now I don't know how many games of these two countries you've watched, but they don't really add anything. The current Guatemala is in massive rebuild mode, and are pretty bad. I guess Canada is OK, but the only teams I would think they could beat are the Asian or Oceanian ones. Did you see their recent games against Mauritania? Africa and Asia might have 8 decent enough sides, but North America is very questionable.
This whole issue of getting more teams in the WC, just for the reason of getting more teams for each Confederation is a complete "nut brains" thing. With 32 teams in the WC, to me, is still ridiculous, as not more than 16 teams in the world are really up to the challenge of making it all the way through, and most of them only get the joy of only being present at the WC, where very likely they'll get beaten by stronger sides. Now, if 32 teams are too much, talking about 40 or even more teams, dilutes the sense of the whole competition. I would prefer more games for each team in the WC, but between the very few who really get there to compete, not by artificially getting in the WC lousy, bad teams, just for the show-off. This issue, of getting more teams is just an approach so that everybody gets more of their teams in the WC, so "quality" is the least of the concerns to take in mind at the moment of chosing whom gets to the WC and who doesn't. Who really cares how bad could be the 3 to 5 worst sides of Concacaf, they will equally get eliminated at group phase. Maybe the same will happen to the Oceania teams, the 3-5 worst African sides, and the 3-5 worst Asian sides, the 2-3 worst Conmebol sides and the 3-5 Uefa worst sides as well. At the end no matter how many teams participate, only some Uefa and Conmebol teams will get through, with very few sides from the rest of the world, if not any at all. Unless Blatter or Platini, come up with the "brilliant" idea, to put as a "new rule" that at most Uefa and Conmebol can only have one semifinalist each, to give the ROW, a chance at this stage........
First, as it seems you are not aware about it, as you continue repeatedly been doing it over and over, The South American Confederation is called as CONMEBOL, (it comes as a special abreviation from the Spanish or Portuguese, CONfederación sudaMEricana de fútBOL). It is really annoying to read it (specially if you belong to it), as how you are writting it down in all your posts. Secondly, what I put in bold letters of your post, is one of the most ridiculous statements anyone can think of. Nobody wins points for their ranking just by playing regularly against top sides. You only earn them if you play and also win against them, in which case, it will also see their opponents ranking points get lower if they appear losing or achieving draws against weaker sides. As an aditional side effect, if you lose more regularly against the same top sides, your ranking will not only not go up, but it will get lower instead, as to your average of points you will be adding lots of zero point games, which is all a losing team gets for losing any game. Oh yes, around here everyone beats or draws with everyone, which almost never happens in other Confederations, but this issue is only because the diferences within Conmebol, are lots more balanced between all the members to each other.
Thanks for correcting me on the acronym for CONMEBOL. Will try to get that one correct next time. But as for the statement you find "ridiculous", I totally stand by it. The issue is not about immediately going up or down in the rankings by virtue of being in the same confederation. The issue is more about the chance to play, and become better by playing, teams that are rated as highly as Brazil and Argentina. The issue about getting to face the best players in the world and the teams with the most famed accomplishments and discovering, through time, that they are even beatable. The issue is about getting a lot more exposure for your players and team that way. All this adds up to a lot of benefits that are hard to quantify, but which underscores why my favorite proposal for World Cup allocations is satisfied reducing the guaranteed allocations to AFC combined with OFC to just 2, in return for the AFC+OFC getting 8 wild card teams playing against 8 wild card teams from each of CONMEBOL+CONCACAF, UEFA, and CAF, divided into 8 groups each hosted in one country. I am sure using that format, in no time, teams such as mine will improve tremendously and will prove at least as good as the best sides in CONMEBOL save Brazil (whose large population, combined with football history and tradition, and some other factors, will continue to often give it an edge over others).
No country in South America has so little pride and self respect to even think this way. As if they were to be thankful for having a chance to play against Brasil or Argentina. As if it was a prize to do so. How conformist is that way of thinking!? We've been playing against each other for over a century man, c'mon... We all know each other around here, and everybody expects their national team to win against everybody (or at least knows that they're able to).
But that is exactly my point. To be precise, one of the points I made. The advantages aren't just psychological, however. There are actual improvements in your team's ability by getting to play meaningful matches against such quality teams as often as you do. There is also the advantage of getting more exposure for some of your players that way. There are other advantages too. Advantages that sides of otherwise roughly similar caliber to the lower ranked CONMEBOL teams don't have. As for World Cup allocations, incidentallly, the biggest problem CONMEBOL has its limited membership. You can't have World Cup qualifying be about which teams don't get to qualify, which is what you have if more than half of your membership are guaranteed a place at the tournament. That will reduce the excitement and value of the qualifiers altogether. Which is all why I like to see the World Cup allocations for CONMEBOL and CONCACAF combined.
Well, this issue, which has no relationship with the WC, is actually, none of your concern, as it only involves Conmebol members. And by no way you or anyone from outside of it, should take decissions over issues that only concerns us. And least of all, try to mix our issues with whatever the WC means or implies. The same way, as we, don't really get involved in the issues that affect others. As for the WC, as it is the biggest and most important tournament for everyone the same, you always expect that the best teams to be present in it, and the main objective of the WC qualifiers in the world, is to get through them the very best of the whole world (somehow Platini and Blatter are changing this issue to something diferent with the adition of more teams in the WC, giving the WC a more political value) . If it happens that lots of the best teams belongs to the same confederation, it is always expected that despite this fact, all of them or at least most of them equally make it to the WC, or at least get a fair chance to make it through. On another issue, teams of Conmebol who make it to the WC, win their spot to it, as nothing guarantees anyone of us anything (with the sole exception of whom gets to host the WC, which for Conmebol has meant only 4 of the 19 tournaments already played. Till 2002, past WC champs also got a guaranteed spot). Having more or less teams get their places in the WC, doesn't affect in anything the exitement nor the value of our qualifiers, we believe that they are the best of the world, as through them, with absolute certainty we get the best of our teams to win their place in the WC. The one issue, you might probably never understand completely in regards to Conmebol, is that around here, we love football more than anything else in the world (in other countries you have lots of sports where some of them may be quite as popular as football, while around here, other sports only exist as a substitute entertainment, while football is, a part of life).
Of all of the confederations, Africa is the least deserving of getting more teams. Use any standard of World Cup performance you want. There is no reasonable way to expand the number of teams without adding at least a week to the tournament, probably more. Platini's idea of eight 5-team groups is idiotic (two more rounds, not all teams finishing on the same day, increased likelihood of dud games (both teams out of it)). Platini and Blatter are obviously pandering for votes - it's so transparent as to be laughable. The risk is that they will actually feel the need to implement their harebrained schemes.