Russia 2018 Finalists: International Friendlies (R)

Next world cup UEFa have 13 spots.
But i think its good as it is.
How many spots do you want afc and caf should get of uefa?

 

Honestly I'd leave UEFA the way it is and take a half spot from AFC or CONCACAF and give it to Africa.

 

yes i agree.
But CONCACAF gonna qualify from a team from south america and AfC against OFC.

 

Starting in 2026, there will be 48 teams at the World Cup, which should be more than enough for every confederation to have all of their deserving teams qualify.

Does anyone know how they intend to get from 48 teams to the Round of 16? The 12 group winners and four best second place teams?

 

There was a time when UEFA used to participate in intercontinental play-offs.

I wonder how would UEFA perform, if it risked a couple of spots thru play-offs. That would help justify its current 40.6% allotment at the World Cup.

Although, I can understand why it would choose not to. The trend does not look promising for UEFA at all.

Number of UEFA teams that moved past group phase, in 32-way tourney:
1998 - 10
2002 - 8
2006 - 8
2010 - 6
2014 - 6

 

I think they'd be fine unless they had to face a CONMEBOL side, that'd be a toss-up.

 

I agree. I would be all for it, although I think they would do fine against the second rate CONCACAF or AFC sides (albeit this time around one of the playoff spots would be USA), I could see them struggle against Africa's second tier - Ghana, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Zambia, DRCongo would be in the mix.

It won't happen but I would love spots to be shapened a bit by playoffs.

 

Actually it would've been Honduras, not the US.

 

I'm talking about extra playoff spots, so yeah... USA.

 

Not Ghana then, Uganda.

 

Since you mentioned those groups, I think that at least 4 confederations would be interested in play-offs against UEFA.

However, obvious problems would arise. Particularly, the unwillingness of UEFA teams to travel outside of Europe.

For instance, Japan has played 22 friendlies against UEFA since 2002. However, just 9 were played in Japan.

There is also the matter about which confederation gets to face the best/worst UEFA playoff rival?

 

If I understand correctly such a mini playoff tournament is in the works for 2026.

 

Is this confirmed? I thought it was a proposal yet to be approved.

 

I think there’s going to be a round of 32 in 2026.

 

Yes, it was approved January 10.

https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/new...pansion-of-the-fifa-world-cuptm--2863100.html

It also says in the article that there will be 16 groups of three teams each, and that the top two will move on to a 32 team knockout round, then a round of 16, etc.

I kind of like more knockout matches, but we'll see if 48 teams works. The Euro expansion to 24 teams was a bit of a mess, IMO.

 

Yepp was much better with 16 teams, but i dont like that 3 team can advance.
But 2026 is in 8 years and we have seen more and more teams getting better and i think that gonna continue.
But i dont like groups with 3 teams, i wanted 40 teams, and 10 groups and the 6 best runners up.

 

Only two teams will advance, but there will only be three teams in the group. Advancing should be pretty easy for all but the worst teams.

 

I was talking about the latest euro 2016 when i wrote "i dont like that 3 team can advance" my bad i didnt wrote that

 

On March 30 they also approved how slots will be allocated:

https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/new...ey-decisions-for-the-future-of-t-2883353.html

It is not very well explained, but in short, 46 slots will be allocated directly to each confederation:
AFC: 8
CAF: 9
CONCACAF: 6
CONMEBOL: 6
OFC: 1
UEFA: 16

The remaining 2 slots will be decided in playoffs between 6 teams (one from each confederation except UEFA + one team from the confederation of the host country). Of those 6 teams, two will be seeded per FIFA ranking. The four unseeded teams play knockout games, and the winners play the seeded teams.

 

How did CONCACAF and CONMEBOL end up with the same number of slots? CONCACAF should have 5 (at the most) and CONMEBOL 7. Also, the AFC with 8? Really? And lucky New Zealand, they have essentially a permanent World Cup berth. They should at least have to win a playoff against a CONCACAF team.

 

A mix of federation size and federation quality. CONMEBOL - 10 nations, AFC - 47, OFC - 16 and CONCACAF - 41.

 

So If USA,Canada and Mexico going to arrange world cup 2026, we going to have 9 teams from CONCACAF?

 

Disgusting.

 

No, that would likely be deducted from CONCACAF's pool of 6 slots.
So they would have:
6 slots and 2 playoff slots.

 

To be more precise: If there is ONE host country, it qualifies automatically, and one slot is taken from its confederation’s quota. If there are TWO (or more) host countries, it is said that the number of host countries to qualify automatically will be decided by FIFA Council.