yes it will be. there is not too great of a gap between the two teams, and besides, playoffs are usually competitive, no matter which teams are playing each other. we saw that, to an extent, even with uruguay vs jordan for 2014. in the first half of the first game, jordan arguably was the better side, but in the 2nd half they conceded 1 goal, and after that it was over.
It's actually 6. There's also this "playoff tournament" thing featuring a team from the host confederation and one team from each of five confederations (excluding UEFA, stupidly, but including OFC - I can't wait to see the Solomon Islands in this thing... ). This explains it in more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_World_Cup#Slot_allocation What this basically means is CONMEBOL will have 6 guaranteed spots, and a good chance of getting a 7th team in, too. Not a bad deal, actually, though it will kill much of the excitement of the qualifiers. It's mainly UEFA that will continue to have reasonably compelling qualifiers.
I hadn't followed that. You are right. Africa will still be good too, I'd imagine. CONCACAF is a joke though. I guess I was wearing my USA goggles.
Wich countries are still on the fight to be debutants in the WC? If I'm not mistaken just Panama, Cape Verde and Burkina Faso.
my god they did it. it is a historic day. for once they didnt choke. they were set to choke yet again but in the end they finally redeemed themselves. i guess they deserve it. although they will probably finish as the worst, or second worst team in the tournament.
I don't think so. If they can cope with Mexico, Costa Rica and USA, why they should then significantly drop at world cup level? Remember CRC finish in the last 8 last time and Mexico and USA regularily advanced from group stage
Yeah, they did. It actually made me think you guys could have paid them off, but after what occurred today, there's no way that happened.
Bolillo surprised me. He found a way to get Panama there for the first time. Congrats to them. Congrats to Iceland too. It was well deserved and they will be the darlings of the tournament just like they were in France. Venezuela may be added to the list next in 2022. They finished off the CONMEBOL campaign in competitive fashion. Dudamel has them playing with major pride and their U20 players who went all the way to the World Cup Final will be the core base for their 2022 campaign.
From Africa Zambia and Mali will be much stronger next qualifying phase. Mali has tonnes of youth players making the grade, while Zambia's next generation of players should put them in contention. Burkina Faso will likely continue to challenge given Bertrand Traore is just 21.
SENEGAL GET 2 PTS OR MORE: Senegal need two points in their two games vs South Africa to qualify straight out. SENEGAL GET 1 PT: If Senegal get one point vs South Africa then Cape Verde will need to overcome a 8 goal deficit (ergo beat Burkina Faso by loads of goals), while Burkina Faso need to overcome a 4 goal deficit. Not to mention both teams could draw which eliminates them both. The only way this is feasible is if South Africa beat Senegal in one of the games by 2 or 3 goals. In that case though Burkina Faso has a much better shot. SENEGAL GET 0 PTS: South Africa qualifies, the Cape Verde vs Burkina Faso game is irrelevant. So the South Africa vs Senegal double header would need to end with one South Africa win and one draw. And then either team would have to thrash the other or South Africa would have to thrash Senegal in the game they win. I would say Burkina Faso's chances are smaller than that of USA getting eliminated. While Cape Verde's are even smaller. Overall - this almost qualifies in the realm of purely mathematical chances.