Not necessarily. If Sweden needed a result in their last group-stage qualifier the outcome might have been different.
203. South Sudan Some very tight ties here, with Lesotho going out on away goals to Ethiopia and Burundi out on penalties against Tanzania. This one ended up finishing 2-1 on aggregate (against EQG). 202 will be either Sierra Leone or Liberia. Sierra Leone needs a second goal at home in the next ~20 minutes to go through on away goals or they’re out.
So, Sierra Leone doesn’t get the second goal and goes out 2-3 on aggregate to Liberia. Liberia’s 89th minute goal in the first leg proves crucial. Had Sierra Leone lost there just 2-1, they would have advanced today.
Ah... it looks like they missed a penalty right at the death. I kind of stopped checking at some point and just saw the score after it ended. That just makes things even worse, doesn’t it.
201. Botswana 200 and 199. Eswatini and Somalia (both games started at 9:00 A.M. USA Eastern and I don't know which one ended first) 198. Mauritius 197. Gambia Africa has 3 games in progress and 2 games starting soon. The surprise is that Sao Tome e Principe, who is 185th in the FIFA Rankings, leads 1-0 at Guinea-Bissau, who is 123rd in the FIFA Rankings. Guinea-Bissau won 1-0 at Sao Tome e Principe, so the aggregate is 1-1 with the second leg in the 25th minute. Sao Tome e Principe will have at least as many away goals, and if both teams score the same amount in the rest of the game, Sao Tome e Principe will advance.
196. and 195. Seychelles and Comoros (both games started at 12:00 P.M. USA Eastern and I don't know which one ended first) 194. Sao Tome e Principe (Guinea-Bissau won 2-1 to win the aggregate 3-1) 193. and 192. Eritrea and Chad (both games started at 1:00 P.M. USA Eastern and I don't know which one ended first)
So, in the end, 11 out of 14 Pot 1 sides advance from CAF's first round. The three that didn't were Sierra Leone (114), Eswatini (139), and Lesotho (144). The latter two were the lowest ranked sides in Pot 1. Sierra Leone, however, was the second-highest ranked side in Pot 1. They missed out 2-3 on aggregate to Liberia after missing a penalty deep into stoppage time at home in the second leg which would have made it 2-0 and taken them through on away goals. Interestingly, in 2014, Sierra Leone would have advanced directly to the second round as the 28th-ranked team in CAF, as there were only 52 entrants and thus only the 24 lowest-ranked teams played off to decide which 12 would join the top 28. From Pot 2, 3 out of 14 sides advanced. These were fourth-highest ranked Ethiopia (150), fifth-ranked Liberia (152), and 12th-ranked Djibouti (195). 13th-ranked Somalia (202, tied with Eritrea but listed ahead due to rounding, I presume) nearly eliminated Zimbabwe, the highest-ranked team playing in Round 1 at 112th, but lost a bizarre match in which Zimbabwe needed 77 minutes to open the scoring at home, only for Somalia to go up again 2-1 on aggregate with an 85th minute equalizer, before Zimbabwe then scored two goals in the 86th and 90th minutes to put Somalia out 2-3 on aggregate. If Zimbabwe had gone out, we would have bizarrely seen the top two and bottom two sides in Pot 1 go out. We would also have seen the second- and third-lowest ranked teams advance. As it were, the surprise of the round was third-to-last Djibouti, which managed to stifle Eswatini away and hold on for a goalless draw after a 2-1 home victory. No other huge surprises, as Liberia and Ethiopia were probably among the better Pot 2 sides. Lesotho probably a bit unlucky to get Ethiopia from Pot 2 after narrowly squeaking into Pot 1, and ultimately only exited on away goals.
Some more interesting stats about CAF Round 1. Only 2 of 28 matches were won by three or more goals. These were Rwanda's two games against Seychelles, which was the fourth-lowest ranked team in Africa at 192nd. Rwanda won 3-0 away and 7-0 at home for a 10-0 aggregate score. In fact, no other tie finished with a margin of more than 3 goals. 11 out of the 14 finished with margins of two goals or less. There were 4 matches where the winning side scored exactly 3 goals, and only one (the aforementioned Rwanda 7-0 Seychelles) where the winner scored 4+. There was not a single match where the losing side scored more than one goal, nor a single match which was drawn which finished with a score higher than 1-1.
Pakistan have over 200 million people, the English based diaspora love football. Surely they could rustle up some Saturday League players and not be one of the worst teams in the world. A cynical mind might believe graft of some description must be involved. Thankfully I'm not cynical.
Ever heard of Phil Younghusband? He's one of the most succesful international strikers of modern times, Pakistan could find someone like that I'm sure.
They were (the All Blacks) food poisoned before the 95 final, the South African security authorities have even copped to this. Obviously they couldn't make a big stink about it given the narrative of the tournament.
But yet the same teams seem to make it through, maybe there is less parity than we think. But yeah it is still a crazy set up.
Fair point. Note though the process is slightly different than last time. Now the group stage involves 40 teams and the KO round comes at the end (to bring # from 10 to 5). Before the KO stage came at the beginning to get the number from 40 to 20, followed by the group stage to get it from 20 to 5. Not sure which is worse yet. I guess the new format is a bit more dramatic but I suspect it does a worse job of identifying the top 5 (as so much will depend on the luck of that playoff draw at the end).
I personally prefer it, in the sense it's the less of two evils. Like you said it saves the drama till the end which is much more satisfying as a viewer. But yeah it's still bat-shit crazy. There must be some internal politics even more so than what Evan J did such a good job explaining. One of my real pet peeves in football is play-off before groups, rather than vice-versa, (I know sometimes it's unavoidable) But anything that rights that wrong has some merit, if slight.
I was looking at if any AFC teams can be eliminated this month. If Korea Republic wins at Lebanon later today, Korea DPR wins at Lebanon on Tuesday, and Sri Lanka loses at Turkmenistan on Tuesday, Sri Lanka would be eliminated. They would have 0 points with 3 games left and unable to catch both Koreas who would have 10.
I wonder what the impact of losing their coach has been. He is now with Colombia so we'll see how they'll fare when their qualifiers start in March.
These double as qualifiers for the 2023 Asian Cup. If Qatar win the group or finish among the four best runners up they qualify for the Asian Cup and take no further part in world cup qualifying. The next best group runner up takes their spot (and also qualifies for the Asian Cup. The structure is that the 12 teams who go on to the next round have also qualified for the Asian Cup, and most of those who miss out get another chance to qualify for the Asian Cup through playoffs and further group play.