Concacaf v Oceania Playoffs drawn

I mean either way both are clearly better than anyone in CONCACAF and both have a ton of super talented players.

 

If Costa Rica and Jamaica move up the table, they may have to do so by taking points off of Panama and Canada - it's tougher for several teams to pass you while they have to play one another.

 

Right, but the original point was that CONMEBOL doesn’t really deserve more slots and that the “difficult” qualifying is a mirage because about half the teams in the federation are bad, and only get home results because they play at absurd altitudes. It’s just as top-heavy a confederation as CONCACAF relative to the rest of it.

Quite honestly, I’m not sure how expanding to 48 teams won’t result in 14 completely undeserving sides going to every WC. I get that it’s “because money” but there aren’t enough quality sides to make up those numbers.

 

Thanks for posting the comparisons. (Sorry but I needed to fix the spelling. One of my best friends is from Colombia.)

 

First of all, nobody in CONMEBOL wants more slots. It would cheapen the glorious nature of the qualifiers to have that happen.

But, yeah, it's by far the toughest and most difficult in the world. Any country qualifying from CONMEBOL will be tough to play against and I believe the last time we sent a country and they failed to grab at least 1 point was Chile in 1982. Meanwhile UEFA has often sent over a few countries who have laid huge eggs in WC. Although Asia and C'CAF seem to compete hard for the suckiest team in the World Cup, UEFA (1994, 2006) and Africa (2014) have had that "honor" recently.

@Editor In Chimp Peru does not play at altitude. They play in their capital at sea level, Lima. Six of the ten countries have stadiums and clubs at altitude. The two big "culprits", Ecuador and Bolivia play their national games at their seat of government so it's not like they are going out of their way to press an advantage like we do with Columbus or Minneapolis. I'm also not sure how big an actual advantage altitude is for those countries when so many of their players are not playing in altitude. Much like people have pointed out about Minneapolis that game will also be awfully cold for American players. Likewise, La Paz is awfully high for Bolivian players not from La Paz. I would say that the advantage is 70% psychological and again, it's in cities with that are very patriotic and with really nice, large stadiums it's not like they are riding on that aspect alone. The proof is in the pudding of course, when Bolivia and Ecuador qualified (not invited like in 1930 and 1950) they sent very decent teams with some very good players.

 

I’ve yet to hear a compelling argument in favor of it being the toughest and most difficult in the world that isn’t basically FIFA’s version of “Alabama lost to the team that beat ‘Bama so they therefore have the best quality loss”.

 

I mean I think after the expansion there's not going to be a lot of room for anyone to complain that they aren't getting enough slots (though I'm sure Europe will do so). I think we'll see alot more blowouts in the early games and I think it'll cheapen the both the World Cup and the qualifying process itself. But I guess I was also against 24 teams in the Euro Cup and that seems like its worked out ok, so maybe I'm wrong.

 

The Oceania qualifying format has been confirmed, for the record:

https://www.oceaniafootball.com/for...d-cup-qatar-2022-ofc-preliminary-competition/

Essentially, it's a nine-team tournament in Qatar in March with two 4-team, single-round-robin groups and a four-team, single-game knockout stage. There will be a play-in game between the eighth and ninth ranked teams in the FIFA world rankings (Tonga and the Cook Islands, if anyone cares) to fill out the last spot in the group stage. New Zealand and the Solomon Islands are the seeds and will be separated in the group stage.

 

Seriously?

List of losses by four goals or more:
CONMEBOL: Brazil 5:Bolivia 0, Bolivia 4: Pargauay 0 Ecuador 6:Colombia 1
UEFA: I counted 42, someone else can double check that.

Every single game in CONMEBOL is hard there are no gimmes or true minnows like everywhere else.

The on paper worst team in CONMEBOL is Bolivia which none of the players would be in consideration for the USMNT. Now I'm going to guess that you are saying they are in contention still purely because of their altitude advantage. Right? Nope, the home record is 4W-1T-2L. Are they hopeless on the road? Not great, but not hopeless. 0W-2T-5L. Let's compare to another team with a similar record and GD. You probably know them, it's Uruguay. Their home record is 3W-2T-2L. Their away record is 1W-2T-4L. To my eyes it doesn't seem like a huge difference. Both the home and away records swing by one game.

The worst performer in CONMEBOL is Venezuela but they are going through a huge crisis and you and I could name a player or two of theirs that is real quality and might even start for the USMNT.

So, yeah. In my view, there are lots and lots of arguments for top to bottom most competitive qualification in the world.

 

I agree; if you miss out in a 48 team tournament you definitely don’t deserve to be there.

I think with the EURO’s, there was a better argument that they had enough good teams not making it to accept a couple clunkers with the expansion. I don’t see it with adding 16 to a WC.

 

Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela have been bad for a while now. Ecuador isn’t that good, Paraguay isn’t that good. The confederation is overrated because of the reputations of the teams at the top plus the general competency level of the teams at the bottom (and I’d argue that the reputations of the top teams are undeserved over the last 15 years). If the argument is that they don’t have any Trinidad’s or San Marino’s, sure, but you absolutely have teams on the level of Albania, Norway, Finland, and Hungary.

In other words, I’m saying that because you have 3-4 really below average sides at a given time, you don’t generally see a lot of danger for the teams at the top. Teams 4 and 5 are usually decent enough, but to me, that’s not “hard” qualifying. AFCON is probably more difficult, and while UEFA has plenty of cannon fodder, as this years’ playoffs demonstrate, there isn’t the margin for error than Brazil/Argentina get in CONMEBOL. If the argument is competency level, then I guess, but in terms of absolute difficulty to qualify it isn’t the hardest.

 

I don’t disagree that it’s a consequence of design, but it still results in a more “difficult” process, because you can draw the wrong 2 games in UEFA and be screwed into a playoff, whereas in CONMEBOL you can be Argentina in 2017 and go 1-3-1 and get 6 points out of your last 5 games and still go through. You have to absolutely screw up multiple times in CONMEBOL and to a lesser extent in CONCACAF in order to be in danger as a top team. That’s not difficult qualifying.

 

Agreed. They don’t have the cannon fodder games, but the bottom of CONMEBOL is very, very average at best. I’m not trying to discount the challenge of playing away in SA but to say that it’s harder to play away to Bolivia or Venezuela than it is to play away to Poland or Denmark just rings hollow to me.

 

I'm not sure that any Concacaf team would survive home and away against Bolivia, I'm pretty sure that none would survive Uruguay. Josef Martinez, Rossi and Raul Ruidiaz aren't even starters on their minnows NTs, and would be super stars on our.

 

I don’t think they have to win a significant number of “hard” games, though. My argument is that Bolivia and Peru and Venezuela and Paraguay are not “hard games” and you only have to be better than that group, plus one of Chile/Colombia/Ecuador to qualify outright. That isn’t difficult.

 

Away, maybe. Home? Come on. You’re telling me no Mexico/US/CRC side since 2006 could beat Venezuela/Peru/Bolivia/Paraguay/Ecuador at home?

 

I would say the best of C'CAF certainly has a chance against the worst of C'BOL.

 

I mean, the assertation was that they would/could not so…

 

Interestingly, youtube has the full ES vs Bolivia friendly from three weeks ago. Bolivia looked like the better team but not outrageously so. TBF I have no idea why they wore red, they always use green but it did make them look like Panama which reminded me that C'CAF's current fourth place team has a few players playing in La Paz.

 

UEFA always boatraces south america? such a bad argument.

UEFA does better in home world cups ...uefa doesnt do so great outside of europe.....and the level of these south american team fluctuates greatly.

brazil hasnt been as good as normal the last few cycles but they have more world cups than anyone right?

Peru can be pretty good at times and they can be pretty bad as well...same for paraguay and ecuador.

Chile is sometimes not so good but their recent golden generation team that won the copa made mexcio look pathetic in comparison.

Do you not watch games? @Editor In Chimp

if usa or mexico qualified from conmebol...it would ONLY be because either of those teams were at the height of their powers...otherwise they would be watching from home. the best USMNTs could qualify from conmebol...but it wouldnt happen that often. case closed.

 

I mean, the numbers speak for themselves. The only wins CONMEBOL has against UEFA in knockout games since 2002 came in South America, by one of their teams, by an aggregate score of 2-0 in 3 games. They have not been competitive at all. (Really, nobody has against UEFA in the past 4 WC’s.)