Look, when you have a 32-team World Cup you are always going to have teams that perform either better or worse than expected and therefore distort the true strength of their Confederation, especially considering that randomness (both in the form of the draw and in the form of poor refereeing decisions) plays such a huge factor. There aren't 32 teams good enough to seriously contend for the title and everyone knows it. A proper tournament would have only 16 teams (France, England, Portugal, Holland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, USA, Asian Champion, African Champion, + three wild-card spots) like the World Cup was before 1986, but of course money talks and more teams equal more $$$ from TV rights and advertising.
What's a proper tournament ? On what basis do you include the USA into a proper 16 team tournament ? EDIT: My proper tournament has Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina ... and a guest spot for Holland
A proper tournament is one that features at least one team from every federation without being diluted by teams who have no chance at making the semifinals. I include the USA in that group because they are a dominant team in their region and have qualified for six consecutive World Cups.
In the other hand be dominant for long time without be pushed by a good competition would be bad. If something can explain the good perform of conmebol teams that is the good coaching and specially a very hard qually. Anyway why not evaluate conference power before the WC? Maybe Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia & Egypt could be better than some European or Asian teams. Some playoff games between conferences should be good if you search for better competition level.
Korea? They are also dominant in Asia and have qualified for 7(?) world cups in a row. Personally I don't see the problem with the "minnows" as long as there aren't too many of them. Without the fairytale story of NZ this world cup would be much the poorer, same with T&T last time. Frankly looking at the groups it is only Nth Korea and Hondurus that have been outclassed, but they have also only played great teams in good form. I just don't see how removing them or replacing them with also rans from any confed would make the WC any better.
Making to the WC in CONCACAF is nothing to write home about. Consistently get out of the WC group phase and we can talk about the US being in a "proper" tournament. BTW ... S. Korea has pretty much done the same thing in Asia. Maybe you should include them as well... My proper tournament has Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany ... and Holland as guest ... and maybe Spain.
FIFA wants the WC to be the "World's" game, and I'm not one to disagree. Cutting it from 32 to 16 nations would leave a lot of people without a home country or team to cheer for and would ruin the experience for a great deal of fans. It's a silly suggestion given the growth in popularity of the game and thankfully will never be considered by the powers that be. What you're suggesting is basically a Confederations cup with extra UEFA and CONMEBOL slots. And, as you can see, even these "minnows" can frustrate their opponents. 16 teams would never allow New Zealand to make it, yet you would argue that them frustrating the likes of Italy and Slovakia are not worthy of a WC showing? Even NK played wonderful football against Brazil - surely a treat to watch. There is no good reason to exclude any of these teams - and their nations' fans - a chance to perform on the world stage. Qualifying is fine the way it is. I wouldn't be against taking a CAF spot away and giving it to CONMEBOL/CONCACAF as an extra playoff spot, but otherwise every region has its fair share of representatives based on how things are going this WC.
No - what I meant was that a European team who fails to qualify for a World Cup still has the chance to qualify for the Euros (not as big as the World Cup, but still a huge international tournament) two years later, and thus only sit out four years. On the other hand, for teams from non-Euro confederations missing a World Cup means spending at least eight years in the wilderness - Ecuador for example, will be off the big stage from 2006 until at least 2014 (Copa America etc. are not really a substitute). Missing a single World Cup is no fun for any team, but it's especially painful for non-European teams. That's why it's a bad idea to have a significant number of qualification slots based on crap shoot playoffs.
It all depends on what you think the World Cup is for...if it's a tool to increase the popularity of the sport worldwide then you want as many teams as possible...if it's a tournament to determine the best team in the world, then you only want teams who can seriously contend for the title. The more minnows you have the more random upsets come into play. For example, a 16-team tournament with two groups of eight would almost certainly do a better job of ensuring that the two best teams in the world reach the Final than the current system that forces teams to survive three knockout rounds (and the potential randomness of PK's) to reach the Final. Look at the current World Cup, where randomness has ensured that one of Ururguay/S.Korea/USA/Ghana (none of whom are ranked in the top ten in the world) will reach the semifinals while two of Holland/Italy/Germany/England (all of whom are ranked in the top ten) will be likely be knocked out in the round of sixteen.
uruguay is an elite team. i actually picked uruguay to get to the semis before this tournament began and i see it as no surprise or randomness. on ESPN today, they said if the world cup was won on only heart and never say die attitude the US would be in the Final, but that was being rather dismissive of the South American powers. our players give everything to play for their countries including playin 18 qualifiers, many of which half to fly across the atlantic. we have to play in places at high altitude, and in front of crowds so hostile you cannot understand unless you have been to a copa libertadores match or CONMEBOL qualifier. as maradona put it the other day, ecuador could and should be at this world cup over a slovakia or greece, and if south america was rewarded the 6th bid we rightfully deserve we would be talking about all 6 south american sides going through. this world cup is proving that the best players not only come from south america, but we have the best qualifying competition, and our local leagues are vastly underrated by euro snobs. we also have the heart and the best fans bar none. VAMOS ARGENTINA, Uruguay, Chile, y Paraguay!
Randomness? The USA earned an "easier" road to the finals by winning its group, scoring more goals against the same teams than "top ten" England. Uruguay got there by knocking France out and winning their group. Maybe it's the top ten that are at fault, and not "randomness." Do you really think France, a "top ten" team, would have been a more deserving competitor in that part of the bracket?
All this talk of spot allocation is just nonsense, it is perfectly fine the way it is, only Conembol has any right to complain, the host spot should be an extra spot to which confederation is hosting. Apart from Conembol the other confederations have been pretty much equal in pluses and negatives IMO.
I think it's safe to say that the South American teams have clearly been the class of the tournament so far. 3 teams have topped their groups and the other 2 have a good chance to do it as well.
I really think the South Americans benefit tremendously from their qualifying setup where they play 9 home and away games against very tough opposition. Imagine a team like Paraguay having to play Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, etc. twice to qualify. Compare that to UEFA who might only have to play even 1 team of the quality of even Colombia, or CAF etc. It even seems that concacaf may also benefit from having to play all the best teams in their confederation. Not only do these formats ensure the best teams qualify, but it leaves the teams battle tested and more prepared for the WC. I think CAF should try and incorporate such a system, it would be much tougher to do the same in UEFA.
I don't really understand why this argument keeps getting repeated. I think it has nothing to do with it. In the last WC no South American team made it to the SFs. Ecuador was the only other team (other than BRA and ARG) to make it to the R16. You would need more than one WC worth of performance to make this point.
Agreed. If anything, it looks like having the WC outside of Europe had more to do with the SA/CONCACAF success than anything else. CAF/OFC did about the same, AFC maybe slightly better, UEFA much worse.
Re: Rd of 16 spots per Confederation (R) Teams from the Americas have put the flair to this World Cup. Anyone still has an issue with the number of spots these confederations have?
England is the one to blame, if they would've done their job of winning their group they would've faced Ghana. England would've probably beaten them. That would've left USA to face Germany, where Germany would've probably won. So England ********ed this up.
So what! These teams earned their spot they were not given these spots. You could have lloked back in December and this could have been seen.