Yep a good prep and more time for Vlatko to chew things over. Not to mention a bit of a money spinner for USWNT. Welcome aboard natbat20
Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has moved the Olympic Qualifiers Group B from Wuhan to Nanjing. The matches will be played at the Jiangning Sports Training Center between the days 03 and 09 of February. #SteelRoses pic.twitter.com/2WOgh6FkQe— China Women's Football - 中国女足 (@CHNWNT) January 22, 2020
BREAKING NEWSDue to the recent outbreak of the coronavirus, February's #Tokyo2020 qualifiers have been moved from China to Sydney.— CommBank Matildas (@TheMatildas) January 26, 2020
Play-off draw was done this week: The draw for the Women's Olympic Football Tournament intercontinental playoff was conducted by @SarBareman in Zurich today. The result was the following:🇨🇲 CMR/🇿🇲 ZAM vs 🇨🇱 CHI CMR/ZAM will host 1st leg on 9 AprilCHI will host 2nd on 15 April#RoadToTokyo | @Olympics pic.twitter.com/HiG4aLiXZR— FIFA Women's World Cup (@FIFAWWC) January 31, 2020
Qualifiers so far: Host(1): Japan CONMEBOL(1.5): Brazil, (Chile) OFC(1): New Zealand UEFA(3): Great Britain, Netherlands, Sweden CONCACAF(2): USA, Canada AFC(2): CAF(1.5):
CRC came so close to upsetting Canada... I really wish it had happened. Would spice things up a little bit. C'CAF is so boring.
It wasn't for the World Cup qualifiers. Jamaica qualifying over both Mexico & Costa Rica. Panama goes to the final playoff berth over both Mexico & Costa Rica. Probably the most exciting qualifiers for 2019.
Yeah, but that was nearly two years ago, and it was the exception that proved the rule. It also was a bit "down the table", as it were. The only *really* exciting upsets have been MEX upsetting CAN (2004 OGQ) and USA (2010 WWCQ).
LOL, what is boring is that New Zealand can book their OLY and WWC tickets until the end of time. They should have to join the AFC or have them go into a playoff after they win their OFC tournament. Beating a dead horse but it is infuriating when you see all of the superior Euro teams not making the OLY ; perhaps have New Zealand play a Euro team in a playoff to qualify for the WWC or OLY.
Considering that the OGs are such a small tournament, you're going to have this issue no matter what, and it's not just OFC - CAF and C'BOL contribute to the "imbalance" too. Unless you want the OGs to be just UEFA+C'CAF+AFC, you're always going to have good teams miss out at the expense of noticeably worse teams from other confeds. And in that sense, it's entirely inappropriate to group OFC's auto OG berth with OFC's auto WWC berth. (Also, you're conflating boring qualifying campaigns with fairness of berth allocations, which are two entirely separate issues.) Even in the 2019 WWC, the only teams NZL "passed up" were DEN and SUI - literally one and two places above NZL in the rankings. That's basically a coin flip, nothing massively unbalanced there. And in the upcoming 32-team WWCs, there's no reason that a team consistently ranked around 20th spot shouldn't be getting in. If you want to complain about balance, criticize the multiple spots that CAF gets or the non-Brazil C'BOL spots, not the one spot that usually goes to NZL.
Wow, that was a defense of NZL! Your points are well made (about allocation % and OG vs. WWC qualifying/# of teams). Does not explain away the fact that NZL has a lifetime guaranteed pass to every OG and WWC. Not 90/95% like USA/CAN/NGA/BRA but 100%. If one of the current OFC teams becomes competitive in the future, I'll see how my opinion might evolve. Remember when AUS was in OFC? My opinion was different then about NZL.
Am I misremembering or does not NZL have to play a "Play in" match to get their "guaranteed" spot? With even the expanded field, which I think is a HUGE mistake, they will still need to defeat a team from another conference to get a spot in the WWC. Of course that does mean they only have to defeat one half way decent team but they do have to win that match, home and home I think.
I checked for the 2019 WWC qualifications and it was the winner of the OFC Cup then a final OFC tournament , NZL ; the win rewarded NZL with direct ticket to the 2019 WWC ( source: WIkipedia) OFC[edit] Main article: 2018 OFC Women's Nations Cup As in the previous World Cup cycle, the OFC Women's Nations Cup served as the World Cup qualifying tournament for OFC members. The World Cup qualifying process was as follows: Qualifying stage: The four lowest-ranked teams based on previous regional performances of all women’s national teams (American Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji) entered the qualifying stage, which was held from 24 to 30 August 2018 in Fiji.[19] The winner qualified for the final tournament, joining the other seven teams which automatically qualified. Final tournament: Eight teams played in the final tournament, which was held between 18 November to 1 December 2018 in New Caledonia.[19] They were drawn into two groups of four teams. The top two teams of each group advanced to the knockout stage (semi-finals and final) to decide the winner of the OFC Women's Nations Cup which qualified for the World Cup.
OFC has always had exactly 1 berth to the WWC - no play-offs with anyone else required. They've also always had 1 berth to the OGs, except in the first two editions when all 7 teams (aside from the hosts) qualified via being the top 7 at the WWC the year before. Now, on the men's side, OFC has never had more than half a berth to the MWC expect when AFC and OFC played joint qualification tournaments; OFC will have a full berth in the upcoming 48-team tournaments. OFC's participation in the OGs for the men has gone back and forth between a full berth and half berths. The reason for this is that AUS and NZL are much better in WoSo than they are in BroSo.
I see. My old brain must have confused the men's and the women's qualification process. Things like that can happen with age and deteriorating mental functionality. Thanks for setting me straight. They say that as we age memory is the first thing to go. I forget what the second is.
Stamina goes first. Next multi-tasking, which includes "I was on my way to do something, but got distracted into doing something else, and now I can't remember what I was on my way to do." But in any event, as I'm sure you will agree, having a great time with granddaughters around does not go at all.
Because they haven't applied yet. AUS and NZL were two of the four founding members for OFC in 1966 - NZL having previously played in AFC but were later kicked out, and AUS having been denied entry to AFC in 1960. AUS left OFC for a six years (1972-1978) in a second attempt to join AFC, but were denied at the time. The didn't leave OFC while applying to AFC a third time, finally earning acceptance in 2005. Several WAFF members tried to kick AUS back out of the AFC in 2015 but obviously failed. Interestingly, NZL tried to move to *CONMEBOL* in 2013, but also obviously failed at doing so.
In my opinion, NZ should move--or be moved--into another federation, and Asia makes the most sense. But maybe NZ doesn't want to move--why would it, given that it's got practically a free pass into every WC and OG?
Remember, this "given" is only on the women's side. It's not a given on the men's side, and it's BroSo that informs all the decisions federations make. NZL has a hard time of making global competitions as-is on the men's side, and moving to AFC or C'BOL would make it even harder.
Nah, for the Olympics, New Zealand should be forced into a play-off with someone from AFC. I'd also say the World Cup, too, but it's being expanded to 32 teams, so it's irrelevant at this point.