Concacaf's Best 11 by matchday: Matchday 4: Navas (Costa Rica) Figueroa (Honduras)-Sanchez (Mexico)-Dest (USA) Davies (Canada)-Osorio (Canada)-Arriaga (Honduras)-Musah (USA) Aaronson (USA)-Duenas (El Salvador)-Pepi (USA) Matchday 5: Crepeau (Canada) Davis (Panama)-Lawrence (Jamaica)-Moreno (Mexico)-Johnston (Canada) Ruiz (Costa Rica)-Borges (Costa Rica)-Herrera (Mexico)-Godoy (Panama)-Henriquez (El Salvador) Lozano (Mexico) Matchday 6: Blake (Jamaica) Johnston (Canada)-Moreno (Mexico)-Dest (USA) Musah (USA)-Rodriguez (Mexico)-Buchanan (Canada)-Fisher (Jamaica) Davies (Canada)-David (Canada)-Roofe (Jamaica) Nobody made it three times. Dest (USA), Davies (Canada), Musah (USA), Johnston (Canada), and Moreno (Mexico) made it twice. On Twitter, Concacaf makes polls of "who wins?" without draws as a choice. A majority of people picked Panama to win at Canada.
Figueroa made a team of the match day...is CONCACAF really this void of quality CBs? Ik Honduras obviously is, but what about everyone else. Tough to believe noone performed better...
Ever since the World Cup stopped being an invitational tournament, there has been 2 playoffs between Conmebol and Concacaf sides: 1962: Mexico beat Paraguay, 1-0 on aggregate... back when Concacaf was split into CCCF+NAFC and Conmebol was unwilling to play full qualifiers. 2010: Uruguay beat Costa Rica, 2-1 on aggregate. That's simply the facts: no group currently outperforms the other in those playoffs.
...except, once again, there's no official confirmation as to what the intercontinental playoff pairings will be. Just a few press outlets that you'd expect to know better, misinforming their readers by failing to distinguish between speculation and fact. The same way certain outlets (including Marca) insisted almost to the day of the Copa América Centenario playoffs that they weren't going to happen, and Panama and Trinibago would get the last berths automatically
Looking at recent friendly results by the teams likely to finish #4 in C-CAF: Costa Rica tied Bosnia in Bosnia back in March; CRC tied Qatar in Austria in November 20; Lost to Uruguay in Costa Rica 1-2 in Sept. 19 Panama tied Qatar 3-3 in the Gold Cup this summer; Lost 1-0 to Japan in Austria in November 20; Got beaten 3-0 in Colombia and Uruguay in June 19 Canada beat the All Whites in Spain 1-0 back in March 2018 These teams seldom play anyone outside the region. Friendlies don't mean anything, of course, and two years is a very long time in soccer. Style-wise, though, Central American teams tend to be a lousy fit for C-BOL ones. They try to play a similar style, but with much inferior players. A Caribbean team would have a better shot IMO. Canada has trouble traveling to Central America, they'd melt in South America.
Official J.F.F @jff_football 4h No spectators will be allowed at our FIFA World Cup qualifying fixture at home against the United States on Tuesday, November 16.
Wtf is up with that btw? What are the covid rates like in Jamaica?? They're the only team in the Ocho playing without a crowd... Seems bogus af
They had a huge spike in August-September...something like 1/3 of covid tests were coming back positive. Covid is definitely on a downswing right now though.
IIRC Jamaica already announced that their January home game against Mexico will have fans in the stands.
https://www.fifa.com/news/pablo-punyed-el-salvador-world-cup-qualifying-interview is titled "Punyed: El Salvador can move mountains if we get little details right."
FIFA writes positively and makes teams sound like they have a chance at qualifying. FIFA's articles should not be used to guess probabilities. If you were a player or manager, would you be willing to be interviewed for an article that said you won't qualify? Here are Friday's Eastern start times: Honduras vs. Panama at 8:05 P.M. El Salvador vs. Jamaica at 9:00 P.M. Canada vs. Costa Rica at 9:05 P.M. USA vs. Mexico at 9:10 P.M. (in Cincinnati in the Eastern time zone starting at 9:10 P.M. local) Here are next Tuesday's Eastern start times: Jamaica vs. USA at 5:00 P.M. Costa Rica vs. Honduras at 8:05 P.M. Panama vs. El Salvador at 8:05 P.M. Canada vs. Costa Rica at 9:05 P.M.
https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/1380c...view_2022-FWC-qualifiers_01-Nov-2021_Full.pdf has discipline: Teams: Canada: CHF 5,000 fine from hosting El Salvador on September 8 Canada: CHF 10,000 fine for two offenses hosting Panama on October 13, Canada and France are the only teams disciplined for not following COVID rules El Salvador: CHF 30,000 fine and one match with fewer spectators from hosting USA on September 2, offenses include a pitch invasion El Salvador: CHF 3,000 fine from hosting Honduras on September 5 El Salvador: CHF 12,500 fine from hosting Mexico on October 13 Honduras: CHF 60,000 fine and one match with fewer spectators from hosting USA on September 8, only team disciplined for a "fight amongst spectators" Honduras: CHF 30,000 fine and one match with fewer spectators from hosting Jamaica on October 13 Mexico: CHF 100,000 fine and two matches without spectators from hosting Canada on October 7 and hosting Honduras on October 10 (FIFA combined the two games into one act), the third biggest fine in the world behind Hungary's CHF 200,000 and Albania's CHF 150,000 Panama: CHF 50,000 fine and one match without spectators from hosting Costa Rica on September 2 and hosting Mexico on September 8 (FIFA combined the two games into one act) Panama: CHF 20,000 fine from hosting USA on October 10, offenses include a drone Costa Rica, Jamaica, and USA have not been disciplined. Players: NARCISO Orellana (El Salvador): 2 match suspension and CHF 5,000 fine for serious foul play JACOBO SEGOVIA Mario Alberto (El Salvador): 1 match suspension for DOGSO MAYNOR Alexis Figueroa Rochez (Honduras): 1 match suspension for DOGSO Denying a goalscoring opportunity or dissent gets a 1 match suspension, serious foul play gets a 2 match suspension, and "unsporting behavior towards a match official" gets a 4 match suspension. A 4 match suspension has been given to three players, none of whom are in Concacaf.
https://www.fifa.com/news/borges-we-are-on-the-up is titled "Borges: We’re on the up." Celso Borges has 144 caps for Costa Rica, which is tied for 47th all-time, tied for 9th among active players, and 11th among Concacaf players. By the end of WCQs, he could be the 7th Concacaf player to 150 caps.
Honduras scored in the 30th and 59th, but Panama scored in the 77th, 81st, and 85th to win 3-2. Honduras had three consecutive corner kicks in stoppage time. Honduras is now 7 points behind fourth, and that will go up if Canada wins hosting Costa Rica. Panama trails USA by 4 goal differential, and USA has a game in hand, which is scoreless at halftime hosting Mexico. In my prediction contest, seven of eight people predicted Honduras to win, and jagum predicted 0-0, so nobody got any points from that game. It was the 25th Octagonal game, and it was the first game in which both teams scored at least 2. All three games at halftime are scoreless.
Panama next game is at home against El Salvador and We couldn’t be in a better position to get out of this window with 6/6 points.