Crossed notes, but yes, that is what I would do. And yes 48 teams is going to render this all meaningless.
The thing that makes no sense to me is they used 6 pots of 10(though the last pot had less than that) to draw the 10 first round groups, but used 2 pots of 6 to draw the 3 paths with 4 teams.
The problem is that UEFA has small groups, and the majority of teams in those small groups are terrible, so the actual qualification often comes down to a very small number of competitive games between decent teams. And, the difficulty of those few high-level matches is often uneven, because the top few teams in those are often of uneven strength from one group to another.. Instead of spending lots of games on matches with either one or both of the teams being awful, UEFA could eliminate some of the terrible teams earlier. Then, they could use the available match dates to create larger groups in which a single result is less decisive, and also create a more elaborate final round that (unlike their current tiny playoff) could somewhat correct for imbalances in the previous groups. It would be very easy to do this, especially with things like Nations League and Euro qualification as potential ways to separate out the bad teams from the better ones. Instead, we have the current horrible system, in which Italy and Ukraine are on the verge of elimination without having lost a single game.
I believe Guatemala was eliminated without allowing a single goal so it’s not like CONCACAF system is so perfect either
True enough. But a bad system to determine which bad teamgets to advance in the early rounds is less harmful than a bad system that determines which good team gets to miss the World Cup.
even though they only have like 10 total countries basically, south america should have more than 5 teams...6th and 7th South american teams are generally better than the majority of the teams that make the WC, imo I personally wish they would combine north and south american qualifying and give the USSF some real pressure for a change. *same for euro...lotsa euro teams that dont make it could also do damage at the WC
It's a bit odd that CONMEBOL has such a small number of slots (4.5) to qualify relative to their countries' rankings. Chile is the 6th ranked team currently in South America; they're ranked 24th in FIFA. By contrast, CONCACAF has 3.5 slots and the 5th-ranked team in CONCACAF is Jamaica at 57. I'm not complaining but while WC qualifying through CONCACAF (even with talent isn't) is a slog, CONCACAF has a highly favorable number of qualifying spots relative to the regional team rankings on the cusp.
On the other hand, CONMEBOL is the only confederation in the world where half the members can qualify for the World Cup.
Other than Brazil and Argentina, what CONMEBOL sides are regularly making quarterfinal runs and beyond? They don’t look substantively stronger than UEFA by any measure. They have a 3.5 teams that end up losing in R16 to UEFA sides. The sides that don’t qualify out of CONMEBOL would be eliminated quickly in UEFA and would be in a fight to finish 3rd in C-CAF. I’m guessing 20% of UEFA’s teams could manage to accomplish getting knocked out in R16. The strength of their qualifying is skewed by them having two sides at minimum that play half their games at the cruising altitude of an Airbus. Bolivia and Ecuador and Peru getting cheap wins at their sky stadiums against good teams makes their qualifying seem more difficult than it is, because with the exception of Ecuador and Colombia, those teams get smacked when they play at sea level.
paraguay has won world cups...uruguay has won world cups....always shows up...losing in the QF to France last time is an indictment?? ok. a very strong chilean team lost to brazil in the brazil world cup in brazil. chile isnt always strong but they were that year. colombia always is dangerous. theres always a minimum of 5 teams that would basically win concacaf in south america. brazil, argentina, colombia, uruguay and whatever team is good that cycle....in my opinion.
just look at the teams that dont make the world cup in south america vs concacaf....theres no comparison
I mean Uruguay has regularly made runs, though their team has gotten old and may not make it this time around. But they do insanely well considering the population of their country. Columbia also tends to do decently well in World Cups. Chile had a stretch where they were making it out of the group stage and winning Copa Americas but they're another team whose stars have aged out and haven't been replaced.
2006; Ecuador eliminated R16, Argentina and Brazil eliminated QF. 2010: Uruguay finished 4th, Brazil/Argentina eliminated in QF 2014; Colombia eliminated QF, Chile eliminated R16 (both by Brazil), Brazil eliminated SF, Argentina lost final 2018: Colombia, Brazil, Argentina eliminated R16, Uruguay eliminated QF. 2014 aside, that isn’t that great. They’ve had 3 non-Brazil/Argentina sides make it to a QF or further and two of them were a generational Uruguay side. Even the Brazil/Argentina sides over the past 15 years have been kinda overrated (especially Brazil).
That’s why I said struggle to finish 3rd. Yeah, those sides are better than T&T but are they really better than CRC has been, historically? I don’t really think Bolivia or Venezuela or Peru are really any better than whoever the 3rd place side generally is.
I mean historically none of those three teams are the 5th place team. Peru was in 2018, but prior to that the last cycle they were was 1998. They are currently 5th this time around, but we’ll see if that holds.
My original post said that the sides that don’t qualify out of CONMEBOL weren’t really better than whoever finishes 3rd here. That generally means Bolivia, Venezuela, Peru, Paraguay and then one of Chile or Ecuador (usually Ecuador). 4 of those sides are absolutely dire.
3 sides (non BRZ and ARG) made it to QF, how does that compares to non-UEFA confederations? Does that mean CONMEBOL should get 0.5 more? IMHO, 4.5 is fair. But this will all change with the expansion. 6 for CONMEBOL means 60% of the confederation will always go. This number might even got as high as 80% with the extra spot and if CONMEBOL is hosting.
I left out Paraguay in 2010 making the QF, so it’s 4 across 4 WCs. A quick count tells me Ghana 2010 and CRC 2014 are the only non-UEFA teams to make a QF during that stretch.
I mean I think historically that's been an open question. It's not as if the non-US or Mexico team from CONCACAF does well in the World Cup. Costa Rica did in the 2014 World Cup but has otherwise not made it out of the group stage, and when a team like Honduras or Panama has gone, they've gotten absolutely decimated. If you combine the two regions this is where the FIFA Rankings (which I know are imperfect) have teams. 2 Brazil 5 Argentina 12 USA 14 Mexico 16 Columbia 17 Uruguay 22 Peru 24 Chile 40 Canada 43 Paraguay 46 Ecuador 49 Costa Rica 57 Jamaica 59 Venezuela 63 Panama 69 El Salvador 76 Honduras 77 Bolivia ELO has it 1 Brazil 3 Argentina 13 Columbia 14 United States 16 Ecuador 17 Uruguay 19 Mexico 22 Peru 26 Chile 28 Canada 37 Paraguay 43 Bolivia 46 Venezuela 57 Panama 58 Costa Rica 65 Jamaica 83 Honduras 83 El Salvador FIFA ranks the third place CONCACAF team below the 6 teams from COMMENBOL and ELO has them below 7 teams.
Brazil and Argentina are benefitting from some SEC-level bias in those rankings, because they routinely get boatraced when they come up against good UEFA competition. They’ve lost every game they’ve played against a UEFA side barring Argentina beating Switzerland and Belgium 1-0 and winning on pens against the Netherlands in 2014. Brazil hasn’t beaten a UEFA team in the knockout stage since 2002. The aggregate score lines of those games is 20-8.
It's not meant to be the UEFA/CONMEBOL challenge. It's the World Cup. So yes, that means there will be inferior teams from federations other than CONCACAF and UEFA that will make the event. Maybe even more so when we go to 48 teams.