Never suggested they join any other. Just that, if the application is successful (and it's a long way from being successful), travel for the Central (and South) American teams in our region would become quite arduous. And expensive. But while the topic of geography is being raised, proximity can't be (and isn't) the only question in situations like this. As alluded to above, Suriname and Guyana and French Guiana all play in CONCACAF despite geographically being in South America. Israel plays in UEFA for political reasons, but so does Kazakhstan, for alleged sporting regions. And we now have Australia in AFC. So could Greenland go to UEFA, where it has cultural ties and given its residents are EU citizens? Just as plausible as joining CONCACAF. You can say it is "adjacent" to Canada, which is true. But do you think it's going to be easier for a Greenland national team to fly semi-regularly to Northern Europe or to the Caribbean islands and Central America? The answer on that point is obvious. But Greenland has to pursue CONCACAF as its default option because the Danish FA apparently would block its admission to UEFA.
Yeah, we shouldn't complain about being stuck in CONCACAF when we compare it to the absolute screw job Israel gets in having to play in a much tougher region than they are in geographically. If FIFA cared about fairness, they would basically tell Israel's neighbors, okay if you refuse to play them, you forfeit...
It reminds me of the Timber's CCL game years ago that was in South America (Guyana). "After bagging a 1-1 draw in New England this past weekend, they hopped a charter flight from Boston's Logan International Airport for a 2,500-mile, two-leg flight to Georgetown. After Tuesday's match, they'll make a 4,700-mile flight back to Portland" https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/alph...mbers-concacaf-champions-league-match-preview
It's not even about fairness, it's about safety for everyone involved (fans, players and referees). if Arab nations even agreed to play Israel, the match would be so unpleasant to watch from a spectacle standpoint because it would be so fraught with tension and animosity that it would take away from anything that happens on the pitch even if the players came out holding hands and exchanging flowers. Go attend a match in the Balkans involving either club teams or national teams between Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, etc. The atmosphere is so awful and so vile with awful chants, and banners. Now multiply that 10x if Israel and Saudi Arabia played each other. It was only 60 years ago where the Arab nations almost drove Israel out to the sea. I don't think you really understand how much the Arab world hates the idea of Israel as a state. I can't even comprehend it and I'm from a part of the world where ethnic tension is a way of life. FIFA has done a a lot of head scratching things over the years (i.e. host a World Cup in a country the size of Connecticut in a climate so hot that you have to move it to November oh and the country and stadiums was built by slave labor), but moving Israel to UEFA is not one of them. Can you imagine the reaction that the Israeli team would receive in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, etc.? Also, who would referee these matches? You basically can't assign any Middle Eastern referee to those matches involving Israel and any Arab nation. Basically a Japanese official would have to referee every game. Would you have to bring in UEFA officials and then do a background check on those officials to see if they are not descendants of European Jews? Also, geo-political rules take precedence over sporting rules. To my knowledge, Israeli citizens are not able to enter Saudi Arabia with an Israeli passport. So what is FIFA gonna do? Tell Saudi Arabia and every other Arab nation, "let the Israeli team into your country and give them a warm welcome or forfeit." That would fuel and exacerbate the already vile Zionisit and anti-semetic conspiracies that many people in those countries have.
I regret typing "Greenland." Can I have a do-over? We are so far afield of our normal topics and in geo-political areas where engagement is fraught. So I'll demur on any tackling any issues other than pointing out that FIFA didn't move Israel to UEFA. In fact, FIFA didn't do anything. AFC expelled Israel (or, perhaps more accurately, "excluded it from competitions"). Israel was without a confederation for about two decades, pursuing qualification for FIFA events via both UEFA and OFC--as guests--in the interim. You didn't get full UEFA membership until the 1990s. I won't pretend to know how much power FIFA might be able to exert to force a confederation to allow a member to participate in confederation-level competitions; that seems like a very tricky question. But the idea that FIFA proactively moved Israel from one confederation to another is false. AFC told Israel to leave and then Israel, after about 20 years, found a new permanent home.
Certainly! For accuracy it was the post about US and Mexico leaving CONCACAF that kicked this off in this direction. I tried to quelch it with my response about WC places, but it didn't succeed. But it was probably to try to get a guaranteed WC place that induced Australia to join AFC, because Oceania only gets an intercontinental play-off. Oh, wait... PH
Miami to Buenos Aires is 4400 miles London to Almaty Kazakhstan (furthest UEFA country) is 4200 miles, but very few clubs and teams make that type of trip. Its not impossible but really not something that promotes good matches.
I was glad to see that CONCACAF requires stadia to be no more than 30 minutes from the airport, that's very considerate for teams making 8- to 10-hour flights
You just said it "credible threat". People are pointing out why Mexico and the U.S. jumping to CONMEBOL isn't a credible threat. Everyone knows that both nations don't really want to face the travel and increased difficulty that would require (though some here are underrating their chances of qualifying from CONMEBOL, especially when you consider a move like this along with a 48 team WC would certainly increase CONMEBOL's slots).
Interesting requirement for Gillette, which is about midway between Logan (Boston) and Green (Providence): for each, about 50 minutes or longer during normal business hours. On the rare occasions in the past when I drove from downtown Boston to Foxboro for a Revs game (almost) after work, the trip would take me an hour or more. The trip from Logan might get down to 30-45 minutes later in the day and overnight, improving slightly on Green.
Isn't Gillette pretty much a dump? Haven't people been saying the Revs need a new stadium for years? I'm kind of baffled how they got a World Cup game, to be honest, because it is not going to be less of a dump in 5 years....
I haven't seen modern NFL stadiums anywhere else, so I have no real frame of reference. Seems OK to me. The old stadium in Foxboro was indeed a dump, but I did get to see Collina referee a U.S.-El Salvador WC qualifying match there on a brutal day in November 1997. Feet were in puddles of melting snow at the top of the stadium, seat was an aluminum bench. The guy who had taught my referee course a few years before was an Italian immigrant who was assigned to pick Collina up at the airport and take him wherever he needed to go while in town. I also got to see three or four WC94 matches there, plus all of the 1999 WWC matches played there. By the 2003 WWC, Gillette had been built. Well, yes, but since Gillette was built that's been more due to the push for soccer-specific stadiums and to the location of the stadium. Not exactly friendly for people without cars.
I would say it’s a pretty standard NFL stadium. On the question of how Boston/Foxboro gets WC games, if the distance to Europe and cultural ties with certain countries there wasn’t enough (and I’m pretty sure it would be), the answer is Bob Kraft, who has ingratiated himself with FIFA. Stadiums isn’t the only question in these bids, both for better and worse. On the CONCACAF question I believe the requirement is that ONE national stadium must be within 30 minutes of an airport. It doesn’t mean all used stadiums must be. But I could be wrong about that.
The CONCACAF U-20 Championship has started. Naturally it determines teams for the U-20 World Cup but this version also determines the two nations who qualify for the Paris Olympics. So those QF and SF will be very important games.
I could not believe it took an onfield review to award the penalty for the first goal in the USA v. St. Kitts game yesterday. Montero had a foul coming out originally. 21:56 on the video.
I'd be curious to know who the video operators are and how much experience they have. When we see the clips from PRO, you generally see how proficient the VO is at giving the VAR the angle/speed they ask for very quickly. I imagine a combination of a inexperienced VAR and VO combines to make three minute delays.
While I’d imagine there were multiple factors, I don’t see where this is something that needed the perfect angle. Perhaps looking for angles on possible SFP? Or clearing the attacking phase? I was also surprised there wasn’t a caution to go with the PK.
Your hopefulness feels like it borders on naivete, but I know you know better! Go forward to the second penalty. Recommendation for OFR came at 30:25. Incident was at 27:45. For a handball. This is just as bad as it seems.
oh, no doubt at all that it was bad, really bad. But what were they doing during all that time? I just don’t see how they could possibly have spent that long looking at that play just to decide if it was a foul.