I didn't say we don't know, I said its not easy to prove because the 6th, 7th, 8th-best of CAF/AFC don't compete together in the same competition. Picking results from within the confederation doesn't prove anything. All we know is CAF teams had a better WC 2022. AFC had a better 2018 WC. They've alternated back-and-forth in terms of who had the better WC for a while now. So top 4 or 5 is pretty even but we suspect CAF has more depth, and this should come out in WC 2026.
its easy to prove. AFC always sends the exact same teams. Thats because there isn't anybody else who could accomplish anything at a World Cup. There is no depth. If there was you would be getting different WC qualifiers like you do in UEFA, Conmebol, and CAF. Meanwhile CAF has teams like Nigeria, Algeria who do make the knockout rounds, that didn't qualify. You have teams like Egypt, Ivory Coast, etc. who are just as good as AFC top 5 teams. Who is the best AFC team outside of their top 5 ? Bahrain, Uzbekistan, UAE ? We also had the FIFA Arab cup where you had CAF B teams dominate many AFC A teams. AFC better in 2018 because of yellow cards. That is a very weak argument. CAF's depth is not "suspected" or "likely" it is difinitive. CAF has 4 different World Cup quarterfinalists. AFC has 1 AS A HOST. NONE without being a host. 1 of AFC's "best sides" hasn't ever even qualified for a WC 2nd round. Cameroon, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Algeria have all qualified for the 2nd round while AFC boasts Japan, S. Korea, Australia, and Saudi Arabia That is 6 to 4. Not only has CAF outperformed AFC on an individual team basis, it has done so collectively as well.
The variety of teams that CAF send to the WC is largely a result of the random, poor qualifying format that ends with a knockout round. Just like there will be more variety in the list of FA Cup winners than EPL winners. I don't want to get in a big debate on this because I agree that CAF has more depth. Just to point out that you seem to be talking in historical terms, whereas I think the context of this discussion is how the confederations currently rank. If I'm wrong and its an historical ranking, then I would drop AFC to #5 behind CONCACAF.
There is more to depth than performances at world cups. You also need to look at the qualification and local tournaments. I've got no doubt that CAF has more depth than AFC and CONCACAF. There are more teams with realistic chances of qualifying for world cups in CAF and more teams with a chance of winning or having a good run in the Africa Cup of Nations than in AFC and CONCACAF. AFC and CONCACAF tend to send the same group of teams to the world cup (with the odd exception now and then). There also tends to be the same teams having big runs in Asian Cups with the odd outsider having a good run and getting the odd win while the gold cup alternates between USA and Mexico. I'm seeing signs of the second tier in Asia improving, I've no idea about CONCACAF's 2nd tier as I don't get to see them play often. You could argue that the extra depth is reflective of the relative sizes of the confederations, But I think Kam's ratings of the confederation is current and reflects the long term as well as short term position.
It's hard to leave history out of it completely because we have too few data points to just look at one or even two past World Cups. AFC has proven to not have any depth beyond it top 5. We have to look at history to assess this. Same teams over and over. For literally decades. An Algeria B team just won the FIFA Arab Cup, where you had some pretty much full A team sides from AFC who make up a good deal of AFCs best teams beyond their top 5. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, UAE, Jordan all sent pretty much A sides. These teams are the majority of the Asian 2nd tier. Algeria did not qualify for the WC, and yet their B team is superior to pretty much the entire Asian 2nd tier, along with the full team of the Asian Champions WHO HOSTED THE CUP. Egypts B team was also superior to all these sides. It's pretty clear CURRENTLY and not only historically that CAF has far more depth than AFC. The only thing you can really say is that the top few AFC teams are roughly the same level as the top few CAF teams. There is no question of depth.
To be precise it reflects mainly the current status but I took into account the historical side as well. Main factors are the 2018 and 2022 World Cup performances and results but also backed up by some historical data in regards to the continental championships in order to get a better sense on the depth. In this millenium CAF and also to some extent AFC have shown to be much more deep than CONCACAF. For instance when it comes to the amount of different nations that won their respective continental championship. CAF => 8/12 different winners at the AFCON since 2000 (these were Cameroon, Tunisia, Egypt, Zambia, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Algeria and Senegal) AFC => 4/6 different winners at the Asian Cup since 2000 (these were Japan, Iraq, Australia and Qatar) CONCACAF => 3/12 different winners at the Gold Cup since 2000 (these were Canada, USA and Mexico) Conclusion While CAF showed depth at the AFCON and in their WCQs AFC showed only somewhat of depth at the Asian Cup. It's hard to judge the Asian Cup stats since only six editions were held in this millenium. Maybe not enough of a sample size in order to properly assess AFC's depth. CONCACAF is pretty stale with always the same teams doing well at the Gold Cup. In this millenium this is how many different nations qualified for the World Cup: CAF => 12 nations AFC => 7 nations (not counting Qatar since they were automatically qualified as hosts) CONCACAF => 7 nations
I am in no way suggesting that Concacaf is deeper than CAF or AFC, but the problem with using the Gold Cup as a metric is every damn one is played in the US. I am fairly certain we would have a larger variety of winners if it was hosted in Central America on occasion.
This is totally true. But it has no relevance to the data Kam referenced in terms of how many different teams qualify for the WC. Thus suggesting depth. Since 2000 12 different teams from CAF While both AFC and Concacaf each have 7 different teams. While both AFC and Concacaf qualifying formats pretty much guarantee the best teams qualify, this is absolutely not the case for CAF. I still do believe CAF has much more depth than both other confederations, but some of the almost double the amount of different qualifiers may have to do with poor qualifying format. We can also look at number of different countries to qualify for the 2nd round CAF: Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco, Senegal, Ghana, Algeria. = 6 Concacaf: USA, Mexico, Costa Rica = 3 AFC: Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, S. Korea = 4
If Conmebol and Concacaf were merged, you would have all the ingredients for a confederation that would be on par or even superior to UEFA. But comparing Conmebol with UEFA is right now comparing apples and oranges. A CAF-AFC Super Nations League would also bring the financial resources of the AFC represented by countries like Japan, China, S. Korea etc and the hydrocarbon/petro-dollar states such Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE etc, the football culture of countries like Iran and those in North Africa, with the athletic talent from West Africa. Such a CAF-AFC Super Nations League could also develop into a pole that could be competitive with UEFA. Ultimately, I prefer creating genuinely competitive poles and don't like to see monopolistic forces becoming entrenched.
This has been addressed on another thread, but a proposed 2025 concacaf Gold Cup may see this expanded format. A dress rehearsal for the 2026 WC, with all the host cities being utilized. 16 concacaf teams 2 uefa teams 2 caf teams 2 conmebol teams 2 afc teams I know many of us had called for more inter confederational tournaments. This looks a mouthwatering prospect if the invited teams can send decent squads. I know that CAF is scheduling their 2025 Afcon for the same summer, so it might be a problem to send full squads for the CAF sides. Also wouldn't world cup qualifying still be under way ?
The 2025 Afcon is in Guinea, so will have to be played in the January-February slot. The 2 x WCQ-UEFA NL MDs in June 2025 should be Thursday 5 until Tuesday 10 June. The latest from FIFA is that the expanded CWC will be held in the June-July 2025 slot. I expect an update about that at next month's FIFA meetings.
Guinea has been stripped of 2025 afcon and rumor is either Algeria or Morocco will replace them. 2 countries that don't have rain problems in the summer, so it's likely the 2025 afcon will be in the summer. That means the gold cup, afcon, and CWC could all take place that summer and create a serious headache. The expandwd CWC is such a horrible idea. We don't need more useless club football.
Even with the merge I think it's nearly impossible for some reasons. Concacaf teams (almost not to say all) don't have football as their main sport like most of Conmebol and Uefa countries, there is a big cultural difference in the importance of the game in south america and the rest of the continent. To the lack of interest in the game you have to add that the region's economy makes it more difficult to grow interest in the sport. The travel distance would be a huge problem, even with a WCQ similar to Uefa. A group with Uruguay, Ecuador, Jamaica, Belice and Puerto Rico would be a logistical nightmare. Even with all that said, it is possible? Yes, but it take A LOT of time to that to happen, and it might hurt Conmebol's teams first before help the rest. The only way to Conmebol to compete with the Uefa's monopoly is with money, somehow make south american countries rich on a similar level.
I don't think it would necessarily be that dire. I doubt that Argentina would be forced to play someone like Belize or Puerto Rico very often at all. As it is, CONCACAF weeds out most of the smaller teams early on in World Cup qualifying, so the US and Mexico only play 2-4 games per cycle against teams outside CONCACAF's top 10. That's fewer games against minnows than the big UEFA nations face in Euro and World Cup qualifying. (The current CONCACAF Nations League is a bit of an aberration, because the initial assignment of tiers for 2019-20 was made by a quick 4-game qualifying round with lots of randomness in the opposition that teams faced.) I'd imagine a merged confederation would likely do much of the same. The main thing CONMEBOL would lose is the big rivalry games that draw a lot of eyeballs.
But Concacaf does that Final 8 because they're a many and have few spots, with the merge and the 48 teams WC you will have many more spots and probably the format will be similar to the one in UEFA. And with NL will have the same problem, really long travel distance. This could be a group, Argentina, Colombia, Canada and El Salvador (based on FIFA rankings)
Perhaps, but the last time the AFCON was played in that part of Africa it was still held in Jan-Feb (Tunisia). Agree on the CWC. I have seen some revenue estimates for the expanded CWC and they seem totally unrealistic. Numbers in the range of 30-40% of what the World Cup generates. That can't be realistic! Hope it flops. Good grief! Another expanded National Team tournament!? And people wonder why the clubs complain.
It seems interesting that CONCACAF teams have 9 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss against AFC teams in World Cup history including 3 wins out of 3 at the 2022 World Cup.
and yet most here would still rate Concacaf as the 5th strongest confederation, both in terms of performance at this world cup and overall.
Because it's not all about those 3 games. 2 AFC teams reaching the R16 easily offsets those three head-2-head games.
3 AFC teams. Though I would caution putting AFC above Concacaf for now. Concacaf has more consistent top performers, usually Mexico and US, while AFC Japan is now also a consistent performer, but nobody else really in AFC.
Yes, I always still forget that Australia is in AFC. I'd argue that ROK is at least as consistent as the US.
Here is a list of the 2nd round qualification rates of the teams from CAF, Concacaf, and AFC. I will do some of the 2nd tier UEFA and Conmebol teams later for comparison. I started from 1998 when the format switched to 32 teams. That is the best starting point tbh, where only 2 teams can qualify. 1. Mexico 86% 6 out of 7 2. USA 66% 4 out of 6 3. Senegal 66% 2 out of 3 4. Japan 57% 4 out of 7 5. Ghana 50% 2 out of 4 6. Algeria 50% 1 out of 2 7. S. Korea 43% 3 out of 7 8. Nigeria 40% 2 out of 5 9. Australia 40% 2 out of 5 10. Morocco 33% 1 out of 3 11. Costa Rica 20% 1 out of 5 Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Cameroon all 0% with 0 out of 5 other 0% without as many attempts Canada, Honduras, Panama, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Qatar, Togo, Angola, N. Korea, China
they aren't though. I've posted the rates of 2nd round qualification above. US is 66% without hosting (1994 not included) S. Korea is 43% with a host. US is definately superior overall.
Personally I feel it would be more accurate if we counted the 2018 DNQ against the US in this comparison. That would put the US at 4 out of 7 (57%) to SK's 43%.