I should have said "would have had the possiblity of a higher ranking. Only playing in Central America once every four years at crunch time is not doing them any favors.
I cant wait for this Hex to start, JAM hasnt been to the last 2 hex rounds and I fancy our chances in this one.
I had not realized Jamaica hasn't been in the hex in two qualifying cycles. I still have good memories of Simões' team from 1998 despite being a kid I remember that hex perfectly. Hopefully they will surprise us but they're only qualifying due to a favorable FIFA ranking.
True. But the others, with the exception of El Salvador, have been present in the last 2 hexes so we're familiar with them. I'm not underestimating them I just don't know what to expect.
That's not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_–_CONCACAF_Fourth_Round shows you last with 5 points in the Hexagonal for 2014. The Semifinals ended with USA hosting Guatemala where they could have agreed to a draw that would have advanced both and eliminated Jamaica, but I'm happy they didn't for three reasons. One is that I don't want teams to agree to results, two is that USA should have had an easy time hosting Guatemala (USA won 3-1 after an early 5th minute deficit by Carlos Ruiz), and three is that I preferred Jamaica over Guatemala in the Hexagonal.
Looking at recent trends: half of the teams in League A of the ongoing Nations League were from the Caribbean, and half the teams in the last Gold Cup were from the Caribbean. I had high hopes that we'd see a Hex with two Caribbean teams for the first time in two decades (Jamaica, Haiti and Curaçao had decent shots)...but Montagliani had other ideas
A Caribbean team hasn't faired well in the Hex since TyT in 06. That's a long time. Carib teams just don't perform well away from home.
True, but then you see recent events like Costa Rica failing to win a single home game in the NL (frankly, they were lucky not to lose to Curaçao).
Central America is, soccer-wise, a pupil of South America. As the game moves away from technique and more into physical territory, not only South America will lose ground to Europe, but Central America will lose ground to the Caribbean.
You might want to be more nuanced: Costa Rica and El Salvador may be pupils of South America, but Honduras and Panama have never been above embracing physical football and getting into a scrap. Coincidentally, that's why they tend to give Mexico more headaches (mind you, not necessarily better results, but definitely more headaches) than anyone else.
Panama has only beat Mexico in a meaningful game in the 2013 Gold Cup, when they were playing a B-team. I agree with Honduras giving them trouble, though.
As I said, I'm not talking results, but headaches: besides Panama beating them twice in that tournament, they made Mexico lose their damn minds in the 2009 Gold Cup, barely lost the controversial 2015 semifinal, and came within a Raúl Jiménez magic trick of derailing their 2014 WCQ campaign. And each time, Mexico suffered through the 90 minutes of bruising play against Blas Pérez, Román Torres and co. Let me put it this way: ask the FMF if they would rather play Honduras, Panama, or Costa Rica, and they'd choose Costa Rica every day of the week in spite of them being the toughest of the three in terms of actual quality.
Oh I completely blanked that one out my mind. We ended up bottom with 5 points. We started it off well because the first game we went to Azteca and got a goalless draw. Then couple months later I went to the USA game in Kingston and then we lost 2-1. We let Brad Evans score on the last kick of the game. Then the rest of the Hex qualifying was downhill from there. So I dont even count that 2014 Hex, it was soooo bad
breddrin, please dont remind me! Jamaica football can do everything except put the ball in the net. We was a horrible #9 during those times
Can you confirm that Cuba will.open their NT to defected players and nationals abroad? @Paul Calixte Just read a post online that stated that Cuba are about to pass some sort of law that'll allow players like Alonso and Hernandez of Norwich to suit up for Cuba.
First I've heard of it...and even so, no way in hell any of them would agree to play in a home game for Cuba. At best, maaaybe join a Gold Cup squad, since the Cuban federation probably doesn't have the budget to stare down an international kidnapping scandal should they force defectors to return.
A new ranking was published today. Not much happened, but Canada has been given credit for +1 point. This could mean a rise from something like 1331.4 to 1331.7. MEX 1621 USA 1542 (+2) CRC 1439 (-3) JAM 1437 HON 1377 SLV 1346 -- CAN 1332 (+1) CUW 1313 PAN 1304 HAI 1285 For the next window, I can find that El Salvador is scheduled to host Panama, and Canada has two games lined up against T&T on Vancouver Island. The next published ranking will be after that window. Earlier in this thread there was some discussion that there was no June ranking listed on FIFA's upcoming schedule, but FIFA's site now lists a June 11 ranking, which I don't think was there last time I checked. This would mean a ranking would be squeezed between the June worldwide window and the beginning of the big tournaments Euro 2020 and Copa America, and this should be the ranking that finalizes the hex teams. https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/
I followed the formula from this topic and calculated that Canada will gain 7.54 with two wins, and El Salvador will lose 5.40 if they lose. That's 12.94, and the gap is 14, so if those are the only games before the FIFA Rankings used for the draw, El Salvador will be in the Hexagonal.
You know initially I hated the new CONCACAF Qualification procedure, but now after taking a closer look I love it. The lower seeds will have an excited set of games to play through till the end.
There's still the June window, so that would not be the end of it. If Canada can close the gap to 1 point in March, that would make June quite interesting.
It's bad news for Canada. They have to play everybody else far away, and in warm weather. They're the ones who got screwed the worst with the format change.