One noticeable factor in these matches has been the number of very late goals scored. Fitness and depth obviously play a huge factor. I was thinking the weather (summer vs. winter) might play a part, but most of the teams are Global South or near the equator.
Just realized that Yenith Bailey, the hero of Panama's 2018 campaign and still-starting GK, is apparently unattached? Gotta imagine some big club picks her up quickly if Panama qualifies.
Goalkeeper positions are quite limited and hard to come by. Doing well in the Asian Cup and qualifying for the World Cup helped most of the Philippine's field players sign pro contracts with clubs abroad including 7 for top flight clubs in Scandinavia and Australia but their goalkeepers particularly starting goalkeeper Olivia McDaniel(still unattached) had difficulty finding clubs until recently with their backup goaltender Kiera Fontanilla(who performed well against Australia in a losing cause in the Asian Cup) signing first with returning A League club Central Coast Mariners for next season's 2023-24 schedule. A small number are still in college and playing for their respective schools.
Diaspora is not limited to descendants of migrants, it includes migrants themselves. HAI has benefited greatly from having NT players working in much developed foreign leagues than its national circuit. Its diaspora is a huge reason why its NT showed good form during these WWC playoffs. Personally, I would not give praise to the Haitian federation yet. They spent zero funds on restitution for women and girls (NT players) who were sexually abused by Haitian federation officials. There is nothing *weird* about that episode. It should be called for what it is: horrible abuse. Those practices have been replicated at other football federations without FIFA taking a tough stance against it. Additionally, the Haitian federation has refused to spend funds on its WNT: - Their NT coach, Nicolas Delepine, currently works at a French D2 club. Guess who pays for his expenses in France? https://www.gf38.fr/d2f-gf38-albi-0-2-battues-a-domicile/ https://www.fifa.com/fifaplus/en/ar...iti-play-off-tournament-womens-world-cup-2023 - 43 months have passed since the last WWC. HAI played just 4 friendlies during that space. I highly doubt the existence of donors / funneled funds for HAI WNT. Qualification to 2023 WWC sits squarely on the shoulders of HAI players, without forgetting that 2023 is a WWC expansion year, too. MEX and CHI thought that they could phone it in during qualifiers. HAI showed them what for.
Seeing as the 2 concacaf teams made it, should the next world cup still have the exact same direct and playoff quotas per confederations?.
Now it's official CONCACAF is the second strongest confederation. CONCACAF women's gold cup could soon rival the EUROS.
I wouldn't jump to either of these conclusions. The first question is easier to work with, since slot allocation should change anyway depending on who ends up hosting the next tournament - one or more nations, what confederation they're in, etc. The second issue, though, is definitely a jump too far, if only because we have a relatively small sample size and because having a large(r) number of teams in the 30-50 range qualify doesn't mean the confederation overall is stronger. Remember, CONCACAF has the USA and Canada, and then a HUGE relative drop-off - both locally (only once have both nations participated in qualifying and one missed the final) and at the WWC (no other C'CAF nation has ever advanced from the groups). UEFA is strong throughout the top 20 and will be way more competitive for a long time.
Another thing I will say about relative strengths from this playoff tournament: Aside from Haiti 4-0 Senegal and Chinese Taipei 5-0 PNG, the the other 7 of the 9 matches between all the playoff teams have been surprisingly competitive affairs. Portugal, the top seed, really had to work to put Cameroon (9th/10) away, and 7th and 8th both ended up qualifying, with only the aforementioned two matches ever going beyond 2-goal decisions. This playoff tournament was great for showing that the "bubble" tier of teams from each confederation are actually pretty comparable across confederations, despite the disparate ranks that have developed in the separated pools of teams.
Well this playoff tournament has been actually quite entertaining, hopefully the next world cup, the qualifying path is a bit more serious and spread out like for the men's sides .
Maybe a play off, but with more home and away matches in the fifa windows to replace boring friendlies
It's probably worth re assessing after the tournament. It took 2 32 team tournaments for the mens allocations to settle in to consistent numbers from the 3rd one so it may take 2 or 3 women's tournaments to get it right as well. Probably need some tweaking after this one and then again after the next one.
+1000 To come back on this horrible system of sexual abuse, a long years investigation of 3 reporters, Romain Molina, Ed Aarons and Alex Cizmic : https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-of-sexually-abusing-young-female-footballers Jean Yves Bart has been banned lifetime by FIFA. https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...d-cas-claims-threats-to-alleged-victims-haiti https://www.sofoot.com/breves/le-pr...on-haitienne-suspendu-a-vie-pour-abus-sexuels And the manager of U20 women https://www.sofoot.com/breves/une-e...ie-par-la-fifa-pour-une-affaire-dabus-sexuels And to add to the obscene, Ex prez of FIFA Sepp Blatter was aware of all, and might have benefit with other visiting officials of this horrible system https://josimarfootball.com/hell-on-earth/ Don't miss the pictures of the ""wonderful"" fifa goal center "la Croix Des Bouquets" near Port Au Prince, Haiti
6 Concacaf teams qualifying does seem pretty ridiculous. Maybe that’s just me but 3/4 of their main domestic tournament qualifying just seems silly. It just highlights how erratic the South American/African programmes are. Lack of investment and long term planning seems to kill progression of the sport worldwide.
Let's not forget that this qualifying cycle has been heavily affected by COVID. The epidemic has had a different course in different countries, and also the restrictions put in place by each country have generally differed. Two-week quarantines effectively disorganized top-level tournaments, not to mention friendly matches played during the 7-10 day FIFA windows. Clubs rarely agreed to release players if they were to be quarantined for 2 weeks to re-enter the country. In addition, there was also a high infection rate within national teams - effectively crippling their tournament plans (ie. India withdrew from it's own youth WWC, Thailand was forced to play WWC qual wth 14 players, South Korea couldn't get almost any friendlies for 2 years). Highly developed countries with more resources dealt with the epidemic much faster and felt the effects of the post-pandemic to a lesser extent. Many other countries were not so lucky.
It’s certainly one of the reasons. I assume boosting participation to the now 32 team tournament was partly to get more teams from CONMEBOL and CAF involved (growing the game etc) and they have now only ended up with 7 between them (It was 6 out of the 24 last WC). You want the best teams to qualify and I think that has mostly happened. I don’t think either South American team deserved a place (especially Paraguay who were very lucky to get past Chinese Taipei). Cameroon got unlucky with the draw. Think they might have got through from one of the other groups.
One of the main reason why Conmebol is much stronger on the men's side than women's is the men have a 2 year qualification campaign and the women only have the Copa America. At least CAF has qualifiers for their WAFCON and separate Olympic qualifiers
That's a symptom, not the actual reason. As other people have mentioned, the actual reason is simply support from their national federations, i.e. giving teams proper training opportunities and friendlies outside of official competitions, which itself is a symptom of general (heavily gendered) football culture in many nations. Don't forget the strongest WNTs also tend to come from countries with healthy domestic leagues, e.g. Brazil's NT has dominated the Copa America just as their clubs have dominated the Copa Libertadores.
How do you explain this? Since 2019 WWC: - MEX had 18 friendlies before elimination in qualifiers: last in 4-group lightning round. - CRC had 13 friendlies before direct qualification to 2023 WWC. - JAM had 3 friendlies before direct qualification to 2023 WWC. - PAN had 10 friendlies before qualifying to 2023 WWC playoffs. Had 5 friendlies as WWC playoffs prep. - HAI had 3 friendlies before qualifying to 2023 WWC playoffs. Had 1 friendly as WWC playoffs prep. MEX will not play a WWC, for a second time in a row, despite splashing cash on women's international friendlies and possessing a healthy domestic professional league. Something is very wrong with MEX WNTs. Meanwhile, HAI/JAM/PAN will play 2023 WWC. But, PAN and HAI are in because 2023 is an expansion year; they would not have qualified to a 24-team WWC. Did COVID-19 have adverse effects on JAM/HAI qualification? Nonetheless, now that qualification is over, I suspect that HAI/JAM/PAN are likely to get thrashed at 2023 WWC. Just another day in the office for C'CAF mid-tier teams at the world football stage.
Congrats to Portugal, Haiti and Panama, all World Cup debutants. You have to feel for Cameroon, they were probably the second best team of the lot but they got paired with Portugal. In fact, Panama is pretty lucky they got the draw they did. Pretty sure both Cameroon and Chile would've beat them handily. But the draw is what it is. Excited that Yenith Bailey gets to play in a World Cup. She captivated us during 2018 CONCACAF qualifying and is still doing her thing. She should get plenty of action against the likes of Brazil, France and Jamaica. How nervous must the NZ federation be? Their co-host team is getting trounced, not only by the USA but mid-tier sides like Argentina. They can't buy a goal, and the defense is shaky. Despite never winning a World Cup game, in 2011, 2015, 2019 they always kept it close and competitive. Doesn't seem they have similar resoluteness now. Players like Hearn, Gregorius, Rosie White, Hoyle, Erceg gave them a solid spine but that's gone now.
Very much agree, they have not managed the change of generation very well, like many teams though, it is hard to find the right timing to ditch the veterans. And get quality replacements.