Obviously overall Europe is the best conference followed by South America. After that can probably be debated. My listing 1. Europe 2. South America 3. CONACAF 4. Africa 5. Asia 6. OFC
concaf has the big 2- mexico and us africa has-tunisia, nigeria, morocco, cameroon.....etc. i dont think so.
You're only giving the Africans credit because they have more players in Europe, and because the continent's major powers are closer to one another in strength. Cameroon hasn't been to the second round since 1990, while Mexico has made it three consecutive times, and the US has done it twice (including a trip to the quarterfinals). Nigeria hasn't been any better than Mexico or the US recently. Morocco's best generation is reaching retirement age. And the Tunisians haven't ever done anything to show that they're any better than Costa Rica and Honduras. At the present time, based on match results, Mexico and the US are both stronger than any African team. Incidentally, why no love for Costa Rica? They've been in the World Cup twice, and impressed both times. They made the second round in 1990, beating two European teams to get there, and went out on goal difference in 2002, in a group that produced two semifinalists. That's already a better overall World Cup record than anyone in Africa has.
read the question "whats the best conference?" Africa has more teams that are on a higher level than concaf. ok ya concaf has US and Mexico but that is it. The question is best conference. so conference wise africa > Concaf. Mexico might be better than any african team( highly doubt it) but that does not make it the better conference.
The difference as I see it is: CONCACAF is a little better at the top with the US and Mexico probably better than any single African team. And then Africa's third is probably even with or slightly better than Costa Rica. Honduras, Guatemala, Jamaica and Canada certainly hold their own with the next group of African teams, but then the depth in Africa pretty much takes over from there. Africa is VERY deep. CONCACAF 1st Seven: Mexico, USA, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Jamaica, Canada. CAF 1st seven: Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt. I'd say on aggregate that's probably pretty close to even. But then the next seven: CONCACAF: Panama, T&T, Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. CAF: South Africa, Togo, Guinea, Angola, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Mali. The CONCACAF teams (at least the 1st 4) can give the big guys a hard time on occassion, but are very inconsistent and are roadkill just as often as they are competitive. The African teams however stay strong with teams that can and do win against the 1st tier quite often. Hell, there's a team (Zambia) who probably hasn't generally been one of the best 14 who has an excellent chance of qualifying. There's just so many teams in Africa who are roughly as the same quality as a Jamaica or Canada it's unbelievable. Libya, Algeria, Gabon, Burkina Faso, they all can play a little bit. So the depth in Africa is astounding. In terms of depth, only Europe surpasses it. So whether it is better than CONCACAF depends entirely on where you want to put the most weight: at the top (CONCACAF) or in the middle (Africa).
Is that the best you've got? One result when I asked for results? For someone that was so confident then you should really be able to do better. I'm waiting to be convinced Africa is stronger than Concacaf but I'm still waiting after discussing it with you.
1. Europe 2. South America 3. Africa 4. North America 5. Asia 6. Australia.. uhhhh, sorry Oceania. I can't really see how this can be argued - and it's confedrations.
Wait a minute. The 7th best team in CONCACAF is 7th of 35 teams, or 80th percentile within CONCACAF. CAF has 52 teams, so CONCACAF's top 7 should be compared to CAF's top 10, and CONCACAF's 8-14 to CAF's 11-20. From the FIFA rankings: 6. Mexico, 10. USA, 24. Costa Rica, 41. Jamaica, 50. Honduras, 58. Trinidad & Tobago, 59. Guatemala vs. 26. Cameroon, 28. Egypt, 29. Nigeria, 33. Morocco, 37. Senegal, 38. Tunisia, 39. South Africa, 46. Cote d'Ivoire, 53. Zimbabwe, 59. Mali Interesting that CONCACAF's 7th and CAF's 10th are tied in the FIFA ranking! I'd say CONCACAF is stronger at the very top, and I would bet on Honduras against more than half of CAF's top ten. For the next segment... 70. Cuba, 85. Canada, 88. Haiti, 98. Panama, 110. El Salvador, 118. St. Lucia, 120. St. Kitts & Nevis vs. 66. Libya, 67. Togo, 68. Congo DR, 72. Angola, 73. Zambia, 76. Ghana, 80. Algeria, 80. Kenya, 83. Guinea, 91. Burkina Faso Yes, Africa looks stronger. But the difference is not as large as the previous post claims. I feel that CONCACAF would hold their own (Canada thrashing Libya in Tripoli in 2003 is, I believe, the only recent match between these two groups) except for the fact that CONCACAF's depth basically ends at El Salvador (12/35). St. Vincent can put together the occasional string of good games, and a few of the other Caribbean nations can pull off the occasional impressive upset win, but that's not really indicative of confederation depth. Not surprising, as once we get down to El Salvador, we've basically exhausted all of the CONCACAF countries with any substantial population. I would say that CAF is about 25 credible teams deep. Interestingly enough, CONCACAF's semifinal round of WC qualifying, which is the first group stage, contains 12 teams, and CAF's final round (after the initial knockout stage) contains 25 teams... so with no early-round upsets, both confederations should have all their credible teams, no more, no less, reaching the group stages.
CONACAF is the better conference. If their was a joint African-CONACAFian tournament. Either Mexico or the US would win every time.
It can be argued by comparing results in matches between Confederations and how teams from those Confederations perform against other opposition. Your ranking, based on results, seems ok with the exception of 3 and 4 which should be swapped around as CONCACAF has outperformed Africa in both recent and long term results whenever teams from those places compete against teams from elsewhere in full international competition. Africa should also be careful that Asia doesn't overtake them again as teams from there seem to be improving whereas Africa has pretty much stood still since 1990. Oceania, with the coming defection of Australia, will become even more of a joke than it is now and should probably be rated 10th out of 6.
Because you base the strength of a confedration not just on it's strongest teams but on all it's teams, I'm in no Doubt that Mexico is better than any African side at the moment (but I'd still take Cote D'Ivore, Cameroon and Nigeria over the US), but after that Costa Rica? Guatlemala? not to mention Trindad and Panama, would any of these teams seriously qualify out of an African group? I doubt it. After the Hex teams in Concacaf barring one or two others like Honduras the confedration is little more than a joke - Can St Vincent ever qualify or even get close to qualification, While Cape Verde in Africa was still in the mix for a while... In Africa each group is still undecided and competitive between at least two teams in Concacaf it's only a matter of the US and Mexico showing up now...
Trinidad and Panama shouldn't qualify out of CONCACAF either. Here are all-time records for the US and Costa Rica against African teams: 3/18/92 Morocco 3:1 USA 10/19/92 USA 5:2 Cote d'Ivoire (in Saudi Arabia) 6/11/95 USA 3:2 Nigeria 11/17/99 Morocco 2:1 USA 3/12/00 USA 1:1 Tunisia 6/3/00 USA 4:0 South Africa 6/23/03 USA 0:0 Cameroon (in France) Every African team we have ever faced has been one of the continent's big powers, and so far we have only lost away to Morocco, and never at home or at a neutral site to anyone. Costa Rica has only faced African opposition twice: 3/9/97 Costa Rica 5:0 Cameroon 10/11/03 South Africa 2:1 Costa Rica Now, Nigeria vs. non-African opposition after the 2002 World Cup: 11/20/02 Nigeria 0:0 Jamaica 5/25/03 Jamaica 3:2 Nigeria 6/11/03 Nigeria 0:3 Brazil 7/26/03 Nigeria 1:0 Venezuela (in England) 8/20/03 Japan 3:0 Nigeria 4/28/04 Nigeria 2:0 Jordan 5/29/04 Nigeria 3:0 Ireland (in England) 5/31/04 Nigeria 2:0 Jamaica (in England) 10/22/04 Nigeria 2:2 Ecuador (in Libya) That's not a stellar record at all, apart from the win against Ireland. And what has Cote d'Ivoire done outside Africa? Here's their ALL-TIME record against non-African countries: 12/2/83 Cote d'Ivoire 1:0 Switzerland 10/16/92 Argentina 4:0 Cote d'Ivoire (in Saudi Arabia) 10/19/92 USA 5:2 Cote d'Ivoire (in Saudi Arabia) 10/4/93 Japan 1:0 Cote d'Ivoire No, this is not in error. It has been almost 12 years since Cote d'Ivoire has faced any non-African opponent. In 1992-93, the US and Japan were far inferior to their present teams. The only reason African teams get as much credit as they do is that they have a lot of players in Europe. And that's because most of them don't have very stable domestic leagues - if you're only judging by number of players in top European leagues, then Australia and Canada should be world-beaters.