i never said the football in Europe and i dont think that has anything to do with who plays the better football...but if u say so.. like the other poster said im not good at guessing what the asteriscs mean...so reading half a post that has nothing to do with what i said and the other half covered in asteriscs...it's just a waste of time
Um, there are 36 countries in CAF that don't qualify for the African Nations Cup. Just like there are 25 countries on CONCACAF that aren't in the Gold Cup. The tendency among Europeans seems to be to compare the CONCACAF minnows to the African powers. Doesn't work that way. If we're going to compare confederation championship tournaments, then I'd say the 10 CONCACAF countries that made it into the Gold Cup are, top to bottom, about as strong as the 16 CAF countries that get into the African Nations Cup. Cuba, Panama, and T&T are not far inferior to Kenya, Rwanda, and Benin, while the US and Mexico are stronger than any current African team.
US and Mexico are stronger than any current African team???? I wonder how you measured it. If you are using the FIFa ranking then you are part of a large crowd that is seeing an illusion. There is nothing I can say about that. There is no parallel to the intensity of the competiton in ANC. Unlike in CONCACAF no one, no one, stands out. Most teams are uncomfortably close to each other, with various playing styles. For your info probably only a single team will make it back to world cup next year. Not even Cameroon, Senegal. tNaigeria are in the danger zone. I tell you what, let's hope USA face Ivory coast next year and we will talk then.
I think he instead compares how top CONCACAF countries perform in major tournaments with how top African counbtries do. The top African countries have consistantly fallen short of what the top CONCACAF countries do. Thats if they meet. Lets face it, if past performance is any guide then CONCACAF will have 2 teams in the second round and Africa only one.
One game certainly settles everything. Mexico beat Brazil in the Confederations Cup so North America must be the best confederation.
Other than when the US hosted, that's only happened once. Hardly a track record of past performance. Plus in the last four World Cups we've seen two African quarterfinalists, but only one from CONCACAF. And anyway, this tells us only a little about the relative strengths of the two confederations. Seems to me there are two factors that point to Africa being stronger. Firstly, African qualifying is a heck of a lot more competitive than CONCACAF's. CONCACAF has two decent teams, and then there's a massive falloff in ability that seems to more pronounced now than it was four years ago. Secondly, it's not the same culprits that qualify each and every World Cup. Can you imagine a CONCACAF team qualifying for the first time and getting to the quarterfinals? I can't.
Average FIFA points: add the points for each nation, divide by the number of nations in the confederation. Australia in OFC CONMEBOL 644.4 UEFA 567.4 CAF 399.57 AFC 374.57 CONCACAF 331.57 OFC 260.41 Australia in AFC CONMEBOL 644.4 UEFA 567.4 CAF 399.57 AFC 379.02 CONCACAF 331.57 OFC 231.45
Reaching quarterfinals is an arbitrary cutoff. So is second round. CONCACAF has had fewer entries in every recent World Cup, and consistently gotten at least as many teams into the second round. Since 1990, only 3 different CAF teams have reached the second round; and 3 different CONCACAF teams have also reached the second round. Moreover, we find that the CONCACAF teams show more consistency, as opposed to Cameroon and Nigeria fading as rapidly as they appeared. Mexico have been to the second round of 4 of the last 5 World Cups - and in the other one they were disqualified early in qualifying. The United States have reached the second round in 2 of 4 since 1990, with one quarterfinal appearance, which matches Nigeria (Africa's best over the same period). Please also note that the United States got to the quarterfinal more recently than Nigeria did! Costa Rica reached the second round in 1990, and missed out only on goal difference in their next appearance 12 years later. Besides... RIGHT NOW both the US and Mexico are arguably stronger than they've ever been before, which is a significant factor in the increased gap within CONCACAF. Meanwhile, some of the traditional African powers may have slipped - I certainly don't see as many Nigerians in the top leagues as there were just 5 years ago, and Morocco's highest-profile players all seem to be well into their 30s. The Mexican showing at the Confederations Cup is significant this time around, because unlike past Confederations Cups, the competing nations sent near-full-strength squads; given that injuries happen, what they send to the next World Cup isn't going to be much stronger.
Thats still twice more than Africa has managed, even though it has nearly twice as many teams. Costa Rica performed pretty well last time which tells me there wasn't much fall off in CONCACAF's teams. How did the other African nations perform?
Average FIFA points taking into account only the top 20% nations in each confederation: Australia in OFC CONMEBOL: 807 UEFA: 746.98 CONCACAF: 649 AFC: 634.55 CAF: 628.65 OFC: 490.75 Australia in AFC CONMEBOL: 807 UEFA: 746.98 CONCACAF: 649 AFC: 633.34 CAF: 628.65 OFC: 403.18
And has never hosted a World Cup. Don't forget that the second-round appearance by the US in '94 was the worst ever by a host. Four years ago. Costa Rica won CONCACAF qualification then, right?
Indeed. Particularly as it typically tells us little about anything other than the better qualifiers. Ditto above comment. The only consistent CONCACAF performer to date has been Mexico. The US has got past the first round once other than when hosting, was miserable in '98 and had the worst ever performance by a host when it got to the 2nd round in '94. That's not consistency. What is consistent is which CONCACAF teams qualify - which tells us something about the lack of depth of CONCACAF. It's the US's _only_ non-hosting second round appearance.... And Nigeria were in a truly horrid group in '02 with three other genuine quality teams. That's probably true, but not the whole story. Costa Rica are clearly not the team they were four years ago, and who else is competitive at all? This is more than coumterbalanced by the growing number of competitive African teams with players in the top leagues. Just take a look at the African qualification tables. I would contend it's a lot tougher to qualify out of Africa than CONCACAF. Of course this is somewhat conjecture, but as I said before, can you imagine a CONCACAF team qualifying for the first time and getting to the QFs? That's true and Mexico is clearly a consistent performer at the highest level. No argument there. It's the rest of CONCACAF that's at issue.
What makes it the worst? They lost to the eventual champion 1-0. Japan lost to the 3rd place team 1-0 in '02.
I don't understand the logic behind your main point; parity is not a indication of quality. It sounds like you're holding the quality of the US and Mexico against CONCACAF. If those two teams left the confederation, the World Cup qualifiers would be much more competitive but the region certainly wouldn't be better.
My point is not that parity = strength, but that new teams have qualified from Africa and done well. Nigeria in '94, for example, and even more successfully, Ivory Coast in '02. When coupled with the fact that qualification from Africa is far more competitive than in CONCACAF, this leads me to believe that there are more teams of quality in Africa than there are in CONCACAF. Whilst I agree that there is a lot of subjectivity in this, aside from the 'normal culprits', can you honestly see any CONCACAF team being good enough to get to the second round or beyond in the same manner that Ivory Coast did in '02?
Did you mean Senegal ? BTW I agree about African qualifiers being tough, but they are also tougher then Eouropean qualifiers and that doesnt make them a better confederation then Europe .
Sure, I can see a surprise CONCACAF team advancing; I can see a surprise team from any confederation. The World Cup has a lot of luck; anything can happen in three games against random opponents. Get a fairly easy group or pull one big upset and you're through to the knockout stages. Since the US and Mexico eat up two of the 3.5 slots it's awfully hard for CONCACAF to have a non-US or Mexico team advance simply because they don't get invited. I believe CAF is getting 4.5 this time, so they have many more chances to get lucky. But I don't see why US and Mexico shouldn't be considered credits for CONCACAF instead of dismissed for being atypical of the confederation. If CAF had a bunch of teams with great credentials (like Europe does) then I would feel differently. But really, I was surprised by how unimpressive they are. FIFA and Elo both agree: the best African teams are barely in the top 30 worldwide.
One thing that has to be considered is that Africa has tons of countries with huge populations and don't have much to show for it. While CONCACAF has a few large countries and tons of ridiculusly small countries, St. Lucia etc. However CONCACAF has managed to have respectible showings at the last couple world cups. In the last 10 ten years overall Africa might have been better, but I doubt it. However in the present time I believe CONCACAF is the stronger group. I find it funny that the Africa supporters hold up the Ivory Coast as an example of African strength when they've never qualified. Also Africa gets 4.5 or so berths to the WC which is a lot. With four or five teams in the world cup there's a good chance one with win a few fluke game ie Senegal.
Even so I still hear a lot about how good the Ivory Coast is. No, it was an upset. The difference is that the US can do it agian. Senegal may not even qualify agian for a long time. However the US did get lucky by drawing Mexico. But had they not I think Mexico would've advanced.