To be fair, Senegal's plight (and South Africa's and Nigeria's and Cameroon's and Tunisia's) points towards a greater depth in Africa than CONCACAF has. Imagine if CONCACAF had the same WCQ structure that CAF has: After preliminary elimination, three groups with the winner getting the automatic bid. (I'm not worrying about the 1/2 bid here as it makes no difference.) Mexico, USA and Costa Rica would be the #1 seeds of each group. The other 12 teams get drawn into those three groups. Basically we'd have the 12 teams of the CONCACAF WCQ semifinals plus three more teams (let's say Cuba, Barbados, and Haiti for grins). We would look at the groups like this possibly: Group A Mexico Trinidad and Tobago St. Vincent & The Grenadines St. Kitts & Nevis Cuba Group B USA Panama Jamaica El Salvador Haiti Group C Costa Rica Guatemala Honduras Canada Barbados Only one of these groups (Group C) has a real competition. Now compare these three groups to any of the CAF groups. It's obvious that CONCACAF's depth is sorely lacking. Of course one could just look at the CONCACAF Hex and see the quality of the teams drops a lot from 1st to 4th, let alone 6th. Africa meanwhile has at least two teams in each of it's five groups capable of winning no matter what other teams they face.
That's the most convincing argument so far. Well done. There was another post that had St Kits and Mali in it. I mean, who gives a rat's ass who is ranking 108 versus 78 in the FIFA rankings?
Ursula makes a good point. Give the Africans a lot of credit for better depth. However, in the last of the five World Cups, Africa hasn't sent more than one team off to the elimination rounds. CONCACAF sent two in 2002. Also, regarding the South Americans or Europeans, the South Americans have four winners out the past seven world cups. Rankings: 1. South America 2. Europe 3. North/Central America + Islands 4. Africa 5. Asia 6. Oceania
It's a bit misleading, because not only are Mexico and the US head and shoulders above everyone else (which doesn't make the confederation weaker), the next three teams in the confederation were drawn into the same semifinal group! Group B contains two teams that can compete at World Cup level. Jamaica didn't advance, but at least looked pretty decent in their only World Cup appearance. Group A looks weak, but then many in CONCACAF suspected that it was rigged to get T&T into the Hex. Africa's real problem: with only one team going through per group, there's a lot of luck-of-the-draw, and with only group winners going through, a single unlucky result can send a good team out. In Group 3, Cameroon may well find themselves on the outside looking in with only a single loss on their record, for the sole reason that they were surprisingly held to a draw in Sudan. And groups can be unbalanced. Tell me, which team in Africa's current Group 2 do you think has a serious chance of winning Group 3? Or even finishing in the top 2 in Group 3? In Group 1, a bit of bad luck for Senegal leaves a team winning the group that could only any of the other groups if two better teams stumbled. I am quite underwhelmed by Group 4 as well; the main reason African qualifying looks tough is that Nigeria can't get their act together, and CAF drew a Group of Death with Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, and Egypt in it.
Ok, but Mexico have never got past the 2nd round except when hosting and the US has had one worthwhile WC performance (QF in '02). Head and shoulders above the rest of CONCACAF but not a lot of evidence to suggest they are among the best in the world. They were completely out of their depth. Outplayed against Croatia (1-3) and demolished by Argentina (0-5). The only reason they got any points was because the draw threw together two sides making their first appearances, and Japan were poor as well. And who the heck else is goning to compete? I don't really accept this argument. Clearly there could be variability due to the luck of the draw, but none of the five groups is currently headed by an '02 qualifier. As for group 2, why are you down on Ghana? I can well see them up there in group 3 as well if, say, they and the Ivory Coast swapped places.
Perhaps I'm arguing against Africa because I wasn't impressed by most of the African teams that did qualify in 2002. Cameroon looked good, but as I said, a single fluke result is currently the difference between them and Cote d'Ivoire. South Africa impressed, but I understand that their team pretty much went into a tailspin a couple years ago and never really recovered. The performance of Senegal's players at club level since 2002 seems to me to confirm that they were a flash in the pan. (Come on, did you think Bulgaria established itself as a major power in 1994? Or Turkey and South Korea in 2002?) Which leaves Nigeria and Tunisia, both of which were decidedly underwhelming in 2002. Yes, I know who Nigeria played, but that whole group failed to live up to its billing. Even England. (Incidentally, Nigeria is currently only behind on tiebreakers, and I personally still expect Angola to falter at the end.) And 1998, which was when the African allocation went up to 5? Of the African teams, only Nigeria and Morocco were watchable. Since the World Cup expanded, I think Africa has failed to justify its allocation.
I think it was four in '98. But I agree with you - Africa hasn't justified it's allocation. Of course, this is a very different argument to whether it's a stronger confederation than CONCACAF.
One of the biggest problems in this discussion is the very few teams that CONCACAF and CAF teams actually play head-to-head. Since they lately get put into the same pot for world cup group determination that eliminates almost all serious head-to-head matches. I could point out South Africa's recent Gold Cup victory over Mexico as something but we don't know what it means as both teams were fielding experimental teams (though I'd say South Africa's was more experimental). Other than that what other head-to-head matches do we have? We have some olser US @ Morocco (Morocco won) and Tunisia @ US (tie agme) friendlies but they also are hardly definitive. As to your point that Africa hasn't "impressed (me) by most of the African teams that did qualify in 2002" I understand that. The same of course could have been said of CONCACAF in 98 when they definitely played worse than CAF in France. I tend to believe that African teams are undervalued by the Coke rankings but there isn't any way to prove that assertion. Overall I don't really care as what teams do in the WC is what counts.