It does, but the formula sucks. The strength of the rival and the type of competition is factored in, but no matter how weak a team is, you still get some points. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Rankings#Current_calculation_method IMHO, the way to fix the WCQ is to have more intercontinental playoffs, so instead of two or three, you have 8 or 10. For example: Direct + Playoff berths: UEFA: 9 + 8 CONMEBOL 3+3 ASIA 3+2 AFRICA 3+3 CONCACAF 3+3 OCEANIA 0+1 TOTAL: 21+20/2+host This way, only the true powerhouses will make it to the WC directly, while the pretenders will have to face teams that are rewarded by the current format.Can Chile beat Ireland? Can Colombia conquer Cameron? Will Uruguay survive Australia again? OTOH, after UEFA and CONMEBOL, all the other federations underperform consistently, so do you really want to reward them with a possible extra berth or two?
I agree with you and would love to see it set up this way. But as Crzd mentioned Asia and North America do provide a lot of money. A lot of the Television revenue and Ticket sales are from USA and China every cycle. Also, Europe would never agree to such a risk.
Well, one of the proposed formats with 48 teams was to have a preliminary round of 24 teams that will play a preliminary 2 game elimination to advance to the real WC. From what I'm reading, we're heading to a 48 team WC in 26, with 16 groups of 3, with 2 advancing to direct elimination rounds... Yuck...
Winning the Euro helped build up their points. And other than losing to England they have done decent in accumulating more points.
Not all. Now these occasional losses they experience won't significantly impact them unless it's against teams that are significantly weaker in ranking. We could beat all of them but the fact we are within top 10 distance doesn't work that badly against them if they lost to us.
Totally not official, but they apply the system used by chess, giving the teams a rating based on a different equation, but more dependent on the opponents' strength. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Football_Elo_Ratings According to wiki it has a better predicting outcome than FIFA's ranking, which adopted some of the ELO model variables in their most recent adjustment.
I would love to see us against Portugal and Italy - we never played either team Netherlands - only faced 1 time prior to 2014WC Belgium - faced 2 times England - 6 times, yet to win a game. kinda similar to us, they are their own worst enemy…
Would love to play Portugal, Italy, Netherlands and England in friendlies Thing is people consider teams players play for = X Player is > than another that is why I laughed when Greek and Polish coworkers said they would beat us at the World Cup haha. Was like in no planet and even with a U20 would we lose to Poland or Greece
for a while now. the point FIFA is trying to make is that more games mean more $$ until players strike like Allison Becker said it will continue at the expense of the sport.. also, dont be surprised if they start making the halftime longer to include artists. disgusting
I do agree that some of these teams we need to play against for future friendlies. Especially if we're not going to be at the gold cup next year (still waiting on that confirmation) it is essential that we have a way to challenge and season our players as well as possible before the world cup.