The expanded format of 48 teams have erased a lot of the joy and excitement of next years edition of the WC, as far as Im concerned. I mean no offense, but I didnt know a country named Curacau (population of 150k) even existed. And now they are competing at the World Cup. As for my team Iran, they wont get far. Its a lethargic squad of older players that lack stamina and the coach doesnt have the qualities to lead this team far. The defence is an absolute mess, and from where I stand Irans best chance is to indeed park the bus when it comes to teams like Belgium. They have a decent shot against Egypt and New Zealand, and thereby making round of 32 but thats most probably the best they can do. I dont even count round of 32 as a true elimination round (even though you get eliminated when losing)
Don't remember. But note that despite winning the tournament, Argentina rode their luck, losing a group stage match and winning two PK shootouts in the knockout stages after blowing 2-goals leads in the last minutes of regulation. And it's rare for all the breaks to go your way two tournaments in a row.
2006 Group F, Australia vs Japan. It's a technicality, because the Aussies qualified to that tournament out of OFC but switched to AFC between then and the World Cup.
And more importantly we're DRAWN into that group as Oceania. 2 Asian teams cannot be in the same group. So no. 2 Asian teams have never played before.
2006. Australia v Japan. It's a technical one as Australia joined AFC in January 2006 but they had qualified as an OFC rep through the IC playoffs and weren't an AFC member at the time the draw was done.
Australia was an AFC member when they played Japan in 2006. That's a fact. You are just explaining how two AFC members came to play each other before the knockouts.
And you are making a technicality into something bigger than it is. Australia qualified from Oceania and was drawn into their group as a member of Oceania. They repped Oceania at the 2006 WC. Their plans for the future are irrelevant.
It's not a big matter, it's just something that happened. We were a member of AFC when the match was played and had already competed in Asian Cup qualifying. They weren't plans for the future. They were a reality. You are trying to find a technical reason to deny reality.
Australia joined AFC to compete in FUTURE Asian cups and in FUTURE World Cup qualifying campaigns. It had absolutely nothing to do with WC 2006 which they qualified for and competed as an Oceania member. It's pretty simple actually.
Australia joined AFC in January 2006 and had already played in Asian Cup qualifying in February of that year. Not sure why you insist we weren't an AFC member at the time of the World Cup. You have accurately described how it happened, I'm not sure why you want to deny that it happened.
If they did they probably would have given OFC a direct spot much earlier, especially considering New Zealand's performance in 2010. It's quite simple. During qualifying we were a member of OFC and qualified through OFC and IC playoff. FIFA knew we were moving to AFC but had already set up the draw expecting Uruguay to qualify so put us in their geographic pot rather than rearrange the pots. By the time of the tournament we were an official member of the AFC and already competing in AFC competitions. Hence Japan v Australia in 2006 is the only time to date that two current AFC member nations have played each other in the World Cup finals tournament.
Curacao are competing because they beat out Jamaica. Ever heard of Jamaica? And other well known World Cup competitors like Costa Rica flopped. Europe is no better: we've got nothing countries like Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia still in the hunt. Chill a little. It's a massive World Cup across 3 very large countries, so there's plenty of room for 48 teams.
Not even close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game At least NBC didn't have to worry about refunds. Discussion around the (cancelled) 2022 match was that Iranians attending would all support the team...inside the stadium after kickoff. Outside the stadium was fair game for political expression. And there were more than a few Iranian fans who supported the cancellation despite their personal disappointment. Different times of course (post-PS752).
The thing I find strange about that is that they have listed the fixtures in reverse date order. The most exciting match is at a great time and the 6am kick off is ok, just means an early night. 4am is a pig but it is hardly great for Algerians either. There must be a wider spread of kick off times than ever before. Not surprising given the expanded tournament and the geographic size of the hosts.
Bosnia qualified under the 32-team format in 2014, so they're not necessarily a team which is solely reliant on the expansion to 48 teams to qualify.
48 teams is just about the limit, but we need a format featuring the Swiss system when the number of teams is not to the power of 2.
Just checked the time for the knockout matches. They got a quarter final match at 3 am central european time. So basically they are eliminating whole of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. I dont know, couldnt they have done anything Else? The other matches are at 9pm, 11pm and so on
The two late quarterfinals are in Miami and Kansas City, which are the US venues most likely to have the worst heat/humidity, so the schedules there are tilted to later games. Kansas City has no games earlier than 6 pm local, and Miami's quarterfinal is its earliest of the tournament at 5 pm local. The one time I've seen my team in a quarterfinal was at 4:30 am for me.
Thanks for this information. This proves that FIFA classified AUS as an OFC representative throughout 2006 WC: - 2006 WC, Draw pot B: CAF + C'BOL + Mar 2006 playoff winner of AUS vs URU (OFC vs C'BOL) - 2006 WC, Draw pot D: AFC + C'CAF + Mar 2006 playoff winner of TRI vs BHR (C'CAF vs AFC) Those geographic pots required no changes because AUS remained classified as OFC throughout 2006 WC. Else, another silly argument would be: AFC played *both* Mar 2006 intercontinental playoff matches because AUS switched to AFC on Jan 2006. It is simple: AUS represented no other confed than OFC during 2006 WC.
You're partly right about "a team still trying to to depend on Messi" because the best games Argentina had after the WC were the ones when Messi didn't play, one was the 4-1 against Brazil and the other was the Copa America final (after Messi left the pitch due injury). But at the same time, Scaloni started him when he was fit. So Argentina is a team that seems that doesn't need to rely on Messi anymore but at the same time wants to. Hopefully Scaloni realize this before the WC or before it's not too late