Not true, as both confederations have at least 4 teams ALWAYS guaranteed to qualify into the WC Finals. Hardest is Oceania (0.5/12 FA's, then H&A against 5th placed CONMEBOL FA), easiest is CONMEBOL (4 or 5/10 FA's).
The way Argentina played was disgraceful. In fact, the word disgraceful doesn't do justice. Argentina from the second round onwards, had a slightly tougher draw than West Germany. Brazil, Yugoslavia and Italy would be a bit tougher than Holland, Czechoslovakia and England. Brazil: 1 GK Claudio TAFFAREL 2 DF Jorge Campos JORGINHO 3 DF RICARDO GOMES Raimundo (c) 6 DF Claudio Leal BRANCO 19 DF RICARDO ROCHA 21 DF MAURO GALVAO 4 MD Carlos Verri DUNGA 5 MD Ricardo Brito ALEMAO 8 MD VALDO Candido 9 FW Antonio CARECA 15 FW Luiz Antonio MULLER Yugoslavia: 1 GK Tomislav Ivkovic 3 DF Predrag Spasic 4 DF Zoran Vulic 5 DF Faruk Hadzibegic 6 DF Davor Jozic 7 MD Dragoljub Brnovic 8 MD Safet Susic 10 MD Dragan Stojkovic 15 MD Robert Prosinecki 16 MD Refik Sabanadzovic 11 FW Zlatko Vujovic (c) Italy: 1 GK Walter Zenga 2 DF Franco Baresi 3 DF Giuseppe Bergomi (c) 4 DF Luigi De Agostini 6 DF Riccardo Ferri 7 DF Paolo Maldini 11 MD Fernando De Napoli 13 MD Giuseppe Giannini 17 MD Roberto Donadoni 19 FW Salvatore Schillaci 21 FW Gianluca Vialli That seems to be a tougher draw than what the Germans had and the Dutch team failed to deliver in that tornament, more so than Brazil. The Dutch didn't even win a match. I'm not saying that the Germans had any easy draw. No way! It seems to be ignored though because most of the Argentinians were absolutely crap and they weren't the team West Germany were.
I've read an interesting piece on the '78 World Cup by Paul Gardner. I think he said that the Argies weren't too miffed about losing to Italy, because they advanced to the next round despite the loss. They also fell in love with Paolo Rossi, known as "Pablito" to adoring fans. He was just about the only star of that tournament outside of Mario Kempes.
Do you know any legitamite reason why Abraham Klein was sent home? If it is not too much trouble, could you place that piece here? Thanks.
Sure, Dor. The first thing I can tell you is that Klein was not sent home after the Italy match; he actually refereed the 3rd place game between Italy and Brazil. But it seems that the majority of experts and neutral fans wanted (and expected) Klein to referee the final, since he was thought to be an unwaveringly fair referee. But according to some sources, Klein was not given the final for political reasons (as a Jew, it was thought he would favor Holland--see the article from this link) and Gonella, an Italian referee, was given the final. http://www.ajax-usa.com/history/kuper/israel-s-favorite-team.html Scroll down through the business of 'Ajax as a Jewish club' and you'll see a pretty good summary of Klein's career; or at least his doings at the '78 World Cup. You might also note that Klein refereed Italy-Brazil four years later, at Espana 82.
all the best ofc team(australia) has to do is beat a team in a home and away series, surely it cant be that hard but to be fair the easiest route is the asian one, which i believe australia will be joining shortly
Wrong,easiest IS Oceania,just look at their lack of quality teams (non existant) and then having to play the 5th place CONMEBOL team to go on.If you look strictly at number as you are,which is incorrect,the lack of quality teams in Asia assures 4 teams qualify no matter how weak they are.Japan and S.Korea have poor WC records unless it's played on their soil.Maybe you Aussies will easier time of qualifying directly since you're moving to the "auto qualify" AFC and no longer have to play a SA time to do so every 4 years.Best of luck this final time.
So Condor (& bigdelta for that matter), if it's that EASY, why hasn't it been done more than 2 times (AUS 1974 & NZ 1982) in all of the years of FIFA WC history ??? CRAP teams have nothing to do with it, FIFA politics has ALL to do with it. Why don't you list all the other FIFA Confederations' CRAP teams who qualify regularly with EASE. If you put ANY team in a situation where they are systematically disadvantaged, they'll just about NEVER qualify, other than in extraordinary circumstances. Now, succeeding in that deliberately structured environment, is my definition of a HARD WC route.
Ok, why don't you? I don't see what's systematically disadvantaged about having to beat The Solomon Islands, Tahiti and Iran to get a place in the World Cup finals, as Australia failed to do in '98.
Nothings that hard about beating Solomon Islands and Tahiti, but OFC teams do not acheive qualification by just doing that. In the case of 1998, Iran was having its third attempt to qualify after narrowly missing its previous two attempts in the same year. Most nations would love 3 attempts to qualify. In any case the system that OFC currently follows is unfair as they are the only countries that cannot qualify by defeating the other teams in their Confederation in group play. Playoffs for everyone else are a second chance. They are not for OFC.
Because it's already been done to death here & elsewhere on BS, but I'd start with the 3.5 teams of CONCACAF. Iran, the "crappy" team who beat AUS on away goals (1-1 & 2-2) & then went on to beat that "bastion of footballing strength", the USA, in the subsequent WC Finals group games.
There is nothing inherently 'unfair' in the fact that OFC teams can't qualify directly by beating other OFC teams. The depth of quality of OFC teams simply doesn't justify a direct qualification place. Effectively, the OFC qualifiers are a preliminary round in just the same way that some other confederations have a preliminary round for their weaker teams. The fact that Iran had two other chances is essentially irrelvant: those chances were in competition with far better teams than those that Australia competed against in Oceania. And that's saying something given that it's Asian qualifying.
Ahem, I never said that Iran were crappy. I said that Australia weren't "systematically disadvantaged" having to play such teams to qualify. And I believe that's a fair comment. It's not unreasonable to have to beat a team of the level of Iran to get to the finals.
And so M, who did the mighty USA beat in the prelims to WC 1998, that had them "beating a team of the level of Iran", to get one of the guaranteed CONCACAF places ???
They had four draws against the other two qualfiiers - Mexico and Jamaica and beat Costa Rica at home in both the semifinal and final rounds. Not exactly brilliant but a little tougher than what Australia had to face. I'm not sure why you always give this 'look at CONCACAF' response. You should know by now that I think they don't justify their current allocation either.
i dont think this has much to do with CONCACAF....they may not deserve 3.5, but i dont think you can say they dont deserve the 3 they got in 2002 but to me, i say that the 5th place S. American team can beat any Asian team, making Australia or Solomon Islands path that much harder, especially given the enviornment and the lack of preparation each get... personally i dont sympathize with Australia but i can understand their gripe. So with that, give 3 to Concacaf 5.5 to S. America, 2.5 to asia, 0.5 to OFC, 5.5 to Africa, and yes 15 to Europe.... thats just my opinion.
Definatley Turkey in 2002 they didnt play 1 EUROPEAN TEAM and lost to brazil twice. no wonder they got 4th germany isnt too different!
God this thread is ridiculous. Especially that last post. God forbid there be teams outside of Europe who are good. Brazil (eventual champs), Costa Rica (who entered the tournament as the best team in CONCACAF), China, Japan (hosts), Senegal (one of the top African teams who beat the European Champions in the group stage), and Brazil again... seems like a pretty tough road to me.
Perhaps then, FIFA should reduce the CONCACAF WC Finals place allocation from 3.5 to 0.5 places. The CONCACAF winner could go onto a subsequent H&A playoff against the 5th placed CONMEBOL team for the last available place. I've seen that somewhere before !
I too don't sympathise with all the other FIFA Confederations but I can understand their gripes, especially when some hicksville confederation (such as Oceania) suggests that a bit of fairness should be shown to the minnows, unlike the current tough love being dealt out.
Other nations who compete in preliminary rounds then go on to group play where they have an opportunity to test themselves in a number of games. OFC teams do not. They go direct from preliminaries to playoffs. This sytem is inherently unfair as it is different to what all other nations need do. I agree with you about the quality of OFC, but when all nations except 1 decided to give OFC full confederation status a World Cup spot should have gone with it. Every other confederation was given direct spots before their teams became competetive. In fact having access to the World Cup was an important part of becoming competetive. OFC deserves the same chance. Personally I don't think it should have been made a full confederation, but since it is it should have one spot.
What has Africa done to justify 5.5 spots? They have never had more than 1 country through to the second round, something that Asia did last time and CONCACAF has done on a number of occaisions. Asia has even had semi finalists, as did CONCACAF once long ago.
That makes it different, but not necessarily unfair. For example, South American is "fairest" of all in that everyone plays everyone else. Are all other onfederations' qualfication systems unfair because they don't afford that opportunity? And in CONCACAF there are three preliminary home/away knockout rounds. Is that unfair? What about UEFA's crazy second place playoffs? No other confederation is or has been in recent history anywhere near as weak as OFC. The simple fact is that OFC's performances don't justify a direct qualification spot. There is nothing pre-ordained that confederation = at least one direct qualification spot. OFC does have access to the World Cup. It can have a team qualify by a playoff. I agree it should never have become a confederation in the first place.
Thanks, Sempre. That was a fascinating article to read. I've never read any stories like that about a referee.