hey Guys just a thought if FIFA ever thought of a World Cup for Smaller Coutries... Kinda like for international ofcourse, but for countries who are small and normally dont get a shot at the world cup, also maybe a promotion/relgation type thing between classes like they do in club Soccer? hollah back!
I have to say you americans think many things that the rest of the world would never even imagine As for the answer... mmhh.. NO
This already happens. It's called Confederation Championships. The champions then go to the Confederations Cup. Euro Cup has expanded to 24 teams for 2012 (Probably to make England a lock), so the chances of some of the UEFA cupcakes making it that far just increased.
I get what you're aspiring for, but the reality is this would likely be a) economically infeasible, b) viewed as insulting to those nations, and c) serve the entrench the caste system already present among footballing nations.
What players would be interested in a Junior World Cup designed to make it possible for them to participate in something just because their NTs couldn't earn qualification on the big stage? Taking time off the feedbag of club football for the World Cup is expected, and should be every footballer's dream. A Miss Congeniality Pageant wouldn't get me into a NT shirt if I were a player. The NTs that are popular but do not qualify (Holland 2002 is the most recent example) wouldn't soil their NT's brand for a watered-down tournament and the definite non-Cup players you'd want to see (someone on the level of a Weah or at least a Hleb or Jaaskelainen) wouldn't have enough talent around them to make watching it worthwhile anyhow.
Well, Asia has something along this vein called the AFC Challenge Cup, which is open to the 20 lowest ranked teams in AFC. They even let the winner qualify for the Asian Cup.
And the we could have a third world cup for the teams that don't make the WC for the teams that don't make the world cup..... still Canada woudn't qualify.
Hockey is doing what DCU suggests. They have three, four classifications and there are promotions/relegations between classes according to results on the ice.
And why ignore the fact that since the Euros has had a finals (since 1980) England has appeared in the same number of final stages as France and Italy.
you can add pro rel to a cup? How? They might have it in international ice hockey, but the world championships there are a league system The only way you could do it would be to have a tournament for the teams that didn't quite make it to the main event. Would countries actually want to take part in a "World Cup "B" tournament" though? Assuming 32 qualifiers, based on qualification for 2006, you'd have these teams. Europe: Slovakia Turkey Norway Romania Denmark Russia Israel Scotland Austria Bosnia Bulgaria Greece Ireland S.America Ururguay Chile Colombia Venezuela Peru Africa Senegal DR Congo Cameroon Nigeria Morocco Asia Uzbekistan Kuwait Bahrain North Korea N.America Trinidad Guatemala Panama Oceania Solomon Islands play off - Honduras v China. how many would take part? Who would host?
Sometimes my friends and I have competitions to see who can hook up with the hottest girl out of a group of ugly chicks. It's ok, but at least it gives more people the opportunity to feel special.
LOL! So that would mean WC for every team in CONMEBOL. I will admit it, it's totally unplausable but it would be fun to see. Would be much more interesting and open of a tournament than the hierarchy-dominated traditional world cup.. think of all of the talent that would be unearthed too....
32 is too much. 24 would be appropriate. Host: 1 UEFA: 10 CONMEBOL: 3 CAF: 3 AFC: 3 CONCACAF: 3 OFC: 1
Many smaller and (some could argue) undeserving nations have gotten shots in the World Cup, often at the expense of more deserving ones. Slovenia, Zaire, the UAE, Kuwait, El Salvador, New Zealand, China, Greece, etc.
The problem with that argument is you have to base that on the competitors from the same region who didnt qualify. If you look at 1982 when Kuwait and NZ qualified they did it over China and Saudi, hardly teams you would consider to be deserving nations. Or take China in 2002, they qualified over UAE, Uze, Oman and Qatar... I dont agree with having a WC for the smaller teams but I would like to see some changes to maybe the UEFA and CAF regions. You can probably combine the last two seeds in the regions and have an additional tournament where x number of teams go into the final phase of qualifiers. This will take away 2-4 matchdays in your final round and provide better competition. The "smaller" teams will have more games where they have a chance of winning.