Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Tonga and Vanuatu will play for the chance to join New Zealand – who qualified automatically as the co-hosts – as the Oceania representatives at the World Cup. American Samoa are unable to take part due to ongoing challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. The draw for the OFC Women’s Nations Cup will take place on Tuesday, May 10 and see competing nations split into three pots based on their FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking as of March 25, 2022. The quarter-finals, semi-finals and final will all be single-leg matches, with the two losing semi-finalists also contesting a playoff for third place. The winner go to the Intercontinental play-offs, no direct qualification.
What's currently the highest-ranked Oceanian team, apart from New Zealand? (in other words, what's the actual chance that an Oceanian team could qualify through the intercontinental play-offs? )
0.000000000000000000000000001% + probability that their opponents have to withdraw because of covid + probability of Italy as opponent x 0,05 The pots should be: Pot 1: Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga Pot 2: New Caledonia, Cook Islands, Tahiti Pot 3: Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu
I posted ratings in one of the other threads, but going just by current FIFA ratings, it's entirely possible that PNG gets the fourth and final seed in the playoffs (and rather likely since they're the best bet for OFC's playoff spot and it's unlikely for CRC or MEX to fall to the C'CAF playoff spots). They'd be more than 150pts behind the likely third seed TPE but less than 200pts behind, so in a theoretical single standalone match of seed 3 vs seed 4 (e.g. the qualification round of the playoffs), that's an "expected result" of around 0.27 for PNG. You can't directly treat expected result as a win chance, but honestly saying PNG has even a 20% chance against the likes of TPE doesn't seem very far-fetched to me.
I do respect this approach, but I guess the recent Tahiti's tour in Europe showed once again how unreliable FIFA rankings are for what concerns inter-continental comparison. Tahiti were way ahead of Liechtenstein in rankings, but they were more or less demolished by them in two games, suggesting that OFC teams could be significantly overrated compared to their real power.
You mean Luxembourg? Remember, the important thing for H2H comparisons is rating, not ranking. Luxembourg were rated at less around 50pts below Tahiti, so with Home Field Advantage taken into account, that became about 50pts advantage to Luxembourg. Granted, a 50pts difference probably shouldn't have meant as big of a score difference versus what happened, but Tahiti wasn't expected to be the better team while playing in Luxembourg. Also, remember that the rankings are more accurate the higher up they are, and PNG is over 200pts above Tahiti & Luxembourg. A better data point would be PNG beating Singapore in Singapore earlier this month, 1-0. Singapore was expected to lose even with HFA since their rating is definitely below WC play-off quality, so make of that what you will.
The result of the draw that happened two weeks ago 👀 Which group shapes as the toughest at the OFC Women's Nations Cup 2022? pic.twitter.com/qH5mHYjvPR— Oceania Football Confederation (@OFCfootball) May 10, 2022 The full schedule 🗓 The full match schedule is now confirmed for the OFC Women’s Nations Cup 2022. pic.twitter.com/9FECB0gJer— Oceania Football Confederation (@OFCfootball) May 10, 2022 A final between the favourites Papua New Guinea and Fiji is possible if both teams win their groups.
Looks like Tahiti was screwed. The group with Tonga would sure have been better for them. This reminds me that we've basically had no news from Tonga, after the tsunami hitting them some months ago: I assume everything, including women's football, resumed regularly?
Tonga had a four weeks training camp in Australia where they improved from a 0:16 against Philippines to a 0:5 against the same opponent eight days later.
TEAMS | Here's how Samoa & Tonga will take the field in tonight's #WNC2022 opener. Watch >> https://t.co/j2cO1WXOuT pic.twitter.com/Y8ONnSzcDZ— Oceania Football Confederation (@OFCfootball) July 13, 2022
💪 Samoa are off to a winning start, with a goal in each half seeing them past Tonga at the #WNC2022. Match report to come. pic.twitter.com/oAGQhcMmww— Oceania Football Confederation (@OFCfootball) July 13, 2022 Monique Fischer(28), Jayda Stewart(70)
It does... though, to be fair, in a region where there is no qualifying campaign to the regional championships, I can understand wanting to build some "padding" into each nation's schedule. Since these teams often don't play friendlies (i.e. they're generally only active for official competitions,) you want to wait until teams are sharp before you actually start eliminating them, so it's more likely you have you best team(s) moving on. Having an almost-no-stakes group stages basically gives the teams a "preseason" to warm up for the actually-important knockout stage.
Who will likely be the poor team getting the short end of the stick and being eliminated after "pre-season"?
I'd guess Vanuatu would be the odd team out. They're the lowest ranked team and are in a tough group.
I'm betting Vanuata. Lowest-ranked side, fewest previous appearances in the tournament, in a group with PNG and Tahiti (who I think is a sleeper pick in the region). Solomon Islands are the other option.
My guess is Vanuatu. They had a 0:0 draw against Solomon Islands in a friendly some days ago but Papua New Guinea is in their group.
Well, I see Vanuatu is the most common choice: let's see if they're going to upset the unanimous predictions.
Vanuatu, I apologize Better than expected or is Papua New Guinea not so good as I thought? 🇵🇬 FULL TIME | Papua New Guinea seal the win. #WNC2022 pic.twitter.com/a61YtavaLw— Oceania Football Confederation (@OFCfootball) July 14, 2022 Vanessa Keletia(71) - Marie Kaipu(34), Ramona Padio(76), Charlie Yanding(79) I would have changed my last place prediction to Solomon Islands but it`s 1:1 at HT against Fiji.