I've heard that since forever. Remember Pele famously predicted an African WC winner before the year 2000. i'm dying to see WC success for other confederations. I lived many years in Japan and at every WC I hope they will do well and have a breakout but they never do ( a win here or there is not a breakout). If this happens then let's have a debate about spot allocation but until Afc or Caf show truly continued and persistent success at WCs you don't have a case. Btw, what advantages are given to top club teams in the top leagues?
I have mentioned what I would base it on in other threads. Basically, I would limit quotas to a bare minimum required to ensure diversity. The rest of the sides would be chosen through intercontinental qualifying. Various formats can be worked out in this regard. Initially, playoffs and later instead of World Cup expansion, a mini-World Cup for the next best teams from around the globe to serve as qualifying for the 32 team tournament.
Not bad but I fear that Afc or Caf would not agree to that as they fear they would not be able to overcome most Uefa teams in these playoffs. They generally prefer automatic spots with no risk
The allocations to the AFC and CAF aren't the ones that will be at risk, since those minimum allocations are necessary to ensure diversity. The 13 allocations to UEFA will be the prime target, although I suppose you could work the math such that a few of the AFC and CAF allocations would also be placed at risk. But ultimately it is the side that is overrepresented per capita on the assumption that it is stronger that needs to prove it on the playing field.
Well, if you feel Uefa haven't already proven on the playing field countless times that they are a much stronger confederation than Afc then good luck to you
UEFA, generically as opposed to some of its very top teams, hasn't proven anything against the AFC in recent years. In World Cup 2010, we had a team that was ranked #16 in the AFC, namely N.Korea, qualify which skewed things a bit, but the results otherwise between the 2nd tier UEFA sides (whose allocations are really at issue) against AFC teams was: Japan 3 Denmark 1; S.Korea 2 Greece 0; Australia 2 Serbia 1. In this World Cup, we have had the following results: S.Korea 1 Russia 1; Japan 0 Greece 0. Iran will face Bosnia and S.Korea Belgium to further add to our sample.
UEFA doesn't need to win no direct comparison with any other confederation. They need to prove that the 13 different are not wasted. Aka the number of teams who do something noteworthy is close to that number Since the introduction of 32 teams 12 UEFA teams have reached the semifinals. Since there are repeats -2 ger - 1 hol - 1 fra we are left with 8 different teams that have reached semifinals since 1998 (8/14 = 57%) Even CONMEBOL has only 2 different teams (40%) In 16 semifinals only Brazil x 2, S Korea (still a joke) and Uruguay have disturbed the trend Also it is nice that the teams you guys included in the big UEFA teams pile grows bigger every year. If Belgium wins this year I guess they will be added to the pile
That problem is that the criteria you use has absolutely no relevance to deciding whether, say, Greece in 2014 is a more worthy side than say Egypt or Senegal or even Uzbekistan or Jordan? But if Greece faced these teams and beat them, then it would have proven it was worthy of taking that place. We have a big planet. 32 of its nations are allowed to compete in the World Cup. If 13 of these 32 teams (~ 40%) are guaranteed to a region that holds less than (what is it, 10%?) of the world's population, each and everyone of them better belong. In the meantime, if we are going to have less than meritorious sides in the competition, I prefer China to these kind of teams because China can potentially bring billions of $$$ to the game internationally and in Asia and revolutionize the face of the competition in the AFC. Many of these 2nd tier European sides add much less. They don't add much new flavor. They don't bring hundreds of millions of new fans. Really next to nothing.
But that is a false argument because you're comparing apples and oranges. Japan are traditionally the best and most consistent Afc team at World Cups while Greece, when they have qualified, have consistently the lowest Uefa team ( or among the lowest). Yet Japan couldn't beat them. Again, if you want to make the argument that some Uefa spots should be given to Afc then you need to compare like with like, i.e. You need to compare Uzbekistan ( the next best team in Asia) with the lowest Uefa qualifier ( France) and make the case that the former is more deserving than the latter. No point in listing good results by Japan and Korea because they qualified anyway, their inclusion is not up for debate, of course they deserve to be there. So once again, is the fifth, sixth, seventh top team in Asia better than the 11th, 12th or 13th best teams in Europe? If so then by all means let's change the allocation. If not then you have no case.
France the 13th best team in Europe... Yeah right... Blame the qualifying system, but they aren't below Greece, Bosnia and the like.
What you need to do is to have these teams play one another. Of course, and by these teams, I am focused mainly on the real outlier sides from Europe since I am sure France would make it. But even if Greece or Croatia et al also make it passed the teams I mentioned, they would still need to go through that path and prove it on the playing field. Not just once, but for each World Cup.
I am not sure what you're arguing here? That SOMETIMES, teams from Europe crash and burn? Sure. or, sometimes, they do spectacularly well. Look what Croatia, Turkey, and Ukraine did on their FIRST visit to the WC! And for Ukraine and Turkey this still remains to be their only visit to the WC. These very decent quality teams can't even qualify from UEFA! That should tell you about some of your misconceptions about "2nd tier UEFA teams". France are doing quite well in the WC to this day. They had a nightmare of a time in the UEFA WC Qualification play-off versus Ukraine. Sure, Ukraine had failed to qualify from UEFA. They lost to France. Honduras needed to finish above Panama. See the difference?
Of course they're not NOW but they were in qualifying which is what matters in this discussion. of course it happens all the time that teams that performed poorly in qualifying end up better at the World Cup and vice versa. Look at Brazil 2002 or Colombia 1994 as the most glaring examples. That's exactly an argument in favour of 13 Uefa teams as it shows the tremendous strength in depth. What other confederation could make a case that its 13th best team in qualifying can be a World Cup winning contender? (Well, perhaps Conmebol if they had more countries)
Incidentally, nothing in my posts was meant to suggest that the AFC's guaranteed allocations should be increased. I would be against it even if FIFA were to increase AFC's allocation. Nor am I going to insist that if we had intercontinental qualifying to contest some of UEFA's extra allocations, UEFA's ultimate representation would be drastically reduced. I don't know. I just think the right way to answer these questions in on the playing field and not through the logical gymnastics which is engaged in to support and oppose the allocations for one or another confederation.
What did Ukraine do on their first visit? You mean diving for a penalty to get out of the group stage? SOMETIMES teams from Europe crash and burn. SOMETIMES teams from other confeds. All in all its rare to have real outliers. This world cup possibly has two: Honduras and Cameroon with the second team basically self-imploding.
Exactly. Teams can have poor World Cups sometimes, that doesn't mean they don't deserve to be there. Or is somebody really trying to argue that the two finalists of 2006 didn't deserve to be in South Africa just because they ended up having a poor tournament ? Or that (still) reigning World and European champions Spain don't deserve a spot in Brazil? For those teams a poor World Cup is an exception and not the norm while for Honduras a poor World Cup is the norm
The next best sides from the other confederations! Instead of having UEFA v UEFA playoffs, you would have UEFA v teams from other confederations playoffs at first. Down the line, I prefer a revamped qualifying system discussed in the "Brave New World ..." thread.
Bosnia won their qualifying group, so they finished qualification ahead of both greece and france. One could make a statement that Greece, Croatia, France, and Portugal are all tied for 10th-13th among the UEFA qualifiers as they had to go through the UEFA qualification play-offs. But, then, since France had the worst time of it (and, perhaps, the toughest opponent), we can deduce that France were, indeed, the 13th UEFA qualifier.
They were under Serbia in the qualifying for 2006 (they even needed a offside to beat us in France) because they were actualy bellow them. You know what happend to Serbia and France after that Of course a team can be under a UEFA second tier in qualifying and then reach the WC final and lose the final because Materazzi is a twat
So, then, we should open it up to more UEFA sides, so UEFA spots are not the only spots at risk, or, else, why would UEFA agree to this?
I have tried in the past to explain to him that is not how reward and risk work. His version of a bet is not I win money or you win money. A bet for him is I win money or you keep your money. So discuss it further I did a lot and it didn;t went anywhere
In 1998, Croatia was a 2nd tier UEFA qualifier - yet they finished third at the WC. In 2002, believe it or not, Germany were a second-tier UEFA qualifier, and they reached the final game.