Rating the Minnow Federations

I am so tired of this kind of reasoning, I am just going to say that you can believe that if you want to.

If you honestly believe that Croatia, Portugal, Swizterland, and the like only have the records they have because of a "cockamamie scheme" and how much spaghetti we are apportioned to throw at the wall, you are out of your mind.

Five of the European nations sent to this World Cup have won a World Cup, and stand to win more in the future. Another has been to the World Cup finals three times, another reached won third place at the '98 World Cup despite only being in existence for a little over 20 years, another won the Euro in 2004 (which you will surely say is a farce of a competition... pft). Another won third place at the World Cup and reached the Euro semi-finals three times and were runners-up in 04. Another have been runners up in the Euros and fourth place in the World Cup.

But you're right. It's probably the pasta.

 

And I am tired of the idea that European teams are good because they are close to Germany. These are two entirely separate issues. First, there is no way to get a sense of the relative rankings of UEFA teams, because most of them never play each other. Is Bosnia stronger than France? Well, they didn't play each other in qualifying, so it's difficult to say. (The UEFA scheme is virtually guaranteed to send some mediocre teams through while better ones sit home. ) So no one can say "france is the 13th best team" based on qualifying. You can in Concacaf, since there's a mini league table.

The second, and entirely separate issue, is the sheer number of marginal teams UEFA sends (and Portugal is in an entirely different class from the other two). For illustration, let's say each marginal team (that is, say ones with a ranking in the 16-32 range) has, say, a 10% chance of making a quarter final. Then if you send more of these teams, your odds that *one* of them makes a surprising run goes up. You'd expect one such team to do so in most cups. So, this time it was Costa Rica. It has been Belgium, Croatia, Turkey, Cameroon, etc. however, it is critical to note that they generally don't return consistently. So the pattern you cite that one made a good run in 86, another in 94, another in 98, and so on is precisely what you would expect if there were a significant number of teams with a smallish chance of advancing. It isn't zero and some of them will. (I'll point out that the fact that Italy has won four cups and England won fifty years ago didn't seem to do them ANY good this time around) Frankly, it's largely irrelevant that Greece won the Euro in 2004. Only Samaras remains. None of Belgium's 1986 team or Croatia's 1998 team remain today. Pretty much prior to the expansion to 32 teams in 1998, there were not that many non-European slots. Sometimes there's a golden generation (A Stoichkov or a Suker included) and sometimes it is just luck, frankly. The more lottery tickets you buy, the better your odds of wining.

So, Europe ALWAYS sends teams that are pretty weak relative to the pool, but sometimes they get the lucky ticket and do better than expected. That's pretty much what you'd expect given the larger number of slots

 

Hardly. It shows they have the infrastructure, talent, and resources in order to win on a grand stage. Something the better part of the world has yet to show us.

I am sorry I only gave what I am sure was a brilliant and well thought out analysis a quick glance. This: "And I am tired of the idea that European teams are good because they are close to Germany" immediately put me off. Germany has yet to even win the cup yet and suddenly the wind is blowing completely in their direction. Let's completely forget the previous World Cup winner who won the Euro only two years ago.

 

Oh I've been saying this long before this World Cup. On often hears that teams like Bosnia or Greece are great because UEFA has sent teams that previous world cups. That isn't much of an argument. However, people frequently point to the quality of the top teams in UEFA to prove the quality of the marginal teams.

As you say, what matters is the quality of the teams in question. A number of countries can produce a solid team every once in a while. And yes some are outside Europe. (Remeber the surprise semi finalist in 2002? They weren't European. Neither was the surprise semi finalist in 2010. One of 2014's two surprise packages went out on penalties of course, and wasn't a European marginal team either.

In other words, in the modern era UEFA provided our Cinderella team (a US term for a surprise package in 94 and 98, Asia in 02, 06 had Ukraine as a surprise QF, Conmebol in '10, and CONCACAF had the surprise QF in 14 (plus Belgium, I suppose, although they were bizarrely seeded) I'm not sure that we can say the UEFA is the only confederation with surprise runs

 

Inasmuch as you are right there is no reason for me to exclude those games from a H2H record.

 

Too much extrapolating and hyperbolising my comments on your part. Whatever.

How is the fact that CONCACAF has 1 win in 28 World Cup games and 8 bottom placed finishes in 9 groups from non-top CONCACAF not relevant to the confed depth? It shows why Mexico and the USA have easy regional qualification.

I didn't say they would. I say they easily could have suffered the same fate as Egypt, if they had been an African team. Egypt is a very similar team to Mexico: Mostly based on a strong local league, dominant on a continental level, very good tournament team, good local coaches and so on.

Mexico could have suffered the same fate. For example, in 2006 Egypt failed to make it out of a group with Cameroon and Cote d;Ivoire to qualify for the World Cup. That would be the equivalent of Mexico being in one group with USA and Costa Rica with only one of those teams being able to advance.

Part of the reason behind this record is the relative ease with which Mexico has been able to qualify for the World Cup. Not only of course, but it has played its part. That and actually being the host of 2 World Cups. No top African country has ever hosted a World Cup.

 

Six consecutive round of 16 appearances, none of them when hosting...

 

yes. someone on here with a functional grasp of statistics and math finally.

 

Mexico is an elite team. And a very consistent one at that. Resultwise second only to Brasil and Argentina in CONMEBOL and to the elite UEFA teams. They are more consistent, maybe historically better than England or Portugal.

USA is slightly less consistent at the World Cup, but the trend is obvious.

Costa Rica has performed admirably.

No African team even comes close to Mexico in terms of World Cup achievements. USA is also slightly better than Nigeria and Ghana in terms in achievements.

One can wonder where Egyptian football would be on the World Cup, if they were guaranteed safe passage to the World Cup every four years. But nothing more. I believe they would now be where Mexico is. But thats just me.

The problem people have with CONCACAF isn't Mexico, USA or Costa Rica... its almost every other team in the confederation: 1 win, 5 draws and 22 losses in 28 games - 12 goals scored and 71 conceeded. Of all those teams only Honduras pulled of marginally decent performances in past World Cups.

 

The problem is that you are relying way too much on your emotions and confuse your opinion with fact.

Again its ridiculous to remove the record of Mexico, Costa Rica, and the US from concacaf and then pretend that this some how proves Concacaf is weak. Its completely dishonest to remove data that you don't like to try and make a point.

Falsifying data is called fraud for a reason and its absolutely shameless to scratch out Mexico, Costa Rica, and the US and then pretending that you are not full of shet.

This is nothing but your emotions getting the best of you and is just pitiful. Mexico is not an african team and its pathetic that people believe that if Mexico was in a different confederation Mexico would magical transform into Honduras.

This is called the "what if" game and its just sad. Hypotheticals are pathetic and in no way are substitutes for actual real world results. This entire type of logic is equivalent to something idiotic like who would win, "Godzilla or The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?"

Again this constitutes nothing more than pathetic whining that Concacaf is too easy for Mexico and the US.

Africa hosted the last world cup and its was a pitiful 1/6 advancing so i fail to see how hosting would magically help more African teams out of the group stage.

I don't see why Africans and Asians gets so butt hurt about their confederations being weaker than Concacaf.

Its obvious that Concacaf is the strongest confederation outside of Uefa and Conmebol and its mostly due to Mexico being completely underrated just because of its location outside of the traditional powerhouse regions and minimal foreign based talent.

Its painful for you to admit the obvious so you engage in alternate history and fraudulent statistics to try and prove Concacaf sucks.

Right now its obvious that the weakest regions are Oceania, Asia and Africa. Its obvious getting harder for Asians and Africans to bash Concacaf since its becoming quite obvious that the Concacaf duopoly is more than capable of holding its own at the world cup.

 

lol, eliminating the top 3 teams from the confederation.

 

Well, if you want to look at the depth of a confederation at this time, to access allocation issues, you might ask instead: how many different countries currently in each of these confederations has advanced from the group stage?

Within the time frame you mention, the answer for the AFC is 4 different countries: Saudi Arabia (Wc94), Australia (Wc06), South Korea (Wc02 and Wc2010), and Japan (Wc02 and Wc2010). For CAF, the answer is 4 different countries: Nigeria (Wc94, Wc98, and Wc2014), Senegal (Wc02), Ghana (Wc06 and Wc2010) and Algeria (Wc2014). For Concacaf, the answer is 3 different countries: Mexico (Wc94, 98, 02, 06, 2010, 2014), USA (Wc94, Wc02, Wc2010, Wc2014), and Costa Rica (Wc2014).

 

Sure:
13 wins, 22 draws, 38 losses
67 goals for, 114 against

I would also note that this includes Zaire 1974 who lost three games, scored 0 and conceeded 14, because the players went on strike and threw at least two games. Without that the goals for and goals against look even more reasonable: 67 for, 100 against

 

Its not me who's overly emotional on the issue. I really don't put much weight into it. I offering a calm analysis.

I'm sorry, but we are discussing confederation depth. Similarly if I were to look at confederation depth in Asia I wouldn't focus on Japan and South Korea, but the lesser teams.

Who is letting emotions get the better of him?

I'll drop hypothetical scenarios. Unprovable and you seem to react overly emotional to them. Fact is that the top African nation, Egypt, has only played at the World Cup twice (once in a bygone era when there was no qualifying and it was free for all). Ghana is the second best nation in African history and they only featured at the World Cup since 2006. There is obviously an issue with the qualification system in Africa. Not CONCACAF's fault of course.

Lets look at Egypt:
2014: Dominated group phase, only to be thrown in a H2H vs Ghana
2010: Confronted with Algeria, their archnemesis and only country on the African continent that has a superior H2H vs Egypt
2006: A group with Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon (still in its prime) and Egypt. Only one team advances...
2002: Got thrown into a group with Senegal, who were in a very short window of excellence (not to mention the group also featured Morocco and Algeria - teams were dropping off points all over the place)
1998: no excuses - pretty weak group, sent an appauling Tunisia in their stead.
1994: absolutely no excuses - Zimbabwe beat them out... worst period in Egyptian history
1986: lost out to a great Morocco team, who went on to win their group at the World Cup
1982: lost out to a great Morocco team, who in turn lost out to an even greater Cameroon side
1978: a group featuring Tunisia (who went on to beat Mexico and draw Germany at the World Cup, missing out on goal difference) and Nigeria

Beyond that its hard to rate the actual strength of CAF, as Zaire went on strike in 1974, while prior to 1970 there was no CAF.

I suggest you look up the word 'fraudulent' and try not to let emotions get the better of you. And I'm not trying to prove CONCACAF sucks. I'm trying to calmly point out the issue with CONCACAF: team depth.

No matter how you look at it - CONCACAF has two countries with large populations: USA and Mexico. Add to that Canada (37 mln) who obviously has room for improvement as a footballing nation. But apart from that you have 11 FAs with 1,5 mln to 15 mln inhabitants and 27 miniscule island states with populations below 0,4 mln. So basically CONCACAF is a 14 member confed of countries that could potentially count. So far apart from the three top CONCACAF nations none of them have.

 

While I agree with you on the "depth issue", and although I know it is fashionable for people to treat S.Korea and Japan in the AFC like Mexico and the US in Concacaf, the truth is that the comparison is misplaced. S.Korea and Japan have each made it to the knock out rounds only twice in their history, the first time as hosts in 2002. Incidentally, for each of them, 2002 was also the first time when the won a match as well. They do not enjoy the position either Mexico or the US enjoy in Concacaf. Mexico has made it out of the group stage every time since 1986 and while the US record is a bit more comparable to S.Korea and Japan, the US has also made it out the group stage more often than either Japan or S.Korea.

Japan and S.Korea are a bit more equal than the rest of the AFC at the World Cup, but if you throw out 2002 which they hosted, their record is largely comparable to the rest of the better AFC teams. I say that as someone who expected a lot more from Japan, who at one point appeared ready to take a step and join teams that are genuinely above the rest of Asia. But that didn't turn out to be the case. Overall, the real picture in Asia will show more than a dozen sides of roughly (some cases more rough than others) comparable quality. The differences between them, Japan and S.Korea included, are marginal. The AFC has depth in terms of teams of that kind of quality, but it lags behind when it comes to teams that could be counted among the 20 or even top 30.

 

Neither Asia nor Africa has a team that is as consistently good as Mexico. Period.
USA has a slight edge, but not be much.
No one is contesting that. The thing is that the difference between the top 2-3 teams and the following pack can be pretty extreme at times.

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One more thing: If Mexico had struggled as much in qualifying as they did for 2014, then there is no chance in hell they would have managed to qualify from a CAF type qualifying system. Appreciate it.

 

Talk about being dishonest, if you didn't put much emotion you wouldn't be trying to bash and argue away Concacaf's success by fraudulently removing the performances of Mexico, Costa Rica, and the US.

You are arguing Concacaf is easy and you refuse to take the confederation as a whole but instead remove the most successful teams and then pretend that this is perfectly acceptable.

That called being full of bull. No one cares about confederation depth but whether or not those teams are making the knockout rounds. Its pathetic when you remove the strongest teams from a confederation and pretend you are performing unbiased analysis. You can't remove the top teams and pretend that what you are stating is an accurate representation of a confederations strength.

Its obvious that you are due to the fraud that you are engaging in. You cannot remove the top three Concacaf teams and pretend that since there are only 3-4 teams that are competitive left that means Concacaf is weak. That's like removing Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina from Conmebol and then bashing the rest of the region for never winning the world cup.

Calling out your fraud is called integrity and you have not yet responded to the simple allegation that you are being full of shit when you remove the top three Concacaf teams and then pretend Concacaf is a weak confederation.

What does Egypt have to do with Mexico, Costa Rica, and the US advancing out of the group stage? Absolutely nothing and you need to stop with the history lesson of how african teams are hard luck teams.

Its called fraud when you manipulate data to get a result that you desire. It doesn't matter that Concacaf has less depth than Africa when its top teams are consistently more capable of getting out of the group stages than African and Asian teams. 3/4 proves that Concacaf has depth and its laughable how you remove the three successful teams and presume that you are not a fraud.

Maybe true but its completely irrelevant to bash countries for having small populations.

Costa Rica has around 4.7 million people, Uruguay around 3.3 million people, Croatia 4.3 million, and Bosnia 3.9 million and they all had either advanced or were competitive.

Bosnia got robbed of a goal against Nigeria that could have advanced them, Croatia was competitive even if they were screwed by being put in a group with Brazil and Mexico.

Cameroon were awful and they have 23 million people so i don't see what your point is.

 

Of course we do. That is the whole point of the discussion
That is the reason why some confederations want more places because they believe that their good teams are left at home

 

People care about Confederation strength not some supposed depth. The diversity issue is completely laughable.

Concacaf quite clearly has repeatedly proven its 3.5 spots are well deserved and its pathetic when people magically remove the top three performers and pretend that this proves a lack of depth.

This thread is about rating "The Minnow federations" not about rating who has the greatest diversity of teams making the world cup.

Its obvious that Concacaf is substantially stronger than Africa and Asia but some people can't admit the obvious.

Asia is the weakling confederation and while Africa has the potential their teams struggle when it comes to consistency.

 

But... I'm not trying to bash away CONCACAF's success. This has nothing to do with CONCACAF's success. As far as I'm concerned they've earned an additional half-a-spot or an entire spot.

I already said CONCACAF is the best minnow confed. Not sure what your problem is.
The two things we were commenting were:
a) depth of the confed
b) how easy it is to qualify for the top CONCACAF teams

CONCACAF's lack of depth will be pulled out against them when they want to get additional slots. Make no mistake. The performance of the top teams has earned them a right to demand additional slots (above the bare minimum), just like UEFA's subpar performance does suggest too many UEFA teams are piggybacking on other teams successes.

Wow... talk about hyperventilating. No one is saying CONCACAF is weak. They have two very strong teams and 1 other team that is World Cup material. The issue people doubt is whether they have quality beyond that.

I honestly have no idea who you are talking to. You've made up some imaginary enemy and now your shadowboxing him.

Egypt was mentioned in the context that CONCACAFs qualifying format basically guarantees Mexico and the USA qualify for the World Cup. Meanwhile CAFs format does not guarantee qualification for the top teams to the World Cup. Its more of a lottery. Plus also much larger depth means its easier to slip up.

Thats why Mexico can be more consistent and part of the reason they have been a stable performer. Egypt by comparison wasn't afforded the luxury of quasi-automatic qualification for every World Cup and thus hasn't had the possibility to build on previous tournament experiences.

Take Cameroon 1982-1990, the best Cameroon squad ever. They had excellent performances in 1982 and 1990, but missed out on the 1986 World Cup. They didn't have the luxury of an easy qualification route.

And Nigeria was robbed of a goal vs Iran. Why is Nigeria's robbed goal less relevant than Bosnia's offside goal? It's not. So stop it.

 

People will ask questions about depth when wanting to expand CONCACAF representation from - lets say - 3,5 to 4,5 teams. Whereas Mexico, USA and Costa Rica hold their own, CONCACAF has been sending teams that have an overall record of 1 win, 5 draws and 22 loses in 28 games with 12 goals scored and 71 goals conceeded.

UEFA, CAF, CONMEBOL and probably AFC second tier sides have nowhere near such a terrible record. Thats why DIVERSITY is relevant. Not when RATING the minnow federation, but when discussing slot allocation.

 

Its not relevant if top teams from a confederation have it easy. Mexico pretty much always qualifies out of any group its put in.

This is called bashing Concacaf for not having more than 3 world cup worthy teams.

Its not relevant to bring up Egypt each and every time and pretend that they are equivalent to Mexico or the US. No one cares that Caf has a poor qualification format and its nothing but envy to complain about Concacaf having a far superior qualification format.

The difference between Egypt and Mexico are much greater than that. Mexico has been much more stable and wealthier and as such is consistently stronger than Egypt. Mexico is a cash cow and explains why Mexico always plays in Copa America as an invitee. Egypt is economically a basket case and explains why they've repeatedly failed to advance. All African teams are hampered by being economic basket cases and it also a good reason why north African teams tend to be much stronger than the sub-saharan ones.

I didn't see no robbed Nigerian goal against Iran. There is no controversy in this game that i've heard about. Pretending that you saw a robbed goal is laughable while Bosnia no one can debate that they got robbed.

Bosnia scored a goal and was incorrectly ruled offside. It was blatant and we all saw the video replay that made it crystal clear that they got robbed. That goal would have prevented the loss and could have qualified them. This made the controversy section of the world cup so you are being obtuse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_FIFA_World_Cup_Group_F#Nigeria_vs_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ntroversies#Nigeria_vs_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina

 

Concacaf's overall record includes Mexico, Costa Rica, and the US pretending otherwise is pathetic. That why i repeatedly called you a fraud but apparently you lack any shame and continue with the bs about Concacaf only having a record 1 win, 5 draws, 22 losses, etc.

lol now your changing the goal post to World Cup slot allocation.