News: Sepp Blatter threatens to cut Europe and S. America WC spots in favor of Africa and Asia

I've been hearing this a lot since South Africa even though Uruguay had one of the younger squads in the tournament. I'm far more concerned about the lack of playing time our players are getting at their clubs than their age.

 

Why are we talking about teams like Ukraine? Ukraine will probably not qualify under the current system anyway. In order to see the impact of these changes, we need to look at the worst European team THAT WILL (probably) QUALIFY and compare them to the best African team that will probably NOT qualify. Comparing teams like CIV (which will probably qualify anyway) against Ukraine (which probably won't) is pointless. If you want a system where CIV qualifies instead of Ukraine, you already have it!

Now, we don't know exactly which teams will qualify yet, so rankings are a bit subjective - but let's say that Serbia and Greece wind up being the worst (bottom-ranked) European teams to qualify, and Egypt and Burkina Faso are the best African teams not to qualify. Now, the question becomes: Would the World Cup be a better tournament if Serbia and Greece didn't qualify, but Egypt and Burkina Faso did?

I don't see any way to answer that question in the affirmative. Serbia is 28th in the world, and Greece is 15th, while Egypt and Burkina Faso are 50th and 51rst respectively, based on FIFA rankings (which admittedly are imperfect). In other words, Greece - one of the worst European teams to qualify, assuming they manage to beat Romania - is ranked higher than any of the African teams that qualified, let alone any of the ones that didn't. How would it be fair to exclude Greece in order to accommodate teams that are, by any reasonable definition, considerably worse? If anything, we should be talking about having more European and fewer African teams, so that teams like Sweden (25th in the world) would not be in danger of being left out to accommodate teams like Tunisia (46th in the world).

 

Your entire reasoning and post is based on what you admit is imperfect. But lets be more precise, FIFA rankings (which are imperfect when it comes to comparing teams within the same confederation) are entirely worthless for purposes of comparing teams from different confederations.

 

Fine! Let's use Elo ratings instead. Let's see ... Yes, under that system, Sweden is 15th and Tunisia is 77th. Cameroon is 60th. One of Cameroon or Tunisia is guaranteed to qualify, but Sweden probably will not. Or maybe Portugal (11th) will be eliminated instead.

There are no perfect methods of ranking teams, of course, so if you have a third method according to which Cameroon is a better team than Sweden, I would love to see it.

 

Play them against each other in a continental playoff. Cameroon for one thing has the players to make a team that is much better than Sweden, but they lack the teamplay, chemistry and tactics at the moment. Inasmuch as I prefer the ELO rating the fact that Cameroon is so low in the ranking sort of ridicules the ranking.

 

So you are basing your entire argument on FIFA rankings and you expect to be taken seriously ? By the way Serbia did not even qualify for the playoffs, are you talking about Bosnia ?

 

Utter rubbish. Name just three Ghanaian players that have a reputation of being divers if this is the case... I can't think of even one. Suarez on the other hand is a known cheat, and is consistent with his cheating (and has been for years).

 

simple; any Ghanaian player as soon as the final 20 minutes start and Ghana are leading, suddenly they become like fish or when they are desperate. Gyan is the worst offender; going down very easy and looking with puppy dog eyes to the ref. Remember that laughable dive against Brazil in 2006? one of the worst dives ever, he even realised that and tried to pass it off as a stumble last minute but he got his well deserved second yellow card anyway. It was some epic karma when Gyan missed that penalty, after all Gyan is not so different from Suarez - except the whole vampire thing, Suarez is not so subtle...

 

So you can't name three players then, ok.

Regarding Gyan, yes I remember the dive, it was stupid. But he is hardly a regular. It's not as if it's a common feature of his play. The likes of Di Maria, Neymar, Busquets, Dani Alves, Mascherano, Pedro, Cristiano Ronaldo, Drogba, your very own Arjen Robben and Suarez are those one would call divers and do so on a regular basis.

 

Uruguay winning 5-0 over Jordan, PLAYING AT JORDAN, today, certainly proves S.America deserves to lose spots in the WC in favor of Asia or Africa. I mean, only 5:0 playing away???? COME ON SOUTH AMERICA!

 

Yep, Jordan will be missed at the World Cup. Although I think Uzbekistan could have held Uruguay to 9-0 over two legs so Jordan isn't the only Asian powerhouse we'll miss seeing in Brazil.

 

I think that even Bolivia and Paraguay are better than the Asians.

 

You think? Uruguay won 2 away games in qualifying, both by 1 goal.

 

maybe not better than ALL asians, but certainly better than Jordan. I mean, Uruguay barely could win away playing at S. American qualifiers and then won 5:0 over Jordan, away!

edit: oops, seems like BocaFan already mentioned that.

 

You're both right Boca and AcesHigh.

I'm reading some results:

2011
Uruguay 4 Bolivia 2
Paraguay 1 Uruguay 1

2012
Bolivia 4 Uruguay 1
Uruguay 1 Paraguay 1

2013
Jordan 0 Uruguay 5

 

If you think Blatter or Platini actually care about results on the field or the quality of teams at the World Cup, you are sadly mistaken.

Their suggestions that Asia (and Africa) get more places at the World Cup is simply pandering for votes ahead of the 2015 FIFA election.

 

They should give that extra spot to CONCACAF so Mexico wouldn't have to go through the repechaje

specially since Costa Rica did a hell of a lot better against (forgive me if I'm mistaken) a better Ururuay side

 

Cuba knocked out Romania to make the quarterfinals in 1938.

 

Not surprising as has been mentioned to posters outside of the Americas in these Fifa Tournament threads, Conmebol is far, far, far better and deeper than most imagine. The cellar squads of Conmebol generally are ranked higher than virtually any team in the AFC or the CAF and for good reason. Any team in Conmebol can win against any other team in Conmebol when hosting and it's happened pretty consistently. I heard some insane stat about Brazil, wasn't it, Brazil hasn't lost at home in something like 30+ years? Paraguay had advanced to every world cup going back 15+ years until this one, and reached the quarterfinals in '10 losing to the champion 1-0, and to the round of 16 in '02 losing to runner up Germany 1-0. And they finished in the cellar!

It's an incredibly deep fed where even the worst teams could handle business at home against virtually anyone, and who could play well in a neutral venue against virtually anyone. The proofs in the results. There's something deeply impressive in the fact that Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Colombia, Ecuador and Uruguay have all ranked inside the top 10, or advanced into the knockout rounds (or deeper) in a world cup since Germany '06. Conmebol should be gaining spots, not losing them (and this tourney they are).

 

Hell, if memory serves, I believe it was a disputed onsides/offsides call away from going to penalties in '09 after the home and home finished regulation and injury time.

 

The only argument against CONMEBOL having more spots is the fact they only have 10 teams.

 

It may be the only one, but it basically seals it.

 

They could add the 3 South American Concacaf members if they want more spots.

I wonder if they would let them in, in exchange for 1 or 1.5 more spots.

Then again they would have to change their qualifying format, so I would guess no.

 

that makes no sense at all. Mexico should qualify ABOVE Costa Rica and Honduras at least.

there should not be extra spots for a confederation where ultimatelly there are only 4 good/medium sides: USA, Mexico, Costa Rica and errr... Honduras.

In CONMEBOL, there will always be some good teams out or playing the playoffs. In THIS World Cup Brazil qualified automatically, but if it was not in Brazil: we would theoretically have Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Equador or Chile, and Equador or Chile playing the "repechaje" and Uruguay OUT of the World Cup. (although Uruguay is a team good under pressure. IF there were only 4 1/2 spots for CONMEBOL, Uruguay would ANYWAY find a way to come 5th (above Chile or Equador) and play the repechaje.