1) México is not in Central America. 2) Mexican fans, especially at Azteca aren't even remotely as hostile to the away team as Central American ones (well, just Honduras and ESA, actually). They just add more pressure to Mexico nowadays. 3) Just the first half.
I went down a long rabbit hole into the history of Concacaf and its various sub-groups last night and came across this video: Pretty well done and very hopeful about Jamaica circa 2016. Even an appearance by the main man Tappa himself. With Canada-Mexico-US all playing each other over the next 4 games, the table's gonna continue to be muddled. I think those 3 will separate themselves but 4th place is wide open...a Jamaica win at El Salvador would be a great, great result.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-...t-safe?platform=amp&__twitter_impression=true Pretty good breakdown of things so far.
The last time this was true at a US-Mexico World Cup qualifier in the United States was 24 years ago in Foxboro.
I think they screwed up the math here. Seems like the problem is that they miscounted the number of games in qualification -- it's 14 not 16. If you adjust for the correct number of games, we're actually on pace for 25-26 points, just above the 24 ESPN says we'll need to automatically qualify.
Any up and coming grandchildren of Jamaican immigrants who aren't quite good enough to play for England? Kyle Walker, Mason Greenwood, Chris Smalling, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Raheem Sterling were all eligible for Jamaica and England legend John Barnes was born and raised in Jamaica until the age of 12.
I think there's a few that might be able to get to commit if it looked like they were going to actually qualify. Someone like Max Aarons (who faces the following competition at right back for England: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Reece James, Tariq Lamptey, Kieran Trippier, Kyle Walker and Aaron Wan-Bissaka).
My big question for Jamaica is how many generations removed can one be and still be able to get citizenship in order to play? Is this the "golden generation" of British-Jamaican talent given they're all pretty much one generation removed from Jamaica? If Raz's kids turn out to be excellent players, could they theoretically suit up for Jamaica? If we were to have another 1 or 2 generations of MORE high level English-born players, they could field a really strong team of almost/not-quites from England; I guess I have a similar question for the Martaniques and Guadaloupes of the world too -- the big wave of migration already likely happened, right? Are they also up against the clock in terms of getting their best squads?
The 4th place team will have about 20 points at this rate, maybe less. So, you would just need to top that to qualify.
4-8 will cannibalize each other (with occasional snips at the top 3 like Honduras drawing at Canada, Mexico drawing at Panama, or us drawing at el Salvador) that I think I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up around that 18-20 range.
Panama has road games at Mexico and USA. And they will face the USA A-team this time. Jamaica has already played at USA and Mexico. I would rather be Jamaica than Panama at this point.
You can qualify via your grandparents. There are large Jamaican populations in the US and Canada too, with over 200,000 Jamaicans in Toronto alone.
Back to sitting pretty with the win, Almost 99% direct qualify rate. Elo 10,000 sim Place 1/2/3/4/5/6 Mexico = 74/20/5/0.1/0/0/0/0 United States = 20/52/26/1/0.05/0.02/0/0 Canada = 5/27/58/7/2/0.47/0.08/0 Panama = 0.01/0.28/4/35/28/19/10/4 Costa Rica = 0.03/0.29/4/29/28/23/11/5 Jamaica = 0/0.17/2/20/26/26/17/8 El Salvador = 0/0/0.23/5/10/19/25/31 Honduras = 0/0/0.14/3/6/12/27/52
We "should" qualify with fewer than 24 points. In the latest sim, Q%/4th%/E%: 26+ = 100/0/0 25 = 99.8/.2/0 24 = 99.3/0.7/0 23 = 97.8/2.2%/0 22 = 97.8/2.2/0 21 = 84.7/14.8/0.5% 20 = 70.4/29.6/0 19 = 42.2/57.8/0 18 = 33.3/51.9/14.8 17 = 66.7/33.3/0 16 = 33.3/33.3/33.3 14 = 0/0/100
Yeah, I'm just going off the number ESPN gave, but it looks like anything more than 22 would only be necessary in the rarest of scenarios.
The number of draws was much fewer in October - only 3 in 12 - but for the most part nobody really gained ground and everybody held serve at home. The only away wins were Mexico over El Salvador, which probably helps the US, and Jamaica over Honduras, which will only start to impact the US if the team slips catastrophically.
The Honduras crowd was literally ~half full (what a fortress though!) for the match against Jamaica and they proceeded to get waxed. Canada could easily beat Honduras in Honduras, not sure what you’ve been watching. Leaning in on historical WCQ narratives is lazy; low sample size and completely different personnel.
So were Marcus Rashford, Kieran Trippier, Kalvin Phillips, Kyle Walker, Ollie Watkins, Jadon Sancho and dozens of other well known players. I post regular updates on Jamaican-English dual nationals in this thread over on the England forum: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/e...nality-thread-2.2111677/page-54#post-39937364 And you can keep track of some Jamaican dual national news/prospecting on this youtube channel. I am linking to the playlist with all of the videos done on dual nationals. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMVdG7DCbTSQ90TvXoHaBhye1j-LaJ034 The channel also has some long podcast-type episodes, complete with excel charts analyzing possible players identified at different positions. The vid below is the detailed analysis on right back prospects. There are vids for other positions as well if you did. Basically, that channel is all you need if you want to really dig into the recruiting pool/process for Jamaicans. I know the guy who runs it personally, he's pretty rock solid with his reporting and very well connected/plugged in. Aarons won't commit until the 2026 cycle at the earliest. He will compete for the England place as long as he can, and only consider Jamaica when he fails that quest. He is young, so there's plenty of time. Guys like Kyle Walker-Peters are more realistic in the nearer term, and even that is more of a 2023 thing at the earliest.
Don’t you think it’s the same in the end if both ends getting a big fat 0 points in their road trips to MEX and USA? I mean for me it’s pretty obvious… Panama can grab 12 points at home from those 4 matches with less difficulty than Jamaica winning vs. the CONCACAF BIG 3 at the Office. It’s not rocket science my friend!
Yeah, with all the number of draws that have happened in the first half of this ocho.................I suspect the prediction of 24 points for qualification was an overestimate. As far as the Ocho goes, everybody is still in play for qualification. 4th place in particular is still in reach for everybody. We still have 8 games to go. We're not even halfway thru.
I think that’s very much right, I was just using Aarons as an example of a younger player whose eligible for Jamaica and for whom the competition at his position is pretty stacked. I don’t know much about his case specifically, but I do think if Jamaica was viewed as reasonably likely to qualify they’d probably win more of these kinds of battles. Rightly or wrongly the perception with the US is we’re likely to qualify which makes it easier to recruit dual nationals like Dest, Musah, etc as the chance to play in a World Cup is a pretty big recruiting tool.
Panama? LOL. It's not rocket science that Panama will not qualify. 4% chance. LOL. They won't even be able to cheat their way in, like last time. CONCACAF got Oceania and Asia the last 2 times. I expect South America this time for the 4th place team. In other words, only 3 teams from CONCACAF will qualify.