This is just funny to us because European fans were going off on every single minnow federation for four years and now that Europe has underachieved, people are just regurgitating the same faulty reasoning back at the elitists. Look back at all the previous forum topics going back to a couple of years back. Lots of unnecessary passive aggression towards other federations while saying Europe was getting undercut. If you want to dish out criticism of the allotments, be my guest. But if you don't like your arguments thrown right back at you, well then that's your problem.
so what other federations are doing good except for South America? Africa and Asia are stinking it up in usual fashion. Costa Rica and USA are doing good, but that does not mean that UEFA should lose slots. Wow two teams except for South America are overachieving.
Not really. Americans just want more respect for CONCACAF and I feel like it's well deserved at this point. Mexico and USA are always a threat to advance to the knockouts and Costa Rica has now advanced almost half the time it has qualified. Not bad. Jamaica, Honduras, Canada, and El Salvador need to get their act together though. They really ruin it for everyone else.
Seven of the last eight semifinalists. All medals in the last two tournaments. What a strong confederation. One swallow does not make a summer
Yeah, UEFA should not lose a spot. It should be around 13-14. And we all saw how Bosnia and Croatia got screwed in their matches by dodgy decisions. Croatia probably wouldn't have advanced anyways but Bosnia was screwed big time. I guess you could say Italy was screwed today too. Suarez deserved a red and Machisio's foul was a yellow at worst. Lots of bad luck for European teams at these finals. This is why I said it's a small sample size. Really silly to judge this quickly.
wow someone with reason. good post. also my country (sweden) could easily been in the world cup if not for Germany and Ronaldo on fire. We got the toughest road possible.
Only if they get good refereeing decisions. Only one of Chile/Brazil can advance since they are facing each other. To be honest, none of those teams impressed me that much. I feel like Greece got a little unlucky against Colombia (despite what the 3-0 score may say) and Ivory Coast played rather well against Colombia too. Chile could be a lot better than they already have. Uruguay could now struggle if Suarez gets banned. Argentina looked poor in the attack in both their matches. Brazil has also not looked the sharpest. The most impressive teams are only France, Costa Rica, Holland, and Mexico.
Because nobody wants to see more mid-tier UEFA sides take up valuable slots. If you want to see subpar UEFA sides watch the euro cup and it's expanded 24 team format . Wales, Norway, Kazakhstan and Bulgaria on my!!!
you're talking trash about Bulgaria, really? Bulgaria has produced much better results than CAF, AFC and CONCACAF ever done. and so has Sweden.
UEFA had their worst performance I can remember in 2010...I think 6 of 13 teams made it out of the group. Now 2014 is going in a similar direction. Just because Spain, Germany, and Holland are in Europe does not mean Greece, Slovenia, and Bosnia belong in the world cup.
but the last 3 out of 4 teams were european when all was said and done in 2010. So your reasoning is terrible.
Shamefully dishonest post. Bulgaria has twice advanced from the group stage, once making it to the semifinals. The US has also made the semifinals...oh yeah and the quarter finals...Mexico has two quarter finals...Costa Rica has twice advanced out of the group stage... Freaking Cuba, has made the quarter finals So no...Bulgaria dreams of being as good as Mexico or the US...or Costa Rica
concacaf 66% advance rate, UEFA 46% advance rate in 2010...concacafs 2nd and 4th place finishers have already advanced in this cup as well...so who is to say their 5th place finisher couldn't advance?
Because that makes one iota of sense. Yes, send more really weak teams to the cup because there are 3 good teams here! Who cares if OVER HALF the teams got knocked out in the first round and THREE finished bottom of their group...they should get to go because they are close to countries that are good, like Germany or Holland or Spain...I think Gibralter is close to Spain...Spain made the final, so Gibralter should be in the World cup. What? Spain won, Gibralter should be in the world cup. ...
Do you know why CONCACAF has that high advance rate? They had less teams in 2010. Let's count the advance rate in semifinals or finals. Why not quarters. Why not compare those?
France scraped into the finals by a single goal in a playoff against Ukraine. So who's to say Ukraine couldn't advance?
You know you are making the point for us no? France is the 13th qualifier. So if France do something good this year let's say a semi then what? UEFA gets one extra. What if they win 2 extras? And if France does better than the whole CONCACAF should they get that place from them?
6 out of 13 is proportionally what you'd expect given UEFA's representation. So it is true that they didn't over achieve in 2010 like they did in prior World Cups. And they have underachieved in this one. A trend? I certainly would agree if the same thing happened in Russia '18. Really, the only confederation that consistently underperforms is Asia. I'd be all for taking half a spot from them and giving it CONCACAF.
My god is this getting into silly season. Why are some of you so eager to have the Europeans removed? What are you gaining from this? A psychology class would have a field day about the complexes on display here.
For that to happen, they will have to pass over Germany, whom are in the same brackett for that semifinal spot.