I'm not a huge fan of intercontinental (international) playoffs as a whole. I don't like it in men's football either except for the two-legged intercontinental playoff but that's a double fixture and not a mini-tournament between 10 different teams. I would be in favor of something like that for women's football and to each continent his own method of qualifying.
Fair enough! I'm definitely more of a cross-confed-competition fan myself, so definitely want to see more intercontinental matches in general.
And I can respect that, it's just not something that I will ever support because I think it's nonsensical and detrimental to players.
Intercontinental playoffs are okay in principle, just the format here is needlessly complicated imo. UEFA imo should just have a 12th direct spot, and AFC should have one playoff spot removed. Then you would have 8 teams fighting for 2 spots, simple. You could even have just had the playoff tournament in October 2022 and gotten it all done before the final draw. A quick unseeded draw based on the principle of no more than one team from a confed in a given path gave me this: Round 1: Match 1: Panama-Cameroon Match 2: Chinese Taipei-Chile Match 3: Haiti-Senegal Match 4: Paraguay-Papua New Guinea Round 2: Match 5: Panama/Cameroon - Chinese Taipei/Chile Match 6: Haiti/Senegal - Paraguay/Papua New Guinea
The Uefa team is very likely to win their playoff spot because the opponents are much weaker than in uefa
But at least every team will play two matches in NZ in February, so if they lose it is a friendly afterwards, but it will still feel like a world cup game
4 sides will be seeded and 6 unseeded, The highest seeded side goes into Group A with two unseeded teams, second highest goes into Group B with another two unseeded teams, the remaining sides (2 seeded and 2 unseeded) go into Group C. The unseeded teams in Groups A then play against each other in a semi, before facing the seeded side in the final with winner going to the World Cup. The same also happens in Group B. In Group C however, the seeded sides play a semi-final against the unseeded sides determined by a draw and then both winners play each other in a final with the winner going to the World Cup. To ensure all teams play 2 games each, the seeded sides in group A and B will also have to play a friendly against hosts New Zealand and another guest nation on the days the unseeded teams play their semi-finals. It's basically a tournament prior to a tournament, total insanity. You will have teams traveling to the other side of the world 20+ hours away from their continent in order to play a game which they cannot afford to lose otherwise they will fail to qualify. How anyone came up with this is beyond me. This isn't about 'feeling like a World Cup game', it's about wasting time and energy from smaller teams for who it's virtually impossible to qualify yet will have to go through all this for the sake of competition knowing the system is "rigged" against them.
From a player or coach's or confederation's point of view you are absolutely correct. But, from a fan's point of view it would mean more soccer for us to view ant that is usually good, mostly. Personally I think that the "ideal" format would be a minor tournament for the lower ranked teams in the form of home/home matches with groups seeded in a reasonable format and the top two to six being added to a "main" tournament of the same general format. But what I suggested would probably be too complicated and/or too expensive to actually work. In youth soccer many years ago I ran into similar problems in the attempt to implement a multi state tournament that had a real chance of finding the "best" team. There was no way found that gave the lower ranked teams plenty of matches and also made it affordable and also did not over burden the players and cause injuries. Kids, in most of the younger age brackets "can" play much more often than adults even to the point of playing two matches in a day and even with that it proved impossible to come up with a system that was fair and workable. I cannot believe that coming up with a good workable system is easier for the various countries throughout Europe. It is generally impossible to be truly fair when dealing with the ego levels we find in soccer.
And on the Tuesday you arrive in Auckland there is a 50 percent chance your would cup campaign ends in 3 days Tim, but I guess for a lot of players just being in NZ and hearing the Fifa anthem is good enough for them and qualifying is just a nice bonus.
Tonight it's getting serious. The World Cup dream will end for three UEFA teams. 19:00 CET: Portugal - Belgium 20:15 CET: Wales - Bosnia Herzegovina 20:35 CET: Scotland - Austria
Este é o nosso 11 para hoje! #VesteABandeira pic.twitter.com/FKVXRD5Rk4— Portugal (@selecaoportugal) October 6, 2022 Here are your 1️⃣1️⃣ Flames taking on Portugal. 👊 #SelectedbyPwC #PORBEL #FLAMETIME pic.twitter.com/T0gCAJC3kR— Belgian Red Flames (@BelRedFlames) October 6, 2022
This is your Scotland Team for tonight's @FIFAWWC play-off match against Austria 🏴#SWNT pic.twitter.com/zGEtgXAxLG— Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) October 6, 2022 💥 Noch eine Stunde bis zum Showdown im Hampden Park - das ist unsere Elf! __________🏴🇦🇹| #SCOAUT | #GemeinsamÖSTERREICH 🦅 pic.twitter.com/5QVcyn8fqZ— ÖFB - oefb.at (@oefb1904) October 6, 2022
Mais um passo rumo ao Mundial! QUE ORGULHO!#PORBEL | 2-1 | #VesteABandeira #FIFAWWC pic.twitter.com/aJuJX0e6Rj— Portugal (@selecaoportugal) October 6, 2022
Belgium had Amber Tysiak sent off shortly before Portugal scored the late winner. She was the one who injured Ada Hegerberg last month.
That was the play we’re Portugal got the pen but var got involved ref changed her mind gave a free kick and had to change the card for a red and from the free kick keeper saves it for a corner and from the corner Portugal scored the winner. For me it looked like a pen