Ridiculous. You obviously don't really pay any attention to those sides outside of the big tournaments, because if you did, you'd know that these sorts of results happen all the time in away World Cup qualifiers the world over.
O rly? Care to point out the group where 100% wins at home and 100% draws on the road would have you placed lower than 2nd in group?
I do pay attention, that's exactly why I can make the statement. Comparing the "minnows" of CONMEBOL and Europe to those of CONCACAF is like comparing the LA Lakers of the NBA to Tau Ceramica or Regal Barcelona of the Spanish Basketball League. In other words, our "minnows" are smaller than their "minnows"; way smaller.
i didn't even say that ... i just said that they're different, and it's very difficult to compare the two. countries like England/Italy/Germany get to comfortably stroll into places like Latvia, Lichtenstein and Luxembourg, get treated like stars, play on a near-perfect pitch, play in a secure stadium, and get good refereeing. the situations the US sees in places like Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador are incredibly different. Anyone remember the WCQ road trip we made to Mazatenango, Guatemala (back in 01 I think)? There's nothing you can compare that to in UEFA. I think the UEFA minnows are clearly better and more organized than the CONCACAF minnows. That's obvious. But there, at least the power teams get to play FOOTBALL and football only in UEFA. Down here in CONCACAF, there is so much more crap the US has to deal with, in addition to just football. again, not to mention the political cross our lads have had to bear for the last, oh, generation or so. sorry for the tangent, just wanted to clarify. i just hate it when an English or German fan says that the CONCACAF road trips are easy. they would be easy, in a vacuum. but unfortunately reality is a little different.
No, not really. By pretty much any ranking standard (ELO, FIFA, voros's, etc.), the Hex is failry comparable to what the top team in your average UEFA qualifying group has to face, with the weakest teams there usually being weaker than El Salvador.
chromeknee demonstrates how to lose all credibility in one post: hey smart guy: CONMEBOL has 10 nations. they don't really have minnows, that's the idea behind just having 10. granted, peru and venezuela have been historically bad, but due to size and population they are not minnows. Peru and Venezuela are two of the larger countries in S.A. CONMEBOL pawned off their minnows to CONCACAF (so now we have to deal with them). surinam, guyana, french guiana. not to mention countries like TnT which are miles off the coast of Venezuela. you referring to the "minnows" of CONMEBOL completely disqualifies you from any intelligent discussion from this point on. CONMEBOL has no minnows. you can't refer to something that doesn't exist.
2006 World Cup qualies for Europe, 3 groups of 7 teams and 5 of 6. Thus, always 3 home and 1 away will get you 24 points in a 7 team group and 20 points in a 6 team group. But results against the last-placed team are dropped for the second place team, so 20 points is the target. In 3 out of 8 groups, the 2nd place team beat 20 points, and a team winning home and drawing away would have failed this threshold (beaten by Czech Republic, Poland, and Sweden). In 4 out of 8 groups, the 2nd place team failed to reach 20 points, and a team winning home and drawing away would have reached the playoff (Turkey, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Norway). The 8th playoff participant (Spain) landed exactly on 20 points, so may have won or lost on tiebreaker. What does this mean? If you want to have a chance to qualify in Europe, you need to win at least one road game. On the other hand, the European minnows are MUCH worse than the worst teams in the hex, so it can be (but is not always) much easier to grind out enough away victories. Edit - I originally failed to take into account dropping the last place games in the larger groups. This doesn't change the outcome at all for the playoff teams. But are the CONCACAF minnows in the hex better than Europe's? Well, I think El Salvador and T&T are better than Armenia, Georgia, Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Moldava, Azerbaijan, San Marino, and Malta.
LMAO Just like the European "super powers" are clearly better and more organized than the CONCACAF "super powers". lol You're so far up your own your own arse it's not even funny. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. No it's evidently clear to an impartial observer that the main reason why CONCACAF qualifiers are not "easy" is because the difference in talent between the USA and the sides you contemptuously refer as minnows is a lot smaller than the gap between traditional European giants and their smaller rivals. It's not rocket science. You can draw parallels between some things but drawing comparisons between two distinct confederations is not one of them. Hypothetically speaking if the German national team did venture down to play El Salvador they would win comfortably 3+ goals even with a second string side and without trying too hard. And that would be because of the genuinely world class players they possess, and not because our players would fawn over them. The only confederation where a comparison would be valid is CONMEBOL with truly world class giants in Brazil and Argentina. As much as it pains some of the deluded yank fans, the States has a long way to go to match the wealth of talent that the Brazil's of this world have at their disposal. But thanks for toning down the patronizing slurs.
That's regrettable, I wasn't aware of that behaviour going on in El Salvador. Although I've heard spectators from other countries do a lot worse. Hope they do something to clamp it down. I'm sorry I don't follow. A big deal in what sense? I don't think there's more at stake when team travels to any given country when trying to qualify for the World Cup. They're all essentially of equal importance.
Don't underestimate the quality of the home field advantage you possess. If you need further convincing, then you'll have wait until the 5-0 pasting ES is going to get when they venture north.
I believe El Salvador's federation was fined for its fans behavior against Panama quite recently. It didn't seem to be a problem last night. And I highly doubt Luxemborg gets as fired up as they do down in your neck of the woods. I mean, I read the accounts from the American reporters that went down and it was incredible. Add the fans intensity to the long flights to get there, the heat and humidity and it's just a lot tougher to play down there.
Call me crazy but I think countries like El Salvador, Honduras etc.. are a better than Luxembourg. Most of the players if not all, they field to represent their country are amateurs with a normal second job. It's not a surprise with the tiny population they have. Basically I'm sure 99% of the world's footballing nations would beat them comfortably. lol At least ES has a domestic league which is sort of professional. When I think European minnows teams like Switzerland, Austria, Belgium etc.. spring to mind. Those team certainly don't bend over backwards and allow the England's of Europe to have their merry way with them. They fight back cheered on by their passionate fans and some times manage to carve out a toughly fought win.
We'll have to wait and see. I'm hoping they've improved enough to not let that happen and put up a better showing than national sides have in the past in US soil. Who knows a draw may not be out of the question. *fingers crossed*
Regardless of everything last night...I just wasn't feeling how the united states was playing. I know everyone thinks that ching is great up top but i dunno. I wasnt there so i didnt see specifically but i didnt really see anything from him. I kinda wish the US would have shaken the team up a bit and got some new talent. Not saying our team isn't talented....I just dont think we really connected. Just a thought! Glad we got a point!
As much as I hate to be mean, if your nation has less then 1 million people; you shouldn't be competing in FIFA. That includes you Iceland. Heck I think UEFA should allow teams from places like Lux, Andorra, San Marino Oceania besides New Zealand, to have their own little World Cup.
Going simply by the current table, the worst 100% wins at home and 100% draws on the road would have you is tied for second. Most groups, it would have you alone in second. (And the way group 9 is stacking up, it would EASILY set you up for a playoff.) I wouldn't have posted what I did without checking first.
Nice to meet you. Until a European power (or even average side) ever plays down there in a game with something truly on the line, then we'll never know. You can postulate all you want, but you don't know. If a European power had to deal with the injustices the US has dealt with in Central America over the years, they'd probably go running to FIFA and protest the result. They'd use their platform to get the venue banned and get the country and referee sanctioned. The U.S. being the U.S., they don't have that type of clout. They have to deal with the urine bombs, the thrown batteries, the 'Osama' chants, and the "i'm gonna call this phantom penalty because I'd like to leave the stadium alive" refs ... because it's all chalked up to part of playing in CONCACAF. again, i never said that CONCACAF was tougher than UEFA (it's not). my point is that most Europeans have no grasp about what a team like the US faces in these road WCQs. that is my only contention. i don't think the average European has any clue to the type of gamesmanship, poor field conditions and general rule-breaking that is consistently allowed to go on in this confederation. UEFA has top to bottom stronger teams (I don't argue that) but the road conditions in CONCACAF are abysmal and downright unsporting -- and that almost serves as an equalizer in this particular argument.