This despite the fact that 2 of three Concacaf qualifiers made it out of group while 1 of 5 AFC ones did? And that last one that didn't advance got 4 points and lost out on GD. Right.
When Africa can get a few more countries into the second round then I would agree with you. They currently have the second largest allocation of spots but had the lowest amount into the second round of all confederations represented last time. If they have the quality to back up a claim for extra spots, then its time they showed it. At the moment they have 5 spots based solely on number of teams.
That's exactly how I'd allocate it at present, next year's results notwithstanding. UEFA and CONMEBOL deserve their allocations and it could be argued they should have more, but FIFA are quite rightly attempting to give other confeds the experience needed to become WC forces. That was the reason for a 32 team WC. Japan have gradually improved since their first WC experience in 1998 and are a fine example of that principle at work. Despite being roundly lambasted by most football fans around the world for their allocation, CONCACAF have earnt their increased half spot after an excellent WC2002, with Costa Rica unluckily being the only team not to progress beyond the group stage, and that was only on goal difference in a group containing the eventual champ and third place getter. If the teams perform well again, they will arguably deserve the 3.5 spots in 2010. As far as I'm concerned, the real pressure is on CAF and AFC, and this is coming from an Aussie. Many posters above are vastly overrating Africa IMO, with only 1 in 5 teams progressing beyond the group stage in the last two WCs. Nigeria did it in '98, but were walloped by the Danes in the 2nd Round, while Senegal were the only team to impress last time. Many have pointed to Nigeria and Cameroun's absence, but these two teams - let's be honest - were hugely disappointing in Japorea, as were South Africa. It is about time Tunisia did something at the WC after being so unimpressive at the last two. The AFC's performances have been even worse, with the debacle of 1998 (admittedly Japan were at their first WC and Iran had been absent for quite some time) and it is difficult to read into the 2002 results. On one hand, the two host nations performed spectacularly, while the other two were an absolute disgrace. I'm hoping Australia (or Japan) will progress thru Group F and one more can do likewise to at least maintain the 4.5 spots. A repeat of France would have to raise serious doubts about Asia's current allocation, perhaps down to only 4 spots and the other half spot given elsewhere. IMHO it is time for both Asia and Africa to perform or else. There are no excuses this time.
WOW CONCACAF gets 4.5 spots? Maybe Canada can win the final spot? Oh sorry, they didn't get to the last qualifying spot.
Euro - 13 CONMEBOL - 5 CONCACAF - 3 Africa - 4 + RSA Asia - 4 ASEAN + Oceania - 1 (Asia's 1/2 spot goes here) Defending Champion -1 No more Inter confed play-offs!
Read this:"Nigeria, coached by Dutchman Johannes Bonfrere, started their path to the final with a 1-0 victory over Hungary and a 2-0 win over Japan before completing the first round with a 1-0 loss to Brazil. The Africans then shut down Mexico and goalkeeper Jorge Campos, 2-0, in the quarter-finals to set up a pair of amazing matches. Losing in the semi-finals to a favoured Brazilian side that boasted Bebeto, Ronaldo and Rivaldo, 3-1, Nigeria finally woke up in the 78th minute as Victor Ikpeba scored from 20 meters. As time was running out, captain Nwankwo Kanu took center stage, scoring in a scramble in front of the goal in the final minute to equalize. With extra-time barely three minutes out, Kanu fired home the game-winner from 16 meters to complete one of the great comebacks of international football history and in what many observers felt was the greatest Olympic match ever played. As if trying to top themselves, the Nigerians then staged another miraculous comeback against Argentina in the gold-medal match in front of 86,117 spectators in the Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia. The Argentins held a 2-1 advantage on goals by Claudio Lopez (third minute) and Hernan Crespo (tournament-best sixth goal on a penalty kick in the 50th minute) before the Nigerians equalized on Daniel Amokachi's shot in the 74th minute. With a minute remaining, Emmanuel Amunike pulled off some 11th-hour heroics as he took advantage of a botched offside trap and beat goalkeeper Pablo Cavallero from point-blank range for the winning goal in a 3-2 triumph. "I guarantee you that as I talk to you now, everyone in Africa is celebrating," forward Sunday Oliseh said. "There is no sleeping tonight. Everyone will be happy. This is for all the African countries."
If you are not going to consider Nigeria, Cameroun and Senegal as world class team, then I do not know whether you will consider any African team splendid. The good news is that the world cup is going to see the best yet from Africa( ie Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire). These countries share borders with each other and interestingly look very much alike in terms of structure. In terms of allocation, I guess we need the guys from Asia. They are many, leave their quota as it is. Concacaf should be left alone also. I believe the Europeans wont be ready to let go their excessive numbers. Let us be fair....in that case I believe Africa 5 and Europe 13 should be added and contested. If all the teams come from Europe so be it, on he other hand if they come from Africa they would have proved a point. What do you guys think?
Reducing CAF allocation in any form just before the first African World Cup is not going to happen. Even if CAF goes 0-15 in this Cup they will still get 5 spots plus the hosting allocation. I wouldn't be surprised if CAF adopted a new qualifying process for WC '010 though. The CONCACAF half spot is essential to FIFA programs to build small country infrastructure such as stadiums and training facilities. But, I would have no problem if the spot became a three way playoff between the Asia #5, and OFC #1 instead of a two way playoff. But, I and many others would throw a hissy fit if FIFA tried to eliminate the extra CONCACAF spot. That spot is too important to the development of soccer in our smaller national federations. We don't need more European nations in the Cup. Europe already has enough spots that all half way decent teams should at least get a World Cup spot once every 12 years. I don't really feel the need to see the 15th best team in Europe even if they are better than Trinidad. Getting to the World Cup should still be earned on the field not given to all wealthy nations on the basis of reputation as a soccer power. If you give more spots to Europe you dilute any achievement of making the tournament.
I'd like to see: CONCACAF - 3.75 COMNEBOL - 4.5 Africa - 4.5 Asia - 4 Oceania - .25 Europe - 15 #4 CONCACAF team plays #5 African team, and #5 CONCACAF team plays #1 Oceania team (remember, Australia is going to Asia) with the winner of that facing the #5 COMNEBOL team.
Another insane CONCACAFer. Thankfully FIFA knows well enough that to give away freebie WC spots to crappy nations just to "develop the game" there instead of giving it to deserving European nations would have a distasterous effect, both financial and political. As it is, 3.5 places for CONCACRAP is already too much, but let's just keep it that way, so that that entire conference can crash out more teams in the first round than it would if only its two top teams go the right to play in the World Cup. Instead of politically correct confederation based qualifiers (which smack of affirmative action - no wonders Americans like the system) I suggest a FIFA-wide qualifiers, without regard for conference. We'd see then how many teams would qualify out of Asia, CONC and Africa. I'd suspect none, and the World Cup would be nothing more than a European Championship with Brazil and Argentina thrown in for good measure. The best teams, how it should be.
Its about balanced worldwide coverage. The World Cup needs more European teams about as much as it needs lime green Nigeria kits, Sepp Blatter speeches, and those ugly alien balls from Euro 2004. People in other parts of the world deserve to watch World Cup games on tv with teams that they recognize. A 0-0 draw between Norway and Uruguay in the World Cup does nothing for growing the game worldwide. Those regions already have fair representation in the tournament. That half spot in CONCACAF is absolutely essential in growing the game in the Caribbean and smaller Central American nations. The nations are very small so they will never be world powers, but teams like St. Vincent, Barbados, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Haiti, Suriname have made significant improvements. I am confident that FIFA's goals and CONCACAF's goals are similar and that nothing will happen to the region's 3.5 bids. Fortunately, FIFA is forward thinking where Big Soccer posters are not.
If we wanted to watch 30 Euro teams in the WC we could just play the Euro Championship again. You know, that final was a real thriller. Thank god Greece aren't in the tournament. I don't need to see another team with the same style as the Italians.
I'd like to see: Host - 1 CONCACAF - 2.5 COMNEBOL - 5.5 Africa - 4.5 Asia/Oceania - 4.5 Europe - 14 #3 CONCACAF team plays #6 COMNEBOL team and #5 African team plays #5 Asia/Oceania team.
Another typically insane Eurocentric viewpoint. Europe does not have 30 of the top 32 teams in the world. Africa, Asia and Concacaf all have minimum 2, probably more teams that deserve to be top 32 in the world, therefor at the world cup. As for extra spots, it's much better to give them to countries from these confeds than to Euros who get competition all the time, and still dont have a chance of getting anywhere anyway.
If you want to know the future of the world cup look at South America and Africa. The youth and Olympic Soccer tournaments give a good measure of where the future of the game is heading. US will be a like a hurricane if they look for the right players within the country. I have always love France, they are very much aware where soccer is heading. Ahaaaaaaaaaaaa
Lets see the performance in previous world cups: 02: Japan and Korea topped their groups and Senegal qualified as second. France, Uruguay, Poland, Portugal and Russia all failed to qualify from the same groups. Korea to SF and Senegal to QF. 98: Nigeria topped its group and neither of Spain and Bulgaria qualified from that group. 94: Saudi Arabia qualified as second while Belgium at third in the same group. Nigeria topped the group over Argentina and Bulgaria. Nigeria beat Bulgaria 3-0 in the best year ever for Bulgaria in a WC history. Korea only lost to Germany. 90: Cameroon topped its group over Romania, Russia and Argentina!!!!!! Egypt played memorable games in the most difficult group (Rep of Ireland, Holland and England) only lost to England 0-1. 86: Morocco topped its group over England, Poland and Portugal. 82: Cameroon: out of world cup without any defeat even from the WC winner or the third place. Algeria beat Germany and Chile and went out of the world cup after Germany / Austria fixed their result in one of the most controversial games in the wc history. After that, FIFA always made the last games of the groups to be played at the same time. 78: Tunisia: yes out of the world cup but after great memories tying to Germany (74 WC winner) and hardly losing 0-1 from Poland ( 74 WC third place) and beating Mexico 3-1. If you go to 1974 WC or before that, you won’t find any impressive result (except N. Korea 1966). So, we can say since 1978 and Afro-Asian teams started to be difficult to beat and joy to watch. Since 1986 and at least one Afro-Asian team topped its group. 2000 and 1996 Olympic games won by African teams, both beating big teams like Brazil twice, Argentina, Mexico and Spain. Well, despite that, I am not into assigning fixed spots into every continent. I didn’t like assigning fixed 5 spots to Africa. And I didn’t like the idea of (let the weak teams play against each other) like Asia vs. Oceania or Asia vs. N. America. I would rather see games between Europe and S. America from one side against Asia, Africa, N. America and Oceania from the other side. I think for example, if Iran qualified in 2002 through RO Ireland, then no one will question if they deserved to qualify or not (Iran lost 0-2 and won 1-0). Similarly, Australia gained respect after qualifying through Uruguay much more than if they qualified through Bahrain or Iran for example. I would be happier if my Saudi team qualified through Russia or Turkey for example in two legs games AND I would not be disappointed if we didn’t pass them. I think this will be more fair. In my opinion, I would mix European teams in the second round of the qualifications with the rest of the world.
There is another reason why I prefer I like the approach of mixing European and S. American teams with the rest of the world in the second stage of WCQ. That is, it is very different when nighbour countries in specific and weak teams in general play each other in WCQ rather than when they play in real WCs. For example, Malta might tie with Italy in a WCQ but there will be HUGE difference in their performance if both played in the finals. You might find Venezuela manage to tie with Ecuador. Ecuador might tie with Spain, but Venezuella will just collapse to Brazil. When teams from weaker continents play each others, you will have good chance that a weaker team will qualify just because they know how to get a tie and manage goal differences in a way or another. However, when both teams play stronger sides, you will find very different performance from each. For example, UAE qualified to the world cup in 1990 winning only one game and tying with 4 others in the final round (I think 3 of them were 0-0). Even the victory over China came in the last five minutes. Two months before the world cup, they played Kuwait in a regional competition final game and lost 1-6. So, it was not unusual for the team to conceive 10 goals in 3 games in the WC in Italy. Another example from Asia, Saudi team was good in 94, was just okey in 98 but was horrible in 02 (today’s team is between 94 and 98). Anyhow, in 2002, my team managed to qualify not because we deserved it, but because the team knew how to “collect” points from the nighbours. I would assume if Saudi team had to play the second stage of qualification against Egypt, Morraco or T&T, we will manage to qualify even if we had the weak side like 2002 team. But, if we played that game with Belgium or USA we will only qualify with a strong team like 1994 team. Of course, you can never ensure that all the teams that qualify worth qualifying, but you can maximise the chances. So I am into the favor of putting teams from S. America and Europe in front of the teams from the weaker continents and we will watch many interesting games. We might find only 12 teams from Europe reaching the WC or we can find 18 teams, who knows?
Shinzui isn't a CONCACAFer, he/she, like you, is a Euro fanboy taking up space in a CONCACAF nation, with painfully obvious Euro-biases when it comes to soccer outside Europe. I'd love to see Poland have to go into Azteca needing a win or a favorable draw.
You are absolutely right. When a team does well in these younger ages it is a barometer of things to come. The Nigerians went to the final of the Youth Championship in 1989, and they won the WC in ??? No, they were in the Semis in ??? No, Quarterfinals in ??? No. They went to the final sixteen twice. No, youth success doesn't necessarily equate into a strong future.
If you had read my posts in other threads about how much disdain I have for European sports and European fan culture you wouldn't be making comments like this one.(Go read the MLS vision thread in USA if you need proof).
I would like to see cross federation qualification. We wouldn't need to debate who deserves more spots if we did this. I would love to see a couple Euro teams have to qualify for the WC against Mexico. I don't think there is one team in Europe that could go in to Azteca and win. Not one! Italy, England, Portugal, Czech, Germany...not a chance. Think I'm wrong? Ask Brazil how they like Azteca. CONCACRAP? Right
Remember, until the youth tournaments was established Nigeria was not qualifying for the world cup. Cameroun has not been doing well at the youth levels in Africa, and should this continue their dominance in qualifying for the wolrd cup is coming to a stop. Youth tournaments give a barometer of good things to come. Nigeria won silver World Youth 1989, Gold FIFA under 17 in 1993, won gold during 1996 Olympic games, and won silver World Youth(2005).This is progressive. Consider Ghana. Ghana won Gold FIFA under 17(1991), Silver FIFA under 17(1993), won Silver Wolrd Youth(1993), won Bronze Olympics Soccer(1992), won Gold FIFA under 17(1995), Silver World Youth(2001). And now for the first time they have qualified for the world cup. If this does not point to the futuere what else.