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The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

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Re: The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

Good tie. Interesting that it took kind of a fluky goal to get Russia to really play. They put some good pressure on after going behind.
 
Re: The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

Every time I see Feliani of Belgium I think of that line from Fletch about the Afro.
 
Re: The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

My view on the did we over-celebrate too much conversation is to go back to Sochi. When the US had that shootout showdown with Russia and it was all TJ OSHIE ZOMG WE BEAT THE RUSSIANS MIRACLE ON ICE AGAIN!!!!!!!!! And then they didn't even medal. The ridiculous over celebration of that game bugged the **** out of me because people were acting like the US won everything.

I am admittedly not a soccer fan and have been keeping up with the tournament because my company's Brazil operation is a national sponsor and we've done a ton of work around it. I only watched the second half as I was in the midst of traveling hell and I have to say, I don't think the US played well at all. That late goal was very cool. And it should be celebrated because it came after a crap half of play in the last moment. I cheered where I was and I'm not even a fan. I think the celebration is different from the hockey I mentioned above because the US team isn't favored to win, and even though Ghana isn't, like, Brazil, they are a team that beat the US the last two tournaments so it's like getting a weight off their back. Happy for them but I want to see them get another win.

With regards to the high ratings, my thoughts, for whatever they're worth, is the large base of people living in the US from other countries are ALL watching. They don't watch golf. Or hockey. They watch soccer.
 
Re: The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

like to see as many teams in it as possible going into game three of group stage, but you have to believe australia will fall to 0-2 tomorrow. i'd say cameroon is likely headed for that as well.
 
Re: The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

Spartanforlife4 said:
Not likely. Every FIFA members gets a vote. That means Africa is about 5 times more influential than CONMEBOL. Now I'm not sure if all of FIFA votes on the confederation spots or if another committee handles that, but there's a reason why the two biggest confederations do not have playoffs to get in.

On the wiki page for the World Cup there's a section about Blatter talking about expanding to 40, which would guarantee a spot for Oceania, as well as a Caribbean club. That would take about 2/3 of the teams away from CONCACAF. He said it would be 1 more to UEFA, 2 more to Asia and Africa, the 1 to the Caribbean, the 1 guaranteed to Oceania and then a shared between CONCACAF and CONMEBOL. So if anything the playoff is here to stay, it would just transition to playing CONMEBOL.
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I would be cool with that. Opens CONCACAF up to where Canada and the Central Americans can get into the World Cup, and we would have to do less dinking around with Caribbean teams about getting there. That should raise everybody else's play up knowing that they just can't phone it in against Bermuda when we know that somebody else had a draw against say a stout Jamaica squad.

Then it would be 8 groups of 5 teams right?
 
Re: The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

bigmrg74 said:
I would be cool with that. Opens CONCACAF up to where Canada and the Central Americans can get into the World Cup, and we would have to do less dinking around with Caribbean teams about getting there. That should raise everybody else's play up knowing that they just can't phone it in against Bermuda when we know that somebody else had a draw against say a stout Jamaica squad.

Then it would be 8 groups of 5 teams right?
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I just don't see the 8 groups of 5 making sense. 32 is already enough teams to me. As for your assertion about bermuda, etc. The qualifying process already takes care of that. When we get to the group stages of CONCACAF qualifying most if not all deserve to be that far and the rifraf is already removed.
 
Re: The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

I get the impression everyone working with Lalas would secretly like to punch him in the throat.
 
Re: The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

Back to the half-spot discussion. I wouldn't be surprised if Africa isn't involved in the inter-continental playoffs because of money. Overall, they don't have the money that the rest of the world has. Not to mention UEFA has the 2nd place teams playoff during the same period and Africa's current format involves playoffs for their spots.
 
Re: The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

Shirtless Guy said:
I just don't see the 8 groups of 5 making sense. 32 is already enough teams to me. As for your assertion about bermuda, etc. The qualifying process already takes care of that. When we get to the group stages of CONCACAF qualifying most if not all deserve to be that far and the rifraf is already removed.
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Why wouldn't 8 groups of 5 work?? Yes you would have to add about a week to the tournament and would need to have a few more stadiums in the mix to hold all the games. And maybe even have to move to playing 4 games a day to keep things from dragging out too long as well. but it could be done.
 
bigmrg74 said:
Why wouldn't 8 groups of 5 work?? Yes you would have to add about a week to the tournament and would need to have a few more stadiums in the mix to hold all the games. And maybe even have to move to playing 4 games a day to keep things from dragging out too long as well. but it could be done.
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Except on the last match day for the group, somebody is sitting out having already played their 4th group game. FIFA and I would not like that.
 
Re: The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

Shirtless Guy said:
I just don't see the 8 groups of 5 making sense. 32 is already enough teams to me. As for your assertion about bermuda, etc. The qualifying process already takes care of that. When we get to the group stages of CONCACAF qualifying most if not all deserve to be that far and the rifraf is already removed.
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The UEFA president on expanding it to 40:
"[The World Cup is] not based on the quality of the teams because you don't have the best 32 at the World Cup ... but it's a good compromise. ... It's a political matter so why not have more Africans? The competition is to bring all the people of all the world. If you don't give the possibility to participate, they don't improve."

Basically sounds more like the NCAA Tournament where the little guy is guaranteed a spot, "just cuz." Works well in a one and done tournament, not so well when you have to play 3 or 4 games to move onto the second round.

Looking at the Caribbean Confederation list it would just be a final group of Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, DR and PR every time for qualifying.
 
Shirtless Guy said:
Back to the half-spot discussion. I wouldn't be surprised if Africa isn't involved in the inter-continental playoffs because of money. Overall, they don't have the money that the rest of the world has. Not to mention UEFA has the 2nd place teams playoff during the same period and Africa's current format involves playoffs for their spots.
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Africa could use a fundamental redesign of their qualifying system. Usually, although it didn't happen this time, there's one African team that is well off compared to who's at home (Angola in 2006, Togo in 2010). They really need to start weeding out the minnows earlier.

If anything, this World Cup is probably the first one in a while without a "what are they doing here?" team.
 
Re: The FIFA World Cup Thread (Spoilers Welcome)

joecct said:
Except on the last match day for the group, somebody is sitting out having already played their 4th group game. FIFA and I would not like that.
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Ummmmm..... Actually for every group Game Day, 8 teams would have to be idle. Unless you want to do something really crazy and have like some sort of a super group of 4 groups of 10 teams.
 
bigmrg74 said:
Ummmmm..... Actually for every group Game Day, 8 teams would have to be idle. Unless you want to do something really crazy and have like some sort of a super group of 4 groups of 10 teams.
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Having any system where all the teams can't play their last group matches at the same time is bad. See West Germany vs Austria 1982 or Argentina vs Chile 1978.
 
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