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World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

  • Thread starter Thread starter Priceless
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Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

A better comparison is using results since the tournament went to 32 teams in 1998:

CONCACAF teams have reached the Top 16 6 times out of 13 appearances (46%), CAF teams have reached the Top 16 4 times from 21 appearances (19%), AFC teams have reached the Top 16 4 times out of 16 appearances (25%).

The countries:
USA
Mexico
S. Korea
Japan
Nigeria
Senegal
Ghana
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Although the point here is that Africa's record is pretty terrible. And the argument of CONCACAF and Asia being "top heavy" is also moot since their appearances came from 3 teams instead of 2.

Africa gets 5 bids because of politics. They also need to fix their qualifying structure as well.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Africa gets 5 because there are over 50 countries...do you really think they deserve less because they don't have the top top teams like traditionally Mexico? They have produced 3 different teams in the round of 16, pretty impressive. Personally I think balance is just fine, the changes that need to be made are in qualifying for both CONCACAF and CAF. The fourth team in the hex having a shot at the World Cup looks bad and putting so much on a home/home series with a team to determine all of your spots in Africa is crazy. They need to find some structure that is in between UEFA and AFC.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

I believe Australia was in the round of 16 in 2006 as well. I know they were in Oceania at the time, so I don't quite know if you'd credit that.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Shirtless Guy said:
Africa gets 5 because there are over 50 countries...do you really think they deserve less because they don't have the top top teams like traditionally Mexico? They have produced 3 different teams in the round of 16, pretty impressive. Personally I think balance is just fine, the changes that need to be made are in qualifying for both CONCACAF and CAF. The fourth team in the hex having a shot at the World Cup looks bad and putting so much on a home/home series with a team to determine all of your spots in Africa is crazy. They need to find some structure that is in between UEFA and AFC.
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CONCACAF has 41 countries to CAF's 56 so I guess it is fairly even.

CONCACAF's Qualifying structure does not need fixing, it works fine for what it needs to accomplish and it isn't very different than the Asian one. It will probably change if CONCACAF ever gets 4 bids (then it would be almost exactly like the Asian one). I mean you could go to 2 groups of 4 for the final round but that would be less competitive than the Hex.

Africa certainly needs a change, you have to win a group just to advance to a playoff to advance,. It is remarkable that that format is allowed to be used.

But it's not really impressive, at least to me, for Africa to have 3 different countries reach the Top 16. I mean that's 3 out of 56 in comparison to 2 out of 41 for CONCACAF and 2 out of 47 for Asia, statistically it's fairly consistent with the others. If they went to a WCQ format that allowed for more of the elite nations to qualify consistently and improve their performances, then maybe I'd be more impressed. There is always one good African team, it was Nigeria, now it's Ghana, the only difference between them and CONCACAF is that Africa is very cyclical.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Yah. Africa's method of qualifying introduces a level of randomness that no other qualifying setup has. You can go undefeated all the way through qualifying, yet have a bad game (see Egypt against Ghana) and be out of the running barring a miracle in the return match. I don't think that's as fair as something like the Hex.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Jimjamesak said:
CONCACAF has 41 countries to CAF's 56 so I guess it is fairly even.

CONCACAF's Qualifying structure does not need fixing, it works fine for what it needs to accomplish and it isn't very different than the Asian one. It will probably change if CONCACAF ever gets 4 bids (then it would be almost exactly like the Asian one). I mean you could go to 2 groups of 4 for the final round but that would be less competitive than the Hex.

Africa certainly needs a change, you have to win a group just to advance to a playoff to advance,. It is remarkable that that format is allowed to be used.

But it's not really impressive, at least to me, for Africa to have 3 different countries reach the Top 16. I mean that's 3 out of 56 in comparison to 2 out of 41 for CONCACAF and 2 out of 47 for Asia, statistically it's fairly consistent with the others. If they went to a WCQ format that allowed for more of the elite nations to qualify consistently and improve their performances, then maybe I'd be more impressed. There is always one good African team, it was Nigeria, now it's Ghana, the only difference between them and CONCACAF is that Africa is very cyclical.
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don't use 41, only 35 are FIFA members, same with CAF...its 54 as far as FIFA is concerned.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Bob Gray said:
Yah. Africa's method of qualifying introduces a level of randomness that no other qualifying setup has. You can go undefeated all the way through qualifying, yet have a bad game (see Egypt against Ghana) and be out of the running barring a miracle in the return match. I don't think that's as fair as something like the Hex.
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As someone who now lives in Africa, I see what your saying, by I have a guess that this might be viewed as a money saving initiative . Travel in continent is incredibly expensive, even for national soccer associations. I still think cutting the final round down maybe 4 team groups (Like 2010?) would be better, but I understand the impulse in CAF. However, I agree with the premise that its objectively a terrible, random, system for choosing a confed's best representatives.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

BoomGoestheDynamite said:
As someone who now lives in Africa, I see what your saying, by I have a guess that this might be viewed as a money saving initiative . Travel in continent is incredibly expensive, even for national soccer associations. I still think cutting the final round down maybe 4 team groups (Like 2010?) would be better, but I understand the impulse in CAF. However, I agree with the premise that its objectively a terrible, random, system for choosing a confed's best representatives.
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If I had to guess, it is all about money and travel, it just sucks because that is a tough way to qualify, especially for a country like Egypt that missed out on being in Pot 1 by 4 spots (overall, not within CAF) in a horribly flawed FIFA World Ranking and then draws Ghana.

ESPN SPI has Ghana 2nd and Egypt in 4th in the confederation...
According to both ELO and SPI, Cameroon and Egypt should have been in Pot 1...
 
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Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

BoomGoestheDynamite said:
As someone who now lives in Africa, I see what your saying, by I have a guess that this might be viewed as a money saving initiative . Travel in continent is incredibly expensive, even for national soccer associations. I still think cutting the final round down maybe 4 team groups (Like 2010?) would be better, but I understand the impulse in CAF. However, I agree with the premise that its objectively a terrible, random, system for choosing a confed's best representatives.
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Given the financial situation of many African countries, I can understand them wanting to minimize travel. It still would be nice to find a way to make one loss less of a death knell for World Cup qualifying, particularly in the last stage.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Priceless said:
The fact that Uruguay will be seeded but hasn't qualified yet is a trick of the calendar. Would it make people feel better if they'd somehow beaten Jordan a month ago and already qualified? By the time the World Cup draw comes around they will have qualified.
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I don't think it would, because the thing that bothers people is that they're (theoretically) getting a seed despite finishing 5th in the CONMEBOL round robin (behind two teams that aren't getting seeds) and needing a playoff to qualify, while teams that qualified easily like the Netherlands (losing finalists four years ago, no less), Italy, Japan or the USA aren't. I understand that it's still selective logic (qualifying is qualifying) but I don't think it's the TIMING of the playoff that's the issue so much as the NEED for a playoff.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

jmh said:
I don't think it would, because the thing that bothers people is that they're (theoretically) getting a seed despite finishing 5th in the CONMEBOL round robin (behind two teams that aren't getting seeds) and needing a playoff to qualify, while teams that qualified easily like the Netherlands (losing finalists four years ago, no less), Italy, Japan or the USA aren't. I understand that it's still selective logic (qualifying is qualifying) but I don't think it's the TIMING of the playoff that's the issue so much as the NEED for a playoff.
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Than take it up with FIFA. They decided to base the seeding on the rankings which are for a predetermined amount of time (Last I checked it was three years) not just the last two months of play. Based on their entire body of work, Uruguay deserves a seed under the criteria set forth by FIFA. Of course, this is FIFA so naturally everyone didn't know what the criteria would be ahead of time.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Craig P. said:
With regard to the number of spots in the World Cup... CONCACAF's FIFA rankings coefficient is higher than Africa's, yet CONCACAF has fewer spots. Africa definitely does not deserve more spots on their merits, and they arguably deserve fewer.
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That's racist.

No, seriously. That's almost certainly the official FIFA response on that.

USA all but guaranteed a group of death unless we get a few upsets in the play-ins. I'm rooting for Iceland, Romania, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Egypt, Algeria, and New Zealand. That last one has no bearing on our draw whatsoever but it's my favorite.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Red Cloud said:
That's racist.

No, seriously. That's almost certainly the official FIFA response on that.

USA all but guaranteed a group of death unless we get a few upsets in the play-ins. I'm rooting for Iceland, Romania, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Egypt, Algeria, and New Zealand. That last one has no bearing on our draw whatsoever but it's my favorite.
Click to expand...

Burkina Faso and Algeria are playing each other...only one will advance.
 
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