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Europe v Rest of the World at World Cups

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    #26
    Your younger players were decent enough against us, and showed a lot to be hopeful about against France.

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      #27
      Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
      Not qualifying did Holland and other European absentees a favour. Spared them some embarrassment in front of a global audience. I'm not saying that to wind you up.

      I get the point that Africa did not justify having five places here but I also don't think replacing two of them with European plodders gives the tournament a better flavour. It just means that you get the same stuff you currently have in the play-offs or in a European championship scrap for one of the best third place positions. More Polands and Serbias.
      But also: Italy.

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        #28
        Don't know whether this is the right thread, but I honestly think that the number of teams in the World Cup should be kept down, and eventually return to 16. The main reason is that I enjoy the quailfiers at least as much as the Cup itself, and these days too many teams qualify too easily.

        The debate on which confederations should have the more teams can be resolved in another way; what if all teams (except the hosts, obviously) were made to play inter-continental qualifiers. If this meant that some continents had no teams in the actual World Cup, then so be it. I haven't got the details worked out, but I'm sure some OTF'er can help me out.

        While I'm at it, I also want peace on earth. And a pony.

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          #29
          Originally posted by stefan View Post
          I haven't got the details worked out, but I'm sure some OTF'er can help me out.
          roryfsmith will give it a go.

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            #30
            Qualifying campaigns themselves are a blunt instrument. The best teams aren't always the most impressive qualifiers. For instance, say you went back to an old school 16 team tournament for this one, in pony world: take the 9 european group winners, and you've got poland and iceland, but no croatia or switzerland. Take only the winners of concacaf and, well, this time you get mexico, but that's unusual, usually they'd stay home.

            I'm coming round to the idea of international qualifiers. I suspect the outcome would be a distribution of teams in the finals much like the current one, and perhaps even slightly more equitable. And nothing would be better for teams from the weaker confeds than regular competitive games against those from footballs, er, metropole.

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              #31
              I still haven't got the details, but I should clarify that I think that the "local" qualifiers should remain, only that they should not be enough to qualify for the actual tournament. All teams should be made to play one, or even two, long-haul play-off matches.

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                #32
                I think you need 5 African qualifiers to ensure that two or three are entertaining. Imagine if Egypt and Tunisia, both of whom are ponderous, had been the only ones here.

                Asia went to form. Japan were the best team in qualifying.

                On play-offs, there would be club v country issues, sending Kane and Alli for example to a play-off in Korea or NZ.

                Fans are also an issue. Booking a fortnight vacation to see a play-off in Asia at short notice. Visas, innoculations, policing.

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                  #33
                  Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                  I think you need 5 African qualifiers to ensure that two or three are entertaining. Imagine if Egypt and Tunisia, both of whom are ponderous, had been the only ones here.
                  There appears to be a noticeable dichotomy, doesn't there? The north African teams are the 'ponderous', organised, defensive types, while it's the sub-Saharan ones that we need to inject some flair, entertainment and, um, defensive naivety. I think it's fair to say that if we just got two or three from Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria every time the tournament would lose a fair bit of its enjoyment.

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                    #34
                    Nigeria and Senegal both beat a European side so there's no case IMHO for giving their place to UEFA. Egypt and Tunisia are more problematic because I thought their approaches were so negative, whereas Algeria 1982 and Morocco 1998 had promised far more from North Africa.

                    I'm not sure how you rectify this except by hoping that Egypt and Tunisia realize why their approaches did not work here and they need more tempo and pressing.
                    Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 29-06-2018, 10:38.

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                      #35
                      You'd make the Maghrebian teams part of UEFA, where their defensive ploddery would struggle. Then you'd have 3 or 4 spots for Sub-Saharan CAF.

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                        #36
                        Yes, pretty much. Or just have one place for them.

                        On the other hand they do not qualify that often so maybe CAF just fucked up this time by not weeding them out in its own qualifiers.
                        Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 29-06-2018, 19:17.

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                          #37
                          Round of 16 = 10 European teams and 6 ROTW.

                          Quarter finals = 6 European teams and 2 ROTW (both South America)

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                            #38
                            If places were genuinely distributed on merit, how many places would each zone receive?

                            OTOH there is an overriding diversity factor. I enjoyed Costa Rica in 2014 and we had South Korea's win over Germany here. We don't need more mid-ranking European plodders, even though they would have given Russia a tougher test than Egypt and Saudi did. The problem comes when diversity produces cynical or over-cautious finalists like Panama and Egypt.

                            So is the current distribution still the best way to reconcile fairness and diversity?
                            Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 17-07-2018, 12:04.

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                              #39
                              I'm not in favour of knee jerk responses based on one tournament, as each continent has had far better world cups than on display here in the past, especially Africa. In 1982 the two African sides beat and drew with the eventual finalists. Although none made the last 16 this time, three of their sides won games this year, Morocco were ahead five minutes into injury time against Spain, and Egypt clearly missed a fit Salah. A month ago I'd have expected them to win Group A. CONCACAF can feel let down by Panama, but Mexico got put of the group as usual and Costa Rica - who topped their group last time, remember - weren't embarrassed. Asia as usual struggled more than their five slots merits, but as with Africa, all this year's flops have had bigger moments in tournaments past. It is really hard to justify almost all the extra 16 slots going to that group, though. An extra 4 for Asia and 3 for the CONCs is just going to produce cannon fodder, or worse teams that will only be put to try for two 0-0 draws (especially given the format). Although it might have rendered CONMEBOL qualifying virtually irrelevant, they really should have taken them up to 7 or 8 teams.

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                                #40
                                Or have play-offs between zones for half of the 16 slots.

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                                  #41
                                  It could do with some tweaks. I'd prefer OFC to have a full spot, because I can't square diversity with an entire continent's association not have at least one guaranteed spot. I'd also like to see more African qualifiers, but definitely no more Asian ones; they by and large stunk the place out.

                                  Berths at the 2018 World Cup:
                                  AFC 5, CAF 5, CONCACAF 3, CONMEBOL 5, OFC 0, UEFA 14

                                  Preferred tweak:
                                  AFC 3, CAF 7, CONCACAF 3, CONMEBOL 5, OFC 1, UEFA 13

                                  So that would replace Australia and either Saudi Arabia or South Korea with two from DR Congo, Zambia, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Uganda. It would also replace Switzerland, Croatia, Denmark or Sweden by New Zealand.

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                                    #42
                                    Originally posted by Rogin the Armchair fan View Post
                                    An extra 4 for Asia
                                    Syria, Uzbekistan, United Arab Emirates, and either China or Iraq. Ugh.

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                                      #43
                                      48 will be a disaster. The quality is not there. I would say there is enough quality for 24 but we stick with 32 to simplify the qualifying. For example 2018 had 8 makeweights for that reason.

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                                        #44
                                        It's a World Cup so it needs teams from all over the world but looking at that list Wouter put together, there's no way Croatia should be at risk of not having a place, given where they ended up.

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                                          #45
                                          Play-offs are surely the way to go. Croatia v Uzbekistan would produce the correct finalist.

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                                            #46
                                            Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                                            It's a World Cup so it needs teams from all over the world but looking at that list Wouter put together, there's no way Croatia should be at risk of not having a place, given where they ended up.
                                            That's very post hoc, though. Their qualification campaign was not exactly vintage. Based on their relative performance in qualifying, Poland had substantially more right to be in the World Cup than Croatia.

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                                              #47
                                              If we based the 2026 quallifying on the 2018 performances, a 48 team World Cup would produce the following qualifiers:

                                              UEFA (16): Russia, France, Portugal, Germany, Serbia, Poland, England, Spain, Belgium, Iceland, Switzerland, Denmark, Croatia, Sweden, Italy, Northern Ireland
                                              CONMEBOL (6): Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Chile
                                              CONCACAF (6): Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, USA, Trinidad & Tobago
                                              CAF (9): Tunisia, Nigeria, Morocco, Senegal, Egypt, Congo DR, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Cote D'Ivoire
                                              AFC (8): Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Australia, Syria, Uzbekistan, United Arab Emirates
                                              OFC (1): New Zealand

                                              Playoffs (2): Paraguay, Guatemala, Canada, Zambia, China, Solomon Islands

                                              I think there's too many strong European teams to reduce their numbers, and a World Cup needs to be more representative of the World. Out of the extra teams, there's four debutants, the UAE haven't been there since 1990 and Congo DR were called Zaire last time they qualified. If anything CONMEBOL has too many places, given there's only ten teams, unless Suriname and Guyana go to CONMEBOL. It seems daft having a ten team league where six qualify, and one goes to the next round.

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                                                #48
                                                The 48 team tournament exacerbates the imbalance between the lengthy qualifying process (plus 6 month wait afterwards) and time spent actually at the World Cup. It's tough enough that Peru or Morocco spend forever waiting for their chance, bring thousands of followers and then go home after 3 games, to wait another decade or two. Now they go home after 2 games. Hope against logic is an essential ingredient of the whole football experience, and for almost all countries hope is still alive after 2 games in the current format (even if it's "we need to beat the top seeds and the other game goes in our favour" ... it's still hope). The 24 team format with the 3rd place qualifiers even more so, albeit at the expense of decent football.

                                                In 2026 hosts Canada will have years of build-up and then play for 3 hours before it's all over. At least they won't have spent a fortune on plane tickets, unlike the eliminated Ugandans and Uzbekis. I can't think of any other major team sports event that has such a brutal contrast.

                                                Rank outsiders celebrating their upset draw in the second group game is an integral part of World Cup history, and now it only means 'boarding pass'. Shame.

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                                                  #49
                                                  Maybe a plate competition for 2026? I mean, if they're prepared to bloat the tournament out that much already, why not?

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                                                    #50
                                                    2018 Plate:

                                                    Saudi - Morocco
                                                    Peru - Iceland
                                                    Iran - Egypt
                                                    Nigeria - Australia
                                                    Serbia - Germany
                                                    Tunisia - Poland
                                                    Korea - Costa Rica
                                                    Senegal - Panama

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