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Europe v Rest of the World at World Cups

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  • Rogin the Armchair fan
    replied
    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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  • Satchmo Distel
    replied
    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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  • Patrick Thistle
    replied
    Round of 16 = 10 European teams and 6 ROTW.

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

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  • Satchmo Distel
    replied
    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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  • San Bernardhinault
    replied
    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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  • Satchmo Distel
    replied
    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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  • Various Artist
    replied
    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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  • Satchmo Distel
    replied
    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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  • stefan
    replied
    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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  • N est à?
    replied
    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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  • Walt Flanagans Dog
    replied
    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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  • stefan
    replied
    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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  • Wouter D
    replied
    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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  • The Awesome Berbaslug!!!
    replied
    Your younger players were decent enough against us, and showed a lot to be hopeful about against France.

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  • Cal Alamein
    replied
    Hey, after the last uninspired shit qualifying campaign, we'd (USA) better get automatic qualification for 2026!

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  • anton pulisov
    replied
    Well, Holland wouldn't even have made it into an expanded World Cup, seeing as they didn't even make the playoffs.

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  • Satchmo Distel
    replied
    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.

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  • Wouter D
    replied
    Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
    I cannot think of any absent nation here that would have enhanced the tournament.
    Love you too, buddy!

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  • Satchmo Distel
    replied
    32 is the maximum feasible number for a World Cup. I cannot think of any absent nation here that would have enhanced the tournament.

    You could also make a case for going down to 24 because around 8-10 here were dead wood. 32 is only really preferable because of the neater system of top two going through.

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  • Janik
    replied
    So we now know our 16 into the knock-out stages.

    CONMEBOL: 4/5 (80%)
    UEFA: 10/14 (71%)
    CONCACAF: 1/3 (33%)
    AFC: 1/5 (20%)
    CAF: 0/5 (0%)

    Based on that, it's Europe and South America that should be getting the vast majority of the extra teams with the expansion from 32 to 48. They won't, of course. The quality of the future group stages will be even more diluted because of it.

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  • Satchmo Distel
    replied
    Ten Europeans through

    Out: Iceland, Serbia, Germany, Poland

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  • Duncan Gardner
    replied
    Originally posted by N est à? View Post
    One will do it for sweden
    Aye, they'd have the same points and goals both for/ against as Mexico and would progress on strength of today's result

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  • Duncan Gardner
    replied
    Originally posted by N est à? View Post
    One will do it for sweden
    Aye, they'd have the same points and goals both for/ against as Mexico and would progress on strength of today's result

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  • N est à?
    replied
    One will do it for sweden

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  • Diable Rouge
    replied
    Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
    I think Mexico's result against Sweden tonight will be decisive in whether 10 or 11 European teams advance.
    Can't see Sweden winning by two goals, one seems plausible, though.

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