This is how the FIFA World Cup SHOULD be

Dublin_Gunner

IMO each association's championship should be the yard stick for qualification to the world cup.

i.e European Championship, top 13 teams get qualification to the world cup.

Surely that's the best way of deciding who is the best in each Federation, rather than relying on a lucky draw in your group.

But, it would really only be fair if the Euro's etc were held the year before the WC - a lot can change in 2 years.

bonerm

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

IMO each association's championship should be the yard stick for qualification to the world cup.

i.e European Championship, top 13 teams get qualification to the world cup.

Surely that's the best way of deciding who is the best in each Federation, rather than relying on a lucky draw in your group.

But, it would really only be fair if the Euro's etc were held the year before the WC - a lot can change in 2 years.

I agree with this. The current method of qualifying is outdated and unreliable. There are a handful of European teams at the WC right now who (imho we could turn over) are only there because they had the luck not to draw *both* Italy and France during their progress for instance.

At the very least the play-off system should be abolished in UEFA and qualification based on final group standing.

Kiwi_knock

I get far more enjoyment out of watching non European teams in the World Cup. I like the element of the under dog and that is what makes the World Cup. With a majority of European teams it takes away some of the glamour and excitement that comes with the World Cup.

Johnny Utah

Kiwi_knock wrote: »

I get far more enjoyment out of watching non European teams in the World Cup. I like the element of the under dog and that is what makes the World Cup. With a majority of European teams it takes away some of the glamour and excitement that comes with the World Cup.

The Kiwis will be embarrased this summer. (5-nil last year against Spain in effectively a friendly tournament), where's the glamour in that?

chopperbyrne

bonerm wrote: »

I agree with this. The current method of qualifying is outdated and unreliable. There are a handful of European teams at the WC right now who (imho we could turn over) are only there because they had the luck not to draw *both* Italy and France during their progress for instance.

At the very least the play-off system should be abolished in UEFA and qualification based on final group standing.

Luck shmuck. We played poorly in previous qualifying campaigns so we were seeded quite low. It wasn't even our results against Italy that messed us up. It was throwing away wins against teams who we should have beaten easily.

Johnny Utah

eZe^ wrote: »

Still prefer seeing the minnows get a run out against some of the best players on the planet. It's a life changing experience for some of those players, no need to ruin it by bringing in teams who are more solid. It's set up well imo, and I'll happily admit I prefer seeing the likes of happy Trinidad and Tobago trying their best instead of a Belgium with their solid defensive line and big clogger of a CF. Once the KO stages come it's the big boys against each other anyway.


This years CL is a testament to how leaving in a diverse range of teams leads to a more interesting tournament imo.

Did you enjoy watching Germany v Saudi Arabia in 2002?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBtiatLDDsc

Yeah, so 'life-changing' they decided not to bother qualifying this year to avoid embarrassment! :pac:

eZe^

Johnny Utah wrote: »

Did you enjoy watching Germany v Saudi Arabia in 2002?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBtiatLDDsc

Yeah, so life-changing they decided not to bother qualifying this year to avoid embarrasment! :pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2yPnF3oAxM

Johnny Utah

eZe^ wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2yPnF3oAxM

/Sigh/

I already covered the Serbia & Montenegro situation earlier in this thread, but I will repost my earlier comment for your perusal:

Johnny Utah wrote: »

Not a fair comparison. Serbia & Montenegro did very well in their qualifying group, even finishing ahead of Spain. By the time the World Cup came around in 2006, the country was about to be divided into separate states. It wasn't exactly an ideal time for them to be lining out for their country with so much trouble at home, so not really a fair comparison. Besides, the likes of Togo, Saudi Arabia etc. were equally sh1te in that World Cup, and there's not a hope in hell either of those would have got a point in that group.

Furthermore, Serbia/Yugoslavia have always produced some great players over the years, and the current Serbia team is quite strong having run away with their qualification group ahead of France. I look forward to watching them next summer.

As above, I think the reasons for Serbia & Montenegro's failure at the '06 WC are understandable and their performance certainly wasn't a fair reflection on the quality of European football.

Can you name one other European team, from the last 30 years, which has embarassaed itself at the World Cup (ie. finished with 0 points, leaked goals for fun, etc.)?

Peyton Manning

Johnny Utah wrote: »

Can you name one other European team, from the last 30 years, which has embarassaed itself at the World Cup (ie. finished with 0 points, leaked goals for fun, etc.)?

Slovenia in 2002.
Greece in 1994.

bonerm

chopperbyrne wrote: »

Luck shmuck.

Sorry, is that supposed to mean something?

We played poorly in previous qualifying campaigns so we were seeded quite low. It wasn't even our results against Italy that messed us up. It was throwing away wins against teams who we should have beaten easily.

Unless you can make yourself a first seed (which Ireland would be dreaming about rather than reasonably expecting regardless of past form) then seeding had nothing to do with it. By contrast Ireland could have been fourth seeds and then have instead been dumped in Group 2 or 3 (weak groups we could have possibly won and avoided the play-offs altogether). Therefore we'd be a fourth seed winning the group (which is exactly what we did back in the Euro 88 qualifiers).

Where we got unlucky was getting drawn in a group against a blue-chip team who were almost certainly going to win it, meaning we were at best looking at second and a play-off. Further bad luck being that we got a team like France who even at their worst were always going to be a greater challenge that the 3x other outcomes.

Basically unless you can maintain a consistent first seed status (which about maybe 6 teams in Europe can claim to) then luck of the draw literally has more of an impact than seeding.

(BTW we may have lost several leads against other teams but we didn't "throw away" results as we didn't actually deserve to win most of those games based purely on the performances we put in).

noodler

bonerm wrote: »

Further bad luck being that we got a team like France who even at their worst were always going to be a greater challenge that the 3x other outcomes.

Corrupt FIFA rules more than luck with regards who we got in our play-off.

Ferris_Bueller

Probably answered somewhere in one of the threads, but how come Italy were made to go through qualification despite them being world champions? Do they not normally get automatic entry?

RGDATA!

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Probably answered somewhere in one of the threads, but how come Italy were made to go through qualification despite them being world champions? Do they not normally get automatic entry?

this was the first time (in recent history anyway) there was no automatic qualification for the holders

davyjose

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Probably answered somewhere in one of the threads, but how come Italy were made to go through qualification despite them being world champions? Do they not normally get automatic entry?

Not any more, presumably done to remove an extra Automatic place from Europe/SA

bonerm

davyjose wrote: »

Not any more, presumably done to remove an extra Automatic place from Europe/SA

Another aspect of it is the argument that automatic qualification ironically doesn't actually do the champions any favours as they have to go 2 years without any real competitive games in the lead-up to the finals.

davyjose

bonerm wrote: »

Another aspect of it is the argument that automatic qualification ironically doesn't actually do the champions any favours as they have to go 2 years without any real competitive games in the lead-up to the finals.

Eh, hello? Confederations cup, anybody?

bonerm

davyjose wrote: »

Eh, hello? Confederations cup, anybody?

If you think that's competitive then you're not watching the same tournament as me. You won't see USA getting to the final of the *real* world cup this year.

davyjose

bonerm wrote: »

If you think that's competitive then you're not watching the same tournament as me. You won't see USA getting to the final of the *real* world cup this year.

You even quoted the smiley ffs :rolleyes:

RichTea

If you were going to try and make a World Cup where it was the best 32 teams in the world at that moment then you'd need cross-continent qualification groups.

That'd be a bit naff and unmanageable.

I think the current system is the best, most feasible way of conducting such a tournament.

m@cc@

Johnny Utah wrote: »

The Kiwis will be embarrased this summer. (5-nil last year against Spain in effectively a friendly tournament), where's the glamour in that?

More recently, they beat Serbia 1-0. The Kiwis will be a match for anyone.

Archimedes wrote: »

Slovenia in 2002.
Greece in 1994.

Serbia & Montenegro - 2006.

Dublin_Gunner

m@cc@ wrote: »

More recently, they beat Serbia 1-0. The Kiwis will be a match for anyone.



Serbia & Montenegro - 2006.

Did you even read the last page?

bonerm

davyjose wrote: »

You even quoted the smiley ffs :rolleyes:

Whatever. Go on AH if you want to post stupid sarcastic comments.

Dublin_Gunner

bonerm wrote: »

Whatever. Go on AH if you want to post stupid sarcastic comments.

Take your nose out of your ar$e. He posted a quite clearly sarcastic response stating that there would be competitive games, and joking about the Confederations cup, quite clearly making fun of it as a competitive tournament.

If you didn't pick up the sarcasm, fair enough, but no need to get all ratty about it.

bonerm

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

no need to get all ratty about it.

That'd be true if he hadn't gone sticking ":rolleyes:" into a subsequent post. That sort of stuff is pathetic and rude, not to mention bloody childish and stupid.

Dublin_Gunner

bonerm wrote: »

That'd be true if he hadn't gone sticking ":rolleyes:" into a subsequent post. That sort of stuff is pathetic and rude, not to mention bloody childish and stupid.

Fair enough, but just don't rise to it. 'tis the interwebs after all.

Now, lets get back on topic!

Johnny Utah

3 European teams and only one, fairly mediocre, South American team (Uruguay) left in the semi-finals. How will Fifa redress this imbalance for future tournaments?

Thanks for making up the numbers lads, but it's down to the serious business now!

steelcityblues

Johnny Utah wrote: »

3 European teams and only one, fairly mediocre, South American team (Uruguay) left in the semi-finals. How will Fifa redress this imbalance for future tournaments?

Thanks for making up the numbers lads, but it's down to the serious business now!

Are you Domenech's astrologer?

namloc1980

Johnny Utah wrote: »

3 European teams and only one, fairly mediocre, South American team (Uruguay) left in the semi-finals. How will Fifa redress this imbalance for future tournaments?

Thanks for making up the numbers lads, but it's down to the serious business now!

What was the score in the Spain-Paraguay game?

Het-Field

Johnny Utah wrote: »

3 European teams and only one, fairly mediocre, South American team (Uruguay) left in the semi-finals. How will Fifa redress this imbalance for future tournaments?

Thanks for making up the numbers lads, but it's down to the serious business now!

It is very common that the sharper end of these tournaments are European. In 2006 all four teams in the Semis were EUropean, while in 2002 there was an Asian team, a European Team, a Far Eastern Team, and a South American team. in 1998 it was between three european and one south American, in 1994 it was three European and one SA, and the same applied in 1990.

This is due to the quality of the games which teams from South America and Europe have to play to qualify. Too many teams in Asia, Oceania, and Concacaf qualify with easy, playing countries which only the most learned of Geographists have heard of. Although there are some notable exceptions, it is rare that European minows like San Marino, Lichtenstein, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Andorra get wellied off the park in every game they play. They often put it up to bigger teams, and dont allow themselves to capitualate like they used in the 1990s. Much like the maxim "a rising tide lifts all boats", smaller teams like Georgia, Cyrpus, Estonia, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania, all perform reasonably well, and have taken some major scalps of superpowers. The you have nations like Northern Ireland, Israel and Wales who are strong, and have a scattering of Premiership players, and they are nota team to be taken for granted. Then you have at least 7 nations which frequent the Third tier of European football (Including Ireland), before moving into the top brackets which comprise of about 14 teams.

Europe is the top continent for football. It has been that way for years. Smaller teams are forced to compete with the top nations, and if you were to recalibrate the regions, I believe that 90 % of European Teams would play vast swaths of international teams off the park. The smae applies to South American Nations like Venezuela, Bolivia, and Peru, who would all be good, and would be strong by virtue of the fact that they regularly play the likes of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Look at Concacaf, look at oceania, and look at the rest of Asia. Oceania is particularly poor. This is due to the fact that most teams simply accept hammerings off Australia, and play off to see who is the least bad in the region. It begs the question whether Oceania should be split up, or take Australia out of the equation altogether.

Europe has the strongest leagues, and the largest number of strong footballing nations. Germany,Spain,Italy,France,England,Portugal,Holland,Russia,Denmark,Sweden,Serbia are very good, while the likes of Norway, Ireland,Croatia, Poland, Greece, Czech Rep, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and even Scotland would be considered as decent teams. This ignores the tough little trips to the baltic, south eastern states. Then you have the minows, who are minows in a European context, but would dismantle many of their footballing counterparts in other zones. Europe has rightfully achieved at this tournamnet.

happydayz182

australia qualify through asia qualifiers...

Johnny Utah

namloc1980 wrote: »

What was the score in the Spain-Paraguay game?

1-nil to Spain. :cool:

d22ontour

Johnny Utah wrote: »

and only one, fairly mediocre, South American team (Uruguay) left in the semi-finals.

They have been quite good in all bar the Korea game tbh.Calling them mediocre is a bit over the top.

_Bella_

I think the balance is good at the moment and I don't see any changes in allocation for the foreseeable future