Now that it's all over

[Woodgate27 0]

I posted this on another board about qualification for the next world cup:

 

Europe 13.5

South America 5

North/Central America 2.5

Africa 6 (remember that South Africa is host nation)

Asia 4.5

Oceania .5

 

Europe's lowest ranked 2nd placed team to play CONCACAF 3rd team

Asia v Oceania play off (If New Zealand came up against the likes of Saudi Arabia I'd fancy them)

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How can you justify 4.5 places to Asia with 2.5 to CONCACAF even with Australia in the AFC?

 

Asia and CONCACAF both all inflated in this cup. Take away the .5 from CONCACAF for certain, but it won't go below 3.

 

Africa should have at least 5, six might be a stretch.

 

Oceania w/o Australia doesn't deserve a .5 slot. They should play off with an Asian country for the chance at a playoff against S. America.

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I see your point but the quality really drops off below Mexico and USA. There's a good argument to take a place from Asia due to the fact that technically no Asian team made it past the group stages, but Australia's addition makes the region a bit more competitive.

 

For 2014 you'll probably see Oceania disbanded and Asia split into East and West. Without us in the OFC it's a joke. Soloman Islands were better than NZ this time around after all...

 

Six places for Africa is fair given one country is the host nation and there are alot of teams at the same level.

 

On second thoughts, take some more places off Europe and spread them around.

[Wullie 0]

http://www.worldcup365.com/f365opinion/0,1...1304871,00.html

 

After nearly three weeks of action, a pause for breath. We have seen 56 games over 19 days eliminate 24 of the sides who came to Germany full of hope that they would still be here. And it's time to return, conclusively, to a subject mentioned earlier on in the competition: Europe's continuing right to nearly half the places in the World Cup.

 

Some major European names are out. Holland and Spain both gone in the last 16, the Czech Republic not even getting that far, undone by Ghana. But, none the less, the overwhelming message of this World Cup has been the strength of the game's traditional powerhouses.

 

Of the teams who have been world champions, only Uruguay were missing from the original 32. And, with the defeat of Spain in Hanover on Tuesday night, the last of those sides made it through: Italy, (West) Germany, Brazil, England, Argentina and France are all in the last eight.

 

The other two places have gone to European sides. Though perhaps the presence of Ukraine is a surprise, they had the good fortune to pass the Group H booby prize, a meeting with France, to the side that whacked them 4-0 in the tournament opener. This level of success for Portugal, semi-finalists and finalists in the past two European Championships, is overdue.

 

All of which is bad news for the aspiring nations. The old world order in football remains the world order.

 

Asia had a semi-finalist and a team in the last 16 in 2002. Now they have to rely on new friends Australia to claim anything from the knock-out stages.

 

Last time, Mexico lost to the United States in the last 16. Now, their extra-time defeat to Argentina sees CONCACAF slip back badly, too, as the USA, Costa Rica and Trinidad & Tobago were already out.

 

Paraguay went out in the first round, Ecuador in the second: no South American team outside the big two has reached the last eight since Peru in 1978 (and they had the huge advantage of playing Ally McLeod's Scotland).

 

Africa's hopes of a third quarter-finalist, to follow Cameroon in 1990 and Senegal four years ago, were slim after an unfavourable draw saw the best teams (Ghana, Ivory Coast) pitched against stronger opposition than the weaker sides (Angola, Togo, Tunisia).

 

Ivory Coast succumbed, Ghana succeeded brilliantly against the Czech Republic and were brave against Brazil after a disastrous start, but were powerless in the end. The others, Angola especially, were not disgraced, but failed none the less.

 

So, for the third tournament in a row, since the total teams reached 32 and Africa's allocation became five, just one of that quintet made it out of the group stage.

 

Why does all this matter? Well, as I've written before, the allocation of places in the finals is a matter of constant debate. For this tournament, Oceania were initially granted an automatic spot, only for South American lobbying to see that decision reversed. Justice was done when Australia beat Uruguay, at least, but there's plenty more polticking to come over what happens now.

 

For instance, with Australia now in Asia, what happens to Oceania? Will New Zealand, barring upset, inherit the play-off with the fifth team in South America? Or will Asia try to lay claim to it, to add to the existing play-off with a CONCACAF side? After all, with so many countries competing for just four automatic spots, the presence of the Aussies makes life harder.

 

And the next World Cup is in South Africa, the first in the continent. One place will go to the hosts. Should the rest of Africa have just four places to compete for?

 

It was such pressures that saw a 16-team event increased to 24 in 1982 then 32 in 1998. How do you square the obligation to give reasonable representation to each continent with the need to have the best teams?

 

The easy target is always the largest allocation. Shave a team off Europe and they will still have the most teams by some distance.

 

But the strong results of the UEFA sides demonstrates that such a move would weaken the competition. Africa had four first-round failures from five teams; Europe had four first-round failures from 14 teams.

 

In fact, if any continent has earned an increase for 2010 it is Europe. That won't happen, even if Germany and France beat Argentina and Brazil to give the UEFA countries a clean sweep of the semi-finalists. But to cut Europe's allocation would be to damage the competition's credibility. The rest of the world had a decent chance and there should be no reward for failure.

[Zathras 267]

It's worth noting that European teams always do much better in cups held in Europe than outside it. Partly due to climate, partly due to 'home field' advantage, who knows? But no European team has won the cup outside of Europe whereas Brazil has won in Europe, North America and Asia. Leaving out Brazil of course.....

 

I don't think we can realistically cut anything from Europe's allocation; there are undeniably quality sides there that will not make it due to the competative nature of the region. However, the difficulty in finding spots to give to 'worthy' nations and yet keep world-wide representation is difficult.

 

Asian teams, apart from the hosts in 2002 rarely make any impact, so 4.5 spots is simply put, ridiculous. The addition of Australia certainly adds strength to the region, but when Saudi Arabia are regular qualifiers that 4.5 needs some addressing.

 

3.5 for CONCACAF surprised a lot of people, even us over here in the region. in 2002, we had two sides in the round of 16 but they faced each other that did two things:

 

1 - reduced the POSSIBLE number of teams in the quarters to one

2 - GUARANTEED one side in the final 8.

 

Also in 2002, Costa Rica played quite well and narrowly lost out on advancing from a group including the winners (Brazil) and the 3rd place team (Turkey.) However, going back to 1986, the region has had at least one side get to the knockout stages in every cup. (back when we were allotted two spots.)

 

Realistically, the 4th place team in CONCACAF is a minnow. It's a TnT or an El Salvador. If there is going to be a playoff with that spot, it needs to be against a region much more difficult than the 5th place team from Asia.

 

3 isn't entirely out of line, 3.5 could be depending on the selected region for the opponent for that .5 spot.

 

Africa was hard done-by in this cup. The Ivory Coast and Ghana were placed in incredibly difficult groups. Tunisia was the only re-qualifier and did quite poorly. Angola made a run of it but came up short against Iran and Togo were something of a joke.... though not for footballing reasons.

 

The main problem with Africa this cup wasn't the number of spots, it was the way qualification was run. It needs to be revamped.

 

So that leaves us where we started, really. The spots that need to be reevaluated are:

 

1/2 to 1 spot from Asia

1/2 spot from CONCACAF

1/2 spot from OFC

1/2 spot from S. America

 

I think w/o Australia, the OFC needs to play a playoff for the playoff spot.

The 1/2 from South American can still play off with Asi

The 1/2 from CONCACAF and remaining 1/2 from Asia/OFC can be put to Europe or S. Africa depending on how you look at it.

 

Fair?

[Zathras 267]

To make it clearer what I'm saying

 

Current Cup:

 

Asia 4.5

Oceania .5

South America 5.5

CONCACAF 3.5

Afica 5

Europe 12

HOST - 1

 

2010:

Asia (with Australia) 4.25

Oceania .25 (playoff with Asian Nation for spot in Playoff with S. America)

South America 5.5

Africa - 5

CONCACAF 3

Europe 13

HOST - 1