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First Draw for the 2006 WC on Friday


Massive Attack

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Hello, Warner's CONCANAF WCQ proposal has yet to be approved by FIFA. Hopefully it won't be, because the large number of matches and method goes against the FIFA goal of reducing match congestion. No word as to when it will be reviewed and decided upon, and no word as to whenthe process will start, but it will probably have to start this winter (especially if the present format is kept), as the final hex would have to start in early 2005.

Basically, under the current proposal, there would be 3 rounds before the home-and-away series with Asia(?) for the 4th place CONCANAF team.

1. First Round: 11 Groups of 3 (4 games: 2 home, 2 away), 1 Group of 2 (only 2 games). Since Canada is somewhat seeded, we should advance easily, unless we get an improved Cuba.

2. Second Round: Winners of 1st Round only placed in 4 Groups of 4 teams (6 games each: 3 home, 3 away): Top 2 in each group advance to final round. This will be moderately difficult, as we are in the C group seeds, and will have to face the likes of eitherUS/Honduras/Mexico/CosRica as well as possibly T&T or Jamaica.

3. Third Roud: A "hexagonal" group of 6 teams (10 gammes each: 5 home and 5 away), from February to October, 2005, with the top 3 gaining automatic entry to WC 2006, and the 4th having the "half-spot" qualification against a team from either Asia (probably), South America (may be changed to this), Oceania (unlikely), or possibly a further round robin (proposed by Oceania, but unlikely because of fixture congestion). Mexico and the US will probably capture the top 2 spots, so Canada would realistically be fighting for a 3rd or 4th position, which we have a good chance at, but will be very difficult. We will definately need a full healthy squad for each of these 10 games. If we come 4th, we have a very good chance against the Asian 5th (probably Iran, Saudi, China or Indonesia, difficult chance against the South Americans (especially away, probably against Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador or Chile) and something less than even against Australia.

The home-and-away for the 4th Concanf would be scheduled for the two international Wednesday dates in mid-November, 2005 (again, probably against an Asian team).

Here is address of the official CONCANAF press release setting out the proposal:

http://www.concacaf.net/news/article.page/1202

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change

the subject. -- Winston Churchill

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So, you can see that under the present proposal, we would need a minumum of 18 matches (unlikely, as we would have a 1 in 12 chance of being placed in 2 team 1st round group) and a maximum of 22 if we are 4th in the hex (or more if the halfspot format is changed by FIFA).

As my buddy Kurtz, who thought Leopold's Congo was bad, would say: "The horror, the horror!"

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Canada will be hard pressed to always get their players for WCQ, because a lot of the Canadian players play in lower divisions in Europe. Most of the lower division's don't break for the FIFA sanctioned dates.

-------------------------

"I'm gonna fight 'em off,

A seven nation army couldn't hold me back..."

The White Stripes

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quote:Originally posted by hello

what do you think are Canada's chanses to make the WC

I believe they are very, very good. U.S.A. and Mexico are always gonna be there, so that's 2 spots. There one and a half spots left. I believe we can show more intestinal fortitude than last time and win matches in soccer outposts like Panama and Guatemala...

But heck, I'm an optimist...

Mimglow, Ottawa

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Where are the weapons of mass destruction?

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