CONCACAF to overhaul ‘archaic’ World Cup qualifying format

[ob1]

http://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/concacaf-overhaul-archaic-world-cup-qualifying-format/

 

About time.

 

And I like the idea of a name change for our region as well. 

[yomurphy1]

This is really fantastic news if it happens.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

And right on cue the US Soccer fanboys' heads are collectively exploding on twitter

[yomurphy1]

Just now, CanadianSoccerFan said:

And right on cue the US Soccer fanboys' heads are collectively exploding on twitter

Why is that?

[TRM]

I'm interested in seeing how it could be done. Having a tournament with 8 teams for 4 spots? Not much better than 6. I don't know how you would have more teams playing in later rounds without huge congestion.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

1 minute ago, yomurphy1 said:

Why is that?

Because the universe revolves around USA and Mexico so splitting them into multiple groups would mean the end of the world.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

Discussing a new configuration, Montagliani said: "Maybe it's like the Europeans or maybe it's like the South Americans with a league -- or it's a hybrid of the two."

 

My preference would be a final group of 10 teams.  However I expect it will be something like the format for the CONCACAF U20 championship.  2 groups of 6 with group winners qualifying and 2nd and 3rd place teams going to a repechage round

[Obinna]

Just thought of this:

There are 35 teams in CONCACAF, right?

Give the top 5 teams a buy

Then, split the remaining 30 teams into 5 groups of 6. Group winner advances only. 

That way, smaller caribbean nations get a run of games and a chance to improve and have something to play for, plus there is little risk of getting trounced 19-0 by Mexico or the USA.

Then, take those 5 group winners and put them in a 10 - team south American style qualifying process. USA gets to continue their love affair with Mexico. Teams like El Salvador, Guatemala and Canada get a chance and aren't out so early. 

He talked about mixing the UEFA and South American systems right?

There you go!!

[Obinna]

To add to that, from a Canada perspective, we likely get 18 WCQ games no matter what, which gives us WAY more opportunities to cap tie and get our ranking up.

Then, during that first UEFA style round of 5 groups of 6, we can use that opportunity to play in smaller venues all across the country and spread the CANMNT around, which will appease certain people out there.

Once we qualify for the final south American style 10 - team round, we can keep the games at 1 (maybe 2) venues only, to ensure a home field familiarity and advantage for our players.

[jpg75]

I was thinking: bottom 6 teams play home and way to trim to 32 teams. 8 groups of 4 with top 2 advancing. Remaining 16 are placed in 4 groups of 4 with top 2 qualifying to the Octagon (last 8).

Not sure why we moved away from the early group format from 2014 qualifying? It ensured a decent run of games for the smaller nations.

[Zem]

10 minutes ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

Discussing a new configuration, Montagliani said: "Maybe it's like the Europeans or maybe it's like the South Americans with a league -- or it's a hybrid of the two."

 

My preference would be a final group of 10 teams.  However I expect it will be something like the format for the CONCACAF U20 championship.  2 groups of 6 with group winners qualifying and 2nd and 3rd place teams going to a repechage round

Yeah, that's the first thing I thought. It seems like it would be a really solid solution, it allows for far more teams in the final round and seems generally very competitively sound.

I think the bigger question, although it doesn't apply to Canada, is the first few qualifying rounds that knock out so many teams before they have a chance to play many games. For example in the 2018 qualifying cycle 13 teams were eliminated having only played a single round of qualifying, two matches against the same team. It would be far better if we had a group stage in the first round where the Caribbean minnows could play more games against one another. We could, for example, have the bottom 20 play in four groups which advance to another group stage with the rest of the teams, which then advances to the final round of 10.

10 minutes ago, Obinna said:

Just thought of this:

There are 35 teams in CONCACAF, right?

Give the top 5 teams a buy

Then, split the remaining 30 teams into 5 groups of 6. Group winner advances only. 

That way, smaller caribbean nations get a run of games and a chance to improve and have something to play for, plus there is little risk of getting trounced 19-0 by Mexico or the USA.

Then, take those 5 group winners and put them in a 10 - team south American style qualifying process. USA gets to continue their love affair with Mexico. Teams like El Salvador, Guatemala and Canada get a chance and aren't out so early. 

He talked about mixing the UEFA and South American systems right?

There you go!!

The problem with this is that it means microscopic countries like the Cayman Islands or Anguilla might have to travel all the way to Canada or another very far away team, which is something they definitely couldn't afford. It would still be important for the really small countries to have a round where they get to play several games against the countries more their size first to improve both competitively and ranking-wise.

[Obinna]

@ZemWe would be the only travel date that is really far away and expensive, so only 1 team would have to deal with this, and for only 1 game. Perhaps CONCACAF could provide financial support in such one-off situations.

[Zem]

6 hours ago, Obinna said:

@ZemWe would be the only travel date that is really far away and expensive, so only 1 team would have to deal with this, and for only 1 game. Perhaps CONCACAF could provide financial support in such one-off situations.

The problem with the federation giving financial support is that, especially in CONCACAF, it brings up ethics issues and a lot of grey areas regarding when it's applicable and not. I feel like the federation would not approve a measure like that.

I would also note that having a 30-team stage with five teams getting the bye would be really bad for those five teams because they wouldn't play in qualifying at all for 1.5-2 years. To say nothing of the teams that just barely missed out on the top five seeding who then have to go through a vastly longer qualifying process.

 

Regardless, I think we can all agree that  the qualification play-offs and the hex need to be scrapped in favour of a qualifying system that consists entirely of groups and emphasizes teams playing a greater variety of opponents and playing more games over a longer period of time. CONCACAF is really complicated because we have two teams that expect to qualify every WC as well as a huge number of minnows, and I feel like it would be near-impossible to come up with a system that is a single round and also fair. A system that has every country involved by the second round is definitely needed, whether it's two or three rounds total.

[aloyol]

1 hour ago, Obinna said:

Just thought of this:

There are 35 teams in CONCACAF, right?

Give the top 5 teams a buy

Then, split the remaining 30 teams into 5 groups of 6. Group winner advances only. 

That way, smaller caribbean nations get a run of games and a chance to improve and have something to play for, plus there is little risk of getting trounced 19-0 by Mexico or the USA.

Then, take those 5 group winners and put them in a 10 - team south American style qualifying process. USA gets to continue their love affair with Mexico. Teams like El Salvador, Guatemala and Canada get a chance and aren't out so early. 

He talked about mixing the UEFA and South American systems right?

There you go!!

The problem I see with this is the group of 6 will, for the most part, be a walk in the park for the top teams and you might have a situation where a group has 2 strong teams (let say Canada and Guatemala) and the group stage will be a home and away serie between those 2 teams (because they will win easily all their games).

[Cheeta]

Open to change but I'm sure we are where we've been for years now out of necessity as much as any bias or corruption. 

I can't help but suspect quite a few of the smaller members (and there are lots of those) really don't have the financial resources to invest in a lengthy qualifying tournament. 

That has to be considered and I'm sure the matter has come up.  Now if CONCACRAP was responsible for reasonable minimal (and realistic) travel expenses for all the associations then the door is wide open to all sorts of alternatives.  I'm pretty sure Pres. M could find 20 Caribbean votes for something like that.

But then I don't know, maybe there is a program of sorts already in place.  

[Gian-Luca]

Hallelujah!! About 16 years too late, but I'll take it

[Rheo]

This is good news.  Curious to see what format they change to.  Apparently this is pretty big elsewhere.  Saw it on the front page of Yahoo from a Washington Post article.

[Addona]

2 hours ago, jpg75 said:

I was thinking: bottom 6 teams play home and way to trim to 32 teams. 8 groups of 4 with top 2 advancing. Remaining 16 are placed in 4 groups of 4 with top 2 qualifying to the Octagon (last 8).

Not sure why we moved away from the early group format from 2014 qualifying? It ensured a decent run of games for the smaller nations.

The issue the top teams will have with this is that they have to play 2 group stages just to get to the final 8.

A compromise:

Round 1: Teams 18-35 play home-and-away to trim to 26 teams from 35.

Round 2: Winners from Round 1 (9) join teams ranked 7-17 (11) to form 5 groups of 4, with top 2 advancing from each group.

Round 3: Ten advancing teams from Round 2 join teams ranked 1-6 to form 4 groups of 4, with top 2 advancing to the final 8.

[Free kick]

3 hours ago, Obinna said:

Just thought of this:

There are 35 teams in CONCACAF, right?

Give the top 5 teams a buy

Then, split the remaining 30 teams into 5 groups of 6. Group winner advances only. 

That way, smaller caribbean nations get a run of games and a chance to improve and have something to play for, plus there is little risk of getting trounced 19-0 by Mexico or the USA.

Then, take those 5 group winners and put them in a 10 - team south American style qualifying process. USA gets to continue their love affair with Mexico. Teams like El Salvador, Guatemala and Canada get a chance and aren't out so early. 

He talked about mixing the UEFA and South American systems right?

There you go!!

That might be worst than what we have now.  If thats even possible.   So five teams get bye and the rest have to slug it out in a do or die round robin where one trip up happens and your out.  And be subjected to the misfortunes of the draw.

But getting back to topic, i applaud these changes that Montagliani is proposing.    For as long as this forum existed we have had a situation whereby many concacaf teams have been eliminated from world cup qualifying before it even gets started in most parts of the world.  Or, canada has been already eliminated before most of the world even starts thinking about WCQ.  

What he said in that articles mirrors my thoughts and what i have been harping on since 2001.   Nationl teams need to play in order to get better. 

You just need to eliminate the hex and have the final round consist of the 12 teams that re currently in semi final round.  Keep it one group of 12 or two groups of six.

[jpg75]

18 minutes ago, Addona said:

The issue the top teams will have with this is that they have to play 2 group stages just to get to the final 8.

A compromise:

Round 1: Teams 18-35 play home-and-away to trim to 26 teams from 35.

Round 2: Winners from Round 1 (9) join teams ranked 7-17 (11) to form 5 groups of 4, with top 2 advancing from each group.

Round 3: Ten advancing teams from Round 2 join teams ranked 1-6 to form 4 groups of 4, with top 2 advancing to the final 8.

But this comes back to the same issue, the bottom teams (6 more in your format) are eliminated too quickly. Also, why should the top teams be exempt from playing early on in the process?

[Free kick]

19 minutes ago, jpg75 said:

But this comes back to the same issue, the bottom teams (6 more in your format) are eliminated too quickly. Also, why should the top teams be exempt from playing early on in the process?

Exactly. Thie objective should be to add meaningful games for those sides that want to play international matches.  Its incredible when you think about it but a typical WCQ for canada will consist of only three meaningfull home matches.  Thats it!  And thats the problem. 

As for those that dont (eg.:. The tiny island nations  that dont have the resources), thats what the prelim rounds should be for. 

[Addona]

11 minutes ago, jpg75 said:

But this comes back to the same issue, the bottom teams (6 more in your format) are eliminated too quickly. Also, why should the top teams be exempt from playing early on in the process?

I hear you, but there would be 16 teams in the penultimate round instead of 12, and 8 in the final round instead of 6. So, I think it would be a step in the right direction, no?

[jpg75]

7 minutes ago, Addona said:

I hear you, but there would be 16 teams in the penultimate round instead of 12, and 8 in the final round instead of 6. So, I think it would be a step in the right direction, no?

Agreed, but the same applies in my format with less minnows eliminated after 2 games.

[Moldy9]

5 hours ago, yomurphy1 said:

Why is that?

Probably because it negatively effects their chances for making the World Cup by having more teams in a group. 

[Moldy9]

Seriously why this is even an argument boggles me: federations like the ones in the Caribbean not able to "fly their team" to Canada? What, are they flying Air Canada??? If you can't pay your way to play you shouldn't be a federation simple as that.