The Road to Qatar.

[trc2014]

This is the most exciting news since I was biting my nails watching a fanless friendly with our C squad against Iceland in January.... I missed you guys.

[An Observer]

4 hours ago, VinceA said:

I'm very interested in how Suriname does. If they get even like 50% of their dual national targets they immediately become one of the better teams in CONCACAF.

 

Especially if our away match is against them

[An Observer]

4 hours ago, El Hombre said:

I know you're all moving on from this and I'm not sure where this all started and not really interested in going back through it all, but one thing you need to understand about this is the politicization of Covid "death rates".  Looking at the numbers directly attributed to Covid can be misleading due to where you are getting your numbers and what their message is.

The solution is to look at "excess death" (or "excess mortality") rates which compare how many people die around this time of year to the same in past years, regardless of cause.  In a "normal" year, it follows the same pattern however this year is different.  It is clear that Covid is having a significantly high impact on this where some countries are (or were prior to quarantine measures being taken) experiencing 25% to 50% more deaths per week than you would normally see at the same time any other year.  This is the Covid affect.

To compare it to the seasonal flu is inaccurate.  A particularly bad case of the seasonal flu doesn't account for a spike where twice as many people died in Ecuador in April than what is seen every other year.

This information is widely available.  I urge you to seek it out.

That’s a better statistic but it also shows that the you are now having significantly less deaths in countries that have this under control which likely means that people who likely were going to die anyway just died a bit earlier.  What a better measure will be to understand in a year or two how many people died in 2020 and 2021 and from what compared to previous years. 

[CanadianSoccerFan]

30 minutes ago, Obinna said:

 

They didn't mysteriously show up in the top 6, they were there on merit, using the same points system as everyone else.

 

I don't want to get into the nuances of said "points system" but it excessively rewarded them for racking up 5 wins against League B minnows with the maximum allowable ranking multiplier.  They got 6-8 points each for beating minnows while Canada, Panama, and Curacao were heavily punished for losses to the US, Mexico, and Costa Rica.    

 

[grigorio]

2 hours ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

 

 

Vic says teams will be free to play with fans as long as it is permitted by their local authorities.  He calls it a "domestic decision".

Says they have contingencies in place if Covid strikes in the fall.

 

Given Honduras declares national fucking holidays for important matches methinks we play in a packed San Pedro Sula and Azteca away and home to an empty BMO. 

Edited July 28, 2020 by grigorio

[Mikmacdo]

15 minutes ago, An Observer said:

Especially if our away match is against them

Wow they have a really solid roster, similar to curucau. 

[A Different Perspective]

9 minutes ago, Mikmacdo said:

Wow they have a really solid roster, similar to curucau. 

 

26 minutes ago, An Observer said:

Especially if our away match is against them

If reading the other posters are correct, if we were drawn with Suriname because of their relatively high Concacaf ranking, we would play them at HOME.    We would be playing the lower ranked Concacaf teams  such as the likes of Cayman Islands or Dominica AWAY.

[Toronto Ruffrider]

Just saw the revised format - I love it. This is infinitely better than the previous format - there is no clear demarcation in skill level between the sixth-best team in CONCACAF and lower-ranked teams, so the reward for being ranked sixth should not be as colossal as it was going to be in this cycle of qualifying. I just hope that for future qualifying cycles, CONCACAF keeps something like this new format rather than reverting to the old "have vs. have-not" qualifying groups.

To the Salvadoran supporters, that's tough luck. I understand why they would be peeved, but realistically they've done nothing to warrant being lumped into the same group as Mexico, USA, Costa Rica, Honduras and Jamaica. El Salvador hasn't been one of the tougher teams in Central America for a long time, so it's fitting that this country has to earn its way through, just like Canada, Panama, Haiti or Trinidad and Tobago, have to do.

As for our forecast match-up against Haiti, bring it on. It left a bad taste in my mouth when we fell apart against Haiti in the Gold Cup, and we're getting a chance at atonement. Besides, as others have pointed out, if we can't beat a nation like Haiti in a two-game playoff, we don't deserve to go to the World Cup anyway.

 

[jtpc]

I'm looking forward to the draw on August 14th to see who else will be in Group B with us.

Knowing that the winner of our group faces the winner of group E to get to the octagonal, I think I'll hope that Suriname and Guatemala don't get Group B or E during the pot 2 allocation.

Someone posted upthread that our first round home matches will be against the country we get from pot 2 and 3, while our 2 away matches will be against the country we get from pot 4 and 5. In a time of normal travel, I would be hoping that Montserrat was drawn into our group since they're a pot 4 team and that would be an away match for us (even though they're much better than their ranking indicates). From watching the Nations League matches online, the view from their stadium is absolutely incredible, so that would make for a fantastic away trip.

Edited July 28, 2020 by jtpc

[SpursFlu]

As far as I can tell it basically boils down to this. Randomly being drawn against one of the following 

Antigua, Guatemala, StKitts, Suriname, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic

Then beating Haiti home and away

[kacbru]

50 minutes ago, grigorio said:

Says they have contingencies in place if Covid strikes in the fall.

Umm...Vic might want to look out the Concacaf office window at the daily infection rates across Concacaf countries.  Talking as if Covid might come back?  It never left.

[canadasoccer20]

6 hours ago, baulderdash77 said:

It’s really one of the only viable ways to get to a final 8 in the windows that are available.

Our Group 1b will be a walk through where we probably beat all the teams by 3+ goals.

Then a 1 on 1 match vs Haiti.  I think we will win a 2 game aggregate.

The 8 team home and away round 3 is pretty exciting.  It’s really the best thing we could get- a straight match where the top 4 teams move on.  
 

I’m not seeing a lot of downside for us.

i agree. I see this situation as a good bounce for us. I like we get to play Haiti too after the 2nd half of the 2019 Gold Cup... 

[Strait Red]

 

[Free kick]

5 hours ago, nfitz said:

This is absolutely not true. Stop spreading dangerous lies. Somehow you seem to assume that Covid is massively under-reported to health authorities ... but flu isn't. I've had flu 2 or 3 times ... I was in hospital the last time, and as it was already weeks past any contagious-like symptoms, they didn't even bother to test for it (I was having some post-flu blood pressure issue). I didn't even go to the doctor the previous times. If anything, flu is even more under-reported than Covid.

It's been widely reported that flu is more contagious than this strain of Coronavirus.

And it's been widely reported that in many places, that the deaths from Covid in just 4 months exceed the number of flu deaths a year.

With those two pieces of information alone, it's blatantly obvious that Covid is more fatal than the flu. Let alone all the experts ...

To come here with outrageous lies, is tantamount to terrorism and assult.

 

Oh come on!    Seriously?  Those bolded words are grossly over the top and have no place on a public discussion.   So you are saying there shoud be no discussion at all,  no debate.   We should accept what we are told in the “widely reported” mediums.    Thats that and anything counter to that is terrorism and harmfull.  That sounds pretty totalitarian.  The very definition of extremism.  Just like in the US these days with Trump.   What if its wrong?  what if in five years from now a new studies come out that paint a differnt picture,  would those ever emerge if we cannot have thise discussions today.  
 

Just  because one doesnt agree with someone’s views, unless its racist or obsene (According to the laws and/or norms) you cant and should not censure it or call it terrorism.  I dont know what the true numbers and how they stack up in relation to previous years.   Like everyone i have read the media reports from varius sources and dont think anybody has any kind true picture and we proably never will.  There seems to be a consensus around the fact that this virus is worst than the past virus’s.  Fair enough.    I found this thread and those discssions thought provoking from both sides.  But i guess thats bad according to you.
 

The question is how much can the economy take of this.   And are the measures taken worth the economic costs.   As Andrew cuomo put it, how much is a life worth?   The ecomony was shut for one reason only. And thats to protect the health care system.   thats a fact!   How much more should we take of this?  For what? 0.2 or 0.4 or 0.3 whatever number it is.  The numbers  are all relative.  Question is:  Is the relative number worth the cost?   And how long should the shutdown last?  There is no right or wrong answer to that but one can and should have an opinion.   Its not just our hobbies like soccer that are disrupted,  it many other things in life.   Should we not have that discussion?   Or should it be that XyZ media outlet says this, therefore we must accpt and comply.  Anything other is terrorism.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Free kick

[grigorio]

Y'know this is all exciting news, but it's also likely not going to play out remotely as we may expect it to. The obvious factors that are gonna make this a mess:

• Wildly different country quarantine and border rules (aka the Jays)
• Wildly different player thresholds for safety and risk (aka the Whitecaps). Or if we had a game scheduled for a hotbed like Mexico. 
• On top of that, not only quarantine to get into a country but to get back to the player's original country
• The time commitments involved in pre-camp quarantine, and post-match re-entry quarantines
• Uncontrolled air travel environments for travelling players. We're not chartering jets to fly guys around safely. 

Sure seems that most federal governments (rightfully) don't give a rat's ass about accommodating sports scenarios right now. 

Do we anticipate that Bayern Munich is going to be fond of Phonzie going to let's say the Dominican Republic? Likely sketchy "bubbles" if any, so there's the very real risk of contracting something plus surely Germany has some re-entry quarantines. It would be a multi-week or month long commitment once you factor in camp, pre-match quarantine, post-match quarantine upon re-entry... And presumably this will be the case for all of WCQ. 

So, who's playing?

Edited July 28, 2020 by grigorio

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

3 minutes ago, jtpc said:

Someone posted upthread that our first round home matches will be against the country we get from pot 2 and 3, while our 2 away matches will be against the country we get from pot 4 and 5. 

This is what Mr. Chip claims in the YouTube video of his analysis posted by @xabuep2 ; I haven't been able to find an official source on this though.

He also claims that we will play our hardest opponent at home on the last day; so November 17th(possibly November 18th) we would host one of Antigua & Barbuda / Guatemala / St. Kitts & Nevis / Suriname / Nicaragua / Dominican Republic. (The team from pot "B")

However, Mr. Chip,  in his interview with Philippe Moggio (General Secretary of CONCACAF) does get Philippe to confirm there will be some kind of hosting advantage to being the top seeds of the group with regards to hosting @18min22secs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvSST1qaNwQ

so things could look more like:

Matchday #1
B vs D
C vs E
(Canada doesn't play)

Matchday #2
Canada vs C
D vs E
(B doesn't play)

Matchday #3
E vs Canada
B vs C
(D doesn't play)

Matchday #4
D vs Canada
E vs B
(C doesn't play)

Matchday #5
Canada vs B
C vs D
(E doesn't play)

The problem still remains, how will they fit 5 matchdays into 4 dates? Will October host 3 games? Or will November host 3 games?

------

Also, I would tell people to stop talking about COVID19 outside of the context of footballing decisions, but this thread was started by Binky (Robert), so it was bound to be a shitshow anyways....

 

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

2 minutes ago, grigorio said:

The obvious factors that are gonna make this a mess:

• Wildly different country quarantine and border rules (aka the Jays)
• Wildly different player thresholds for safety and risk (aka the Whitecaps). Or if we had a game scheduled for a hotbed like Mexico. 
• On top of that, not only quarantine to get into a country but to get back to the player's original country
• The time commitments involved in pre-camp quarantine, and post-match re-entry quarantines

 

This! I don't see this playing out as smoothly as CONCACAF thinks it will. All with 3 matchdays crammed into one FIFA window; I'm a skeptic.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

12 minutes ago, Strait Red said:

 

This is only partially accurate.  There is a guaranteed 6 with a possibility of 2 more through a playoff. This is in official FIFA documentation. 

Vic could've clarified a little better when he spoke so I'm not surprised they're taking it the wrong way.  He was clearly trying to say we need to raise the level of all teams if we're going to get the maximum number of CONCACAF teams qualified which is indeed 8.

 

[Kyle_The_Hill]

1 hour ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

I don't want to get into the nuances of said "points system" but it excessively rewarded them for racking up 5 wins against League B minnows with the maximum allowable ranking multiplier.  They got 6-8 points each for beating minnows while Canada, Panama, and Curacao were heavily punished for losses to the US, Mexico, and Costa Rica.    

Heavily pushed is pretty harsh. We dropped 8 ranking points with our loss to the US, whereas we gained 17 with our win against them. El Salvador lost 20 points with their defeat to Dominican Republic and only gained 5 with a win in the return leg.

To the larger picture. I think their supporters have a right to be upset, however, I can take off my Canadian tinted glasses and clearly see the change in format was justified and they have no real argument that they should be part of the bye nations.

[xabuep2]

7 minutes ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

This is what Mr. Chip claims in the YouTube video of his analysis posted by @xabuep2 ; I haven't been able to find an official source on this though.

He also claims that we will play our hardest opponent at home on the last day; so November 17th(possibly November 18th) we would host one of Antigua & Barbuda / Guatemala / St. Kitts & Nevis / Suriname / Nicaragua / Dominican Republic. (The team from pot "B")

However, Mr. Chip,  in his interview with Philippe Moggio (General Secretary of CONCACAF) does get Philippe to confirm there will be some kind of hosting advantage to being the top seeds of the group with regards to hosting @18min22secs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvSST1qaNwQ

so things could look more like:

Matchday #1
B vs D
C vs E
(Canada doesn't play)

Matchday #2
Canada vs C
D vs E
(B doesn't play)

Matchday #3
E vs Canada
B vs C
(D doesn't play)

Matchday #4
D vs Canada
E vs B
(C doesn't play)

Matchday #5
Canada vs B
C vs D
(E doesn't play)

The problem still remains, how will they fit 5 matchdays into 4 dates? Will October host 3 games? Or will November host 3 games?

------

Also, I would tell people to stop talking about COVID19 outside of the context of footballing decisions, but this thread was started by Binky (Robert), so it was bound to be a shitshow anyways....

 

@Olympique_de_Marseille For being a pentagonal, 10 games will be played. 5 games between October 5-13 and 5 games between November 9-17. (In the capture of the Mr Chip graph it appears in the lower left)

[Kyle_The_Hill]

13 minutes ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

This is what Mr. Chip claims in the YouTube video of his analysis posted by @xabuep2 ; I haven't been able to find an official source on this though.

I also was wondering about the source of his extra graph that doesn't appear on the Concacaf website. I don't see how the #1 seed hosting both the #2 and #3 is fair. Under that format, the #1 seed is going to come out of the group every-time.

I would assume they are going to do it like Nations League qualifying: #1 Seed at home vs #2, #4. #1 Seed away vs #3, #5

[RS]

53 minutes ago, kacbru said:

Umm...Vic might want to look out the Concacaf office window at the daily infection rates across Concacaf countries.  Talking as if Covid might come back?  It never left.

He was on the MLS broadcast tonight, and they said he was in Vancouver.

Smart man 🤣

[xabuep2]

Sorry about the quality. It is a capture pic of the video of Mr Chip

Edited July 28, 2020 by xabuep2

[Obinna]

28 minutes ago, Free kick said:

Oh come on!    Seriously?  Those bolded words are grossly over the top and have no place on a public discussion.   So you are saying there shoud be no discussion at all,  no debate.   We should accept what we are told in the widely reported mediums.    Thats that and anything counter to that is terrorism and harmfull.  That sounds pretty totalitarian.  The very definition of extremism.  Just like in the US these days with Trump.   What if its wrong?  what if in five years from now a new studies come out that poaint a differnt picture,  would those ever emerge if we cannot have thise discussions today.  
 

Just  because one doesnt agree with someone’s views, unless its racist or obsene (According to the laws and/or norms) you cant and should not censure it or call it terrorism.  I dont know what the true numbers and how they stack up in relation to previous years.   Like everyone i have i read the media reports from Various sources and dont think anybody has any kind true picture and we proably never will.  There seems to be a consensus around the fact that this virus is worst than the past virus’s.  Fair enough.    I found this thread and those discssions thought provoking from both sides.  But i guess thats bad according to you.
 

The question is how much can the economy take of this.   And are the measures taken worth the economic costs.   As Andrew cuomo put it, how much is a life worth?   The ecomony was shut for one reason only. And thats to protect the health care system.   thats a fact!   How much more should we take of this?  For what? 0.2 or 0.4 or 0.3 what number number it is.  Is it worth cost?   Its not just our hobbies like soccer that are disrupted,  it many other things in life.   Should we not have that discussion?   Or should it be that XyZ media outlet says this, therefore we must accpt and comply.  Anything other is terrorism.

Thanks a lot man. I really appreciate you calling this out. It was way out of bounds, even for this forum. Respect.

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

1 minute ago, xabuep2 said:

@Olympique_de_Marseille For being a pentagonal, 10 games will be played. 5 games between October 5-13 and 5 games between November 9-17. (In the capture of the Mr Chip graph it appears in the lower left)

 Yes, @xabuep2  but that graph doesn't show up anywhere else except Mr. Chips video. It's not on CONCACAF's website!

 https://content.invisioncic.com/l286123/monthly_2020_07/image.png.778ed570807b37e15576f5aa96b1b850.png

Let's assume it is correct, because it is a good way of fitting 10 matches for 5 teams into 2 FIFA windows; nobody faces the prospect of playing 3 matches in one month and only one match in the other.

For Canada that means:
Thursday, October 8th: Pot #4 team vs Canada
Sunday, October 11th: Canada vs Pot #3 team

Saturday, November 14th: Pot #5 team vs Canada
Tuesday, November 17th: Canada vs Pot #2 team

In regular times this would work well. With restricted travel and quarantines...I'm not so sure.