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The Road to Qatar.


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6 minutes ago, narduch said:

Will we even be able to call in our Euro based players?

This was my next question lol. I’m going to assume if we hold the game in Florida for example it will be no problem calling them. Also, Bermuda lose out on Wells playing so it would hurt them worse since we now have a decent domestic squad to choose from. 

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It would be extremely embarrassing for Canada not to host a World Cup Qualifier.

But to then turn around and host it in a jurisdiction (Florida) with reportedly more cases of coronavirus than anywhere in Canada? I can't even find the right word to describe how incredibly stupid that would be...

And I don't necessarily blame the CSA here. All of this uncertainty must be incredibly frustrating for them. 

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1 hour ago, Alex said:

This was my next question lol. I’m going to assume if we hold the game in Florida for example it will be no problem calling them. Also, Bermuda lose out on Wells playing so it would hurt them worse since we now have a decent domestic squad to choose from. 

I don’t know if I’d agree that it hurts them worse. We’d miss out on Arfield, Eustaquio, Hutch, Larin, Davies, David, and many more. If only UK players are not allowed though, that would probably benefit us. 
 

Edit: I mostly replied based on your assertion that they’d be hurt more than us because they’d lose Nakhi Wells. They’d also lose about half of their other players in the squad too though, so I could see the case being made that it hurts them worse

Edited by archer21
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11 minutes ago, Obinna said:

It would be extremely embarrassing for Canada not to host a World Cup Qualifier.

But to then turn around and host it in a jurisdiction (Florida) with reportedly more cases of coronavirus than anywhere in Canada? I can't even find the right word to describe how incredibly stupid that would be...

And I don't necessarily blame the CSA here. All of this uncertainty must be incredibly frustrating for them. 

It would be embarrassing... in a normal year. I agree the CSA has zero blame if we don’t play at home. I really just don’t think the government cares, and unfortunately a lot of other people feel the same way. 
 

Can anyone cite a case recently where any sports team or any event has occurred in Canada that brought in people from other countries that didn’t have a 2 week quarantine? I can’t. I really hope I’m wrong but my guess is we won’t see a home game until June. 

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1 minute ago, Alex said:

It would be embarrassing... in a normal year. I agree the CSA has zero blame if we don’t play at home. I really just don’t think the government cares, and unfortunately a lot of other people feel the same way. 
 

Can anyone cite a case recently where any sports team or any event has occurred in Canada that brought in people from other countries that didn’t have a 2 week quarantine? I can’t. I really hope I’m wrong but my guess is we won’t see a home game until June. 

Hate to say it but I think you're right on that. 

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25 minutes ago, Obinna said:

It would be extremely embarrassing for Canada not to host a World Cup Qualifier.

But to then turn around and host it in a jurisdiction (Florida) with reportedly more cases of coronavirus than anywhere in Canada? I can't even find the right word to describe how incredibly stupid that would be...

And I don't necessarily blame the CSA here. All of this uncertainty must be incredibly frustrating for them. 

I think if it gets to that point where players can't travel to the games and they can't be held in the host countries it will end up getting canceled again.

People need to start facing that reality.

Just from a purely sporting sense, we should not accept that teams should be without important players due to travel and quarantine rules from different nations. 

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11 minutes ago, archer21 said:

I don’t know if I’d agree that it hurts them worse. We’d miss out on Arfield, Eustaquio, Hutch, Larin, Davies, David, and many more. If only UK players are not allowed though, that would probably benefit us. 
 

Edit: I mostly replied based on your assertion that they’d be hurt more than us because they’d lose Nakhi Wells. They’d also lose about half of their other players in the squad too though, so I could see the case being made that it hurts them worse

I mean the way I see it is the best  chance they would have of beating us is by playing with their best squad. 

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1 hour ago, Alex said:

It would be embarrassing... in a normal year. I agree the CSA has zero blame if we don’t play at home. I really just don’t think the government cares, and unfortunately a lot of other people feel the same way. 
 

Can anyone cite a case recently where any sports team or any event has occurred in Canada that brought in people from other countries that didn’t have a 2 week quarantine? I can’t. I really hope I’m wrong but my guess is we won’t see a home game until June. 

The NHL Training camp after Christmas in Canada only required a 7 day quarantine but now it's back up to 14 days.

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The way the US' vaccine roll out is going by end of March they are probably going to be one of the better locations on the planet to host a game. Canada is too slow with vaccinations and travel restrictions and quarantine expectations will still be in place. I bet our home games are in Florida. Herdman won't want the headache of trying to sort out the ins and outs of playing in Canada. He's tried Florida, it works, that's where they will play. 

 I also would imagine that our top players in Europe will be vaccinated (if they aren't already) by then. Can't tell me that the clubs haven't made side deals to get vaccines for their players. money talks. 

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It would be interesting to know what CONCACAF is considering for a contingency plan. It might be a bit different if there were more windows available and say only 2 or 3 countries per group were supposed to have a "home" match in March, but all 5 countries in each group are supposed to have one. 30 countries total. 6 centralized locations with a group in each one seems like the way to go at this point.

Just out of interest, I decided to go back to the start of the 2018 WCQ campaign, and see who the Group A to F seeded teams would have been if this year's format had existed then. The 2018 WCQ campaign used the FIFA rankings from August 2014, so we are talking 6 and a half years ago, but it's still really interesting.

The 5 countries who would have automatically qualified for the octagonal:

Costa Rica (ranked 1st in the region), Mexico, USA, Honduras, and Panama

The next 6 who would have been assigned the top seed in each group from A to F:

Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Haiti, Canada, Cuba, and Aruba

I wasn't expecting to see Cuba and Aruba ranked 10th and 11th in the region. Quite the drop for Aruba from then until now. Ranked 11th in 2014 and now they are the pot 5 team in our group (ranked 31st out of 35 in the region).

 

Edited by jtpc
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I think the goal is to have the home and away crossover match in home stadiums(June) The back up plan would be another centralized location or 1 venue back to back. If our government hasnt returned things back to normal by next fall when the Hex rolls around.. well who gives a hex about a hex at that point. God save us

Edited by SpursFlu
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21 minutes ago, jtpc said:

It would be interesting to know what CONCACAF is considering for a contingency plan. It might be a bit different if there were more windows available and say only 2 or 3 countries per group were supposed to have a "home" match in March, but all 5 countries in each group are supposed to have one. 30 countries total. 6 centralized locations with a group in each one seems like the way to go at this point.

Just out of interest, I decided to go back to the start of the 2018 WCQ campaign, and see who the Group A to F seeded teams would have been if this year's format had existed then. The 2018 WCQ campaign used the FIFA rankings from August 2014, so we are talking 6 and a half years ago, but it's still kind of interesting.

The 5 countries who would have directly advanced to the octagonal: Costa Rica (ranked 1st in the region), Mexico, USA, Honduras, and Panama.

The next 6 who would have been assigned the top seed in each group from A to F: Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Haiti, Canada, Cuba, and Aruba. I was shocked to see Cuba and Aruba ranked 10th and 11th in the region. What a reversal of fortunes for Aruba. Ranked 11th in 2014 and now they are the pot 5 team in our group (ranked 31st out of 35 in the region).

 

Our March 28 opponent, Cayman Islands, currently requires a 2-week quarantine for incoming visitors.

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48 minutes ago, narduch said:

Our March 28 opponent, Cayman Islands, currently requires a 2-week quarantine for incoming visitors.

Canada also requires a 2-week quarantine for our March 24th game, theoretically in Canada against Bermuda. And $2,000 a person for hotel quarantine while they await test results. So that's $40,000 right there for any visiting team. Do Bermuda and Suriname have that type of budget?

All moot of course, as clearly we won't be playing in either the Caymans or Canada in March.

Unless they can get everyone to a neutral site like Florida, I'd think that they delay this until June, and cancel Gold Cup, or change the qualifying system again. Perhaps just put the top 8 teams in the Octagon to start in September - by which times vaccines should make the whole thing doable.

Edited by nfitz
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41 minutes ago, nfitz said:

Canada also requires a 2-week quarantine for our March 24th game, theoretically in Canada against Bermuda. And $2,000 a person for hotel quarantine while they await test results. So that's $40,000 right there for any visiting team. Do Bermuda and Suriname have that type of budget?

All moot of course, as clearly we won't be playing in either the Caymans or Canada in March.

Unless they can get everyone to a neutral site like Florida, I'd think that they delay this until June, and cancel Gold Cup, or change the qualifying system again. Perhaps just put the top 8 teams in the Octagon to start in September - by which times vaccines should make the whole thing doable.

Maybe with Jin Jiang getting their beak wet off the situation in Canada perhaps they'll start letting more people come and go if they're willing to pay up the 2 geez

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