The Road to Qatar.

[Addona]

1 hour ago, Kent said:

The last little while has really convinced me (or rather, cemented my belief) that the hex is the better path to the World Cup. The region seems to be getting more competitive, or maybe Nations League is just highlighting it.

Lets say El Salvador takes the 6th spot and the top 5 remains unchanged. That means Canada, Curaçao, Panama, and Haiti (not to mention teams like T&T and Guatemala) will all be vying for that playoff against the 4th place hex team. That is 4 really solid teams, seemingly about as good as everyone in the hex with the exception of Mexico.

Exactly!!!  That has been my contention all along ... Panama, Curacao, Canada, and Haiti are no different that ES, Jamaica, Honduras, maybe even CR ...

 

[Kent]

1 hour ago, costarg said:

If they all started on even footing today, i believe Curacao and Canada are the strongest of the teams you mention, also sounds like a really fun tournament to watch! 

Once we factor in CONCACAF refs, no VAR, and all that, i agree that i'd rather not play that tournament if high stakes are involved.  However, if we're worried about playing those 6 teams, why exactly are we looking to go to the World Cup?  Maybe we're better off having fun with Nations League and be done with it. 

Its an awful long drive to the restaurant just to see it if you can't afford and enjoy a drink, meal and dessert once you arrive.  I feel we can out play these guys, just depends on if CONCACAF can give us a fair and even playing field.

I’m not saying I am particularly worried about those 6 teams, I am saying I don’t think there is much difference between those 4 and 4 of the 5 teams we would meet if we were to play in the hex. So I’d rather go for the tournament where 50% of the teams make it to the World Cup and one more out of the rest gets the same reward as the champion of the 7-35 tournament.

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

7 hours ago, Kent said:

That means Canada, Curaçao, Panama, and Haiti (not to mention teams like T&T and Guatemala) will all be vying for that playoff against the 4th place hex team. That is 4 really solid teams, seemingly about as good as everyone in the hex with the exception of Mexico.

And then possibly a South American team or at least another half decent one. 

Even if you are demonstrably the better team, it does not mean you are going to win a playoff, even a two legged-one, every time (Or else Spurs would not have made the Champions League final.)

6 hours ago, costarg said:

However, if we're worried about playing those 6 teams, why exactly are we looking to go to the World Cup?  Maybe we're better off having fun with Nations League and be done with it. 

We might be going to the World Cup in 7 years without qualifying by any kind of merit.  I will still take that experience, every day of the week.  You maximize your chance of getting to the big show and then do your best to show your talent when you are there. For me, the maximum chance  is the Hex.  You need to be better than 3 of 5 beatable teams (from what I have seen the last few windows) over 10 games.  That is better than 4 playoff rounds even if some of the opponents are supposed to be weaker. 

[narduch]

New FIFA rankings out. Up to 69th. 6th in Concacaf.

[PopePouri]

Nice.

[dyslexic nam]

Now just to hold it...

[Kyle_The_Hill]

Projected rankings if all the nations around us win out and we draw USA

[Club Linesman]

Well I guess we better kick their asses in November.

[jtpc]

As of today's update:

5. Honduras 1368
6. Canada 1339
7. El Salvador 1336
8. Curacao 1323
9. Panama 1310

If ELO is accurate, Panama's friendly on November 6th has been deleted. It's nice to know that with a draw or a win in Orlando, we would have 2 more matches as the Group A winner, either a semi-final and a final or a semi-final and the 3rd place match. El Salvador definitely won't have that, and Panama most likely won't (never say never with CONCACAF). 😉

 

[Floortom]

14 minutes ago, Kyle_The_Hill said:

Projected rankings if all the nations around us win out and we draw USA

Crazy. But the draw would advance us to two more  Nations League semis where big points would be up for grabs.

i would be stoked with a draw against the US

[CanadianSoccerFan]

Jamaica passed Costa Rica...

 

[CanadaFan123]

17 minutes ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

Jamaica passed Costa Rica...

 

In 11 games this year Costa Rica has 4 wins, 2 draws, 5 losses (including to Haiti and Guatemala).. pretty rough year for them.  

[Kyle_The_Hill]

Sorry forgot the include the Panama friendly being changed from UAE to Bolivia and the El Salvador Bolivia friendly. Here it is again, this time if we lose to USA

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

1 hour ago, Floortom said:

Crazy. But the draw would advance us to two more  Nations League semis where big points would be up for grabs.

i would be stoked with a draw against the US

So in June we will able to gain 2.5x the points as a base of anything El Salvador can schedule, and will have zero risk of losing points.  We don't get to pick our opponent though and good chance that if we do well, one game will be against Mexico.  Probably not in the semi finals, though it might be down to goal difference in their last 2 group games vs Honduras' last 2.  We are ranked first at the moment, but only have one game against a tougher opponent than either of them. 

If we beat Curacao in those playoffs (assuming they get there) we can stop them gaining points as well. 

We still need to schedule well in March, get Costa Rica before their rankings drop too much, and some big name overrated team for a game at home (the States free again?) 

Edited October 24, 2019 by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[Kent]

Here is the same data I gave before the last window, for nations league games for the November window. Feel free to ignore the We column again.

	We	Win	Draw	Loss
Canada v USA	0.3245390261	16.88652435	4.386524348	-8.113475652
Honduras vs T&T	0.64447363	8.88815925	-3.61184075	-16.11184075
El Salvador vs Montserrat	0.836306278	4.09234305	-8.40765695	-20.90765695
El Salvador vs Dominican Republic	0.7569338026	6.076654934	-6.423345066	-18.92334507
Curacao vs Costa Rica	0.3932542416	15.16864396	2.668643959	-9.831356041
Panama vs Mexico	0.2381578901	19.04605275	6.546052748	-5.953947252

Edited October 24, 2019 by Kent

[Zem]

1 hour ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

Jamaica passed Costa Rica...

 

That really shouldn't be surprising given the two teams' recent results. Jamaica made the semi-finals in the Gold Cup for the third year in a row and have utterly dominated their group in League B. Costa Rica barely made it out of their group at the GC and could only manage draws against Curacao and Haiti in Nations League.

[Kent]

P.S. In the best case scenario, if we beat USA and Honduras loses to T&T, we would actually pass Honduras by a couple points.

[Kyle_The_Hill]

4 hours ago, Kent said:

Here is the same data I gave before the last window, for nations league games for the November window. Feel free to ignore the We column again.

	We	Win	Draw	Loss
Canada v USA	0.3245390261	16.88652435	4.386524348	-8.113475652
Honduras vs T&T	0.64447363	8.88815925	-3.61184075	-16.11184075
El Salvador vs Montserrat	0.836306278	4.09234305	-8.40765695	-20.90765695
El Salvador vs Dominican Republic	0.7569338026	6.076654934	-6.423345066	-18.92334507
Curacao vs Costa Rica	0.3932542416	15.16864396	2.668643959	-9.831356041
Panama vs Mexico	0.2381578901	19.04605275	6.546052748	-5.953947252

Hey Kent, your decimals are a bit off. This site has, I believe, calculated all nations points totals correctly since the format change. He provided his spreadsheet in this post http://www.football-rankings.info/2019/09/fifa-ranking-october-2019-preview.html

[apbsmith]

Getting a result in the USA is massive. 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

13 hours ago, Kyle_The_Hill said:

Hey Kent, your decimals are a bit off. This site has, I believe, calculated all nations points totals correctly since the format change. He provided his spreadsheet in this post http://www.football-rankings.info/2019/09/fifa-ranking-october-2019-preview.html

It just comes from the fact that they recalculate after every game, so the difference in points that form the basis of the equation are going to be different, slightly.

This site used to have the wrong multiplier for the Nations League games but has corrected that and is also helpful.  You can go back and look at old matches and look ahead.  

http://www.football-ranking.com/top20

Look who is in their top 20 movers 

Edited October 25, 2019 by WestHamCanadianinOxford

[Kent]

21 hours ago, Kyle_The_Hill said:

Hey Kent, your decimals are a bit off. This site has, I believe, calculated all nations points totals correctly since the format change. He provided his spreadsheet in this post http://www.football-rankings.info/2019/09/fifa-ranking-october-2019-preview.html

I didn't find the calculations on that site you are referring to, but basically my numbers won't be perfect for 2 reasons. One is what WestHamCanadianinOxford mentioned, I don't recalculate the points after game 1 of a window to see what difference it would make for the next game, because it is very minimal (and it would greatly increase the amount of data in my little chart because I would have to do every combination of result). The other thing is because I don't know the true point values for each team. FIFA just shows the full numbers. For example, I can't tell if 1326 points means the team has 1325.8 points or 1326.4 points.

For those reasons I can't know exactly what the point value will be after a given result. At best I can give a 2 point range.

[jtpc]

I think this is how the rankings look currently in the race for 6th. Even though I'm still bummed out this morning about the game last night, we're still in the hunt for 6th as we're 18 ahead of Curacao and 27 ahead of Panama. If El Salvador wins both matches this window, I think we'd be 15 points behind them:

6. El Salvador 1336 (could be 1346 if they win both)
7. CanMNT 1331
8. Curacao 1313
9. Panama 1304

It's been interesting to see how the whole qualifying procedure has worked out. I know Jamaica and El Salvador were ahead of us anyway in the rankings before the Nations League began, but it still feels strange that they're in a better position for the Hex (Jamaica is in) and neither one qualified for League A.

We'll see where El Salvador is after this window, but since you earn so few points for friendlies, I think it will be tough if they're 15 points ahead of us. If we play more competitive teams to try and earn 4 points per match, their approach might be to guarantee a few points by playing weaker opponents to get them 2 points. In a scenario like that, we only gain 2 points on them per match even if we're 100% successful. Hopefully Montserrat or Dominican Republic can obtain a draw in El Salvador today or Tuesday.

I wish we knew the intercontinental playoff draw opponent for CONCACAF. You could definitely find a silver lining in the 7-35 qualification side if you knew the eventual opponent at the end would be Oceania or Asia.

Edited November 16, 2019 by jtpc

[RJB]

This has to be the worst WCQ format ever. Honestly, has there ever been one that was so lopsided?  
 

We havent done enough to make the hex, that’s just the way it is.  We’re flirting with this idea that we are a upper team in CONCACAF but the fact is that our results say otherwise.  I like our chances vs the bottom teams in the region, but our beat case scenario was always going to be the intercontinental playoff. 

[Footscray]

42 minutes ago, jtpc said:

I think this is how the rankings look currently in the race for 6th. Even though I'm still bummed out this morning about the game last night, we're still in the hunt for 6th as we're 18 ahead of Curacao and 27 ahead of Panama. If El Salvador wins both matches this window, I think we'd be 15 points behind them:

6. El Salvador 1336 (could be 1346 if they win both)
7. CanMNT 1331
8. Curacao 1313
9. Panama 1304

It's been interesting to see how the whole qualifying procedure has worked out. I know Jamaica and El Salvador were ahead of us anyway in the rankings before the Nations League began, but it still feels strange that they're in a better position for the Hex (Jamaica is in) and neither one qualified for League A.

We'll see where El Salvador is after this window, but since you earn so few points for friendlies, I think it will be tough if they're 15 points ahead of us. If we play more competitive teams to try and earn 4 points per match, their approach might be to guarantee a few points by playing weaker opponents to get them 2 points. In a scenario like that, we only gain 2 points on them per match even if we're 100% successful. Hopefully Montserrat or Dominican Republic can obtain a draw in El Salvador today or Tuesday.

I wish we knew the intercontinental playoff draw opponent for CONCACAF. You could definitely find a silver lining in the 7-35 qualification side if you knew the eventual opponent at the end would be Oceania or Asia.

This is good info... because I am sure I will be following until the fat lady inevitably sings.

Seems like they are getting about 5 points a win but how many pts would ES lose if they drop a game?

What about a tie?

Wondering if an ES loss would put Canada back in the driver's seat and how a tie would impact things.  

They have to be favourites but I dont see an upset as completely out of the question.

[Blackdude]

3 minutes ago, Footscray said:

This is good info... because I am sure I will be following until the fat lady inevitably sings.

Seems like they are getting about 5 points a win but how many pts would ES lose if they drop a game?

What about a tie?

Wondering if an ES loss would put Canada back in the driver's seat and how a tie would impact things.  

They have to be favourites but I dont see an upset as completely out of the question.

From the Montserrat match:

A loss would make them lose close to 21 points and a draw almost 8.5 points.  A win would give them  around 4 points. I haven't checked the Dominican Republic match, but it would be a bit less since DR has a higher ranking.