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The Road to Qatar.


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7 minutes ago, Strait Red said:

For those of you not old enough to watch it live in 1986, I noticed today that TSN will be showing Canada’s 3 games from World Cup 1986.

TSN 5

June 8

11 am Eastern - vs. France

1 pm Eastern - vs. Hungary 

3 pm Eastern - vs. USSR

I'm definitely old enough to have watched and still have them recorded on VHS lol but thanks for info. Will watch and record again.

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8 hours ago, TGAA_Star said:

Yeah all right you guys manage to beat USA in Toronto when one of their best defenders Sergino Dest wasn't even playing in that game but also the fact that yes the USA were off their game that particular game. But what happened in the return game? Oh yeah that's right Canada lost didn't they? 

So who is to say they beat USA again?

 

Hey pal, why don’t you click the old sign out button, then header’ on over to that “Big Soccer” forum you love so much? 

Edited by N1ckbr0wn
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2 hours ago, Obinna said:

This is basically the old semi-final round, except the stakes are different...

You still need to finish top-2, except now top spot gets you directly into the WC and 2nd might get you a chance at the half spot.

It's not ideal, but considering the team we have, i'll take it. 

If this becomes a thing, I would like for them to come up with a play-off for the 2nd place teams, if time permits of course. Even just a single-elimination between 2A and 2B, with 2C getting eliminated.

Someone is going to win the Antigua punching bag sweepstakes in the draw. They'll get a serious chance to pad the goal difference. I'd say it's more fair to at least give that team a single-elimination home match. At least make them earn the half-spot that way, you know?

Either way it is much better than previous CONCACAF qualifying 

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I think the groupings are more likely to be:

Group A

1 Mexico

12 Antigua

6 El Salvador

7 Canada

 

Group B

2 USA

11 Trinidad

5 Honduras 

8 Curaçao 

 

Group C

3 Costa Rica

10 Haiti

4 Jamaica

9 Panama


That’s how a traditional seeded tournament would be set up and I believe that’s what we will get.

On the one hand we end up with Mexico but on the other hand I really like our changes at #2 in this group and even being the top #2 team from the groups.  We could conceivably go 4-0-2 or even 4-1-1 if we can sneak a tie against Mexico.

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48 minutes ago, baulderdash77 said:

I think the groupings are more likely to be:

Group A

1 Mexico

12 Antigua

6 El Salvador

7 Canada

 

Group B

2 USA

11 Trinidad

5 Honduras 

8 Curaçao 

 

Group C

3 Costa Rica

10 Haiti

4 Jamaica

9 Panama


That’s how a traditional seeded tournament would be set up and I believe that’s what we will get.

On the one hand we end up with Mexico but on the other hand I really like our changes at #2 in this group and even being the top #2 team from the groups.  We could conceivably go 4-0-2 or even 4-1-1 if we can sneak a tie against Mexico.

Maybe we should be careful what we wish for when it comes to the 2nd place teams then...

I am confident we can take maximum points from El Salvador and Antigua, but away to El Salvador still concerns me a little. Still though, I would take that over Honduras, Panama, Jamaica, hell even Haiti. 

Group C is the group of death. CR would slight favorites, but any team could top that group. 

And Group B wouldn't be so easy for the USA. Honduras is tough away, Curacao can upset, and T&T....well, we know what happened there last time.

I think I said this before, but I will say it again: If the USA slip up (again) to T&T, and miss out on the WC (again), I think the internet will break from whiny yank-fans having a meltdown. It would be beautiful.

Oh, and in this scenario it is baby brother Canada who get through as the best 2nd place team :)

Then we go to Herdman's old stomping grounds and beat NZ in the intercontinental to make the WC lol 

Edited by Obinna
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6 hours ago, TGAA_Star said:

Either way it is much better than previous CONCACAF qualifying 

How so? Now the winner of the 13 and lower tournament will be a terrible side that gets a punchers chance at getting the .5 spot. Also it makes it less about earning your spot and more about getting favourable draws. At least with the previous format, the top teams all play each other and can have no excuses if they don’t finish in the top couple spots.

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You're right, Obinna, maybe we should be careful what we wish for regarding the best 2nd seed. If our group was Mexico, El Salvador, plus Antigua and Barbuda, I think we'd all be hoping they only took the best 2nd place team.

If this is the format that gets used, Guatemala finds themselves in quite a favourable position. No one could have guessed 4 years ago that things might end up this way now, but they get suspended for a few years, no 2017 Gold Cup, no 2019 Gold Cup, no Nations League Qualifying, and look at what might fall into their lap, the potential lower tier top seed (in terms of FIFA ranking anyway) with a pretty good chance to play the top 2nd place team from the group stage of the top 12. Who knew in 2016 that getting suspended for a few years could put you in such an enviable position? 😂

Edited by jtpc
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A note. The 3 groups of 4 with home and away system takes 6 match days. For the bottom 23 teams to determine a top team I believe would need 5 match days if they did a single knockout tournament. So it seems possible that there will be teams that don’t get any home games or possibly it will even be a neutral site tournament. This of course is all based on an assumption that both sides of qualifying will start and end at about the same time.

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24 minutes ago, Strait Red said:

Oh great TGAA’s burner account is on the scene. Or is it neuker’s burner account?

This is a tough one..lets do it Sherlock Holmes style, I am leaning towards neuker/binky/robert

Weird chart copied from wikipedia............................. check                        

comments about how great the dutch are................... pass

only comments on threads he starts himself...............check

run on sentences that repeat themselves over and over....pass

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53 minutes ago, Peggy said:
 May I suggest the following World Cup qualifying format for CONCACAF  , which will give each of CONCACAF's branches; North America, Central America and the Caribbean, representation at the Qatar 2022.
 
Instead of 6 countries competing in the HEX, CONCACAF would use the FIFA Coca-Cola rankings to form 3 groups comprised of 3 countries each.
 
NORTH AMERICAN GROUP
CENTRAL AMERICAN GROUP
CARIBBEAN GROUP
   MEXICO    COSTA RICA    JAMAICA
   UNITED STATES    HONDURAS    CURACAO
   CANADA    EL SALVADOR    HAITI
The 3 group winners qualify directly for Qatar 2022, while the 3 runners-up will be joined by the winner of the 10 to 35-country qualifying section, to compete for the Inter-Continental berth.
 
This format will reduce the number of match-day windows required, and cut down on traveling expenses

No you may not Robert

Edited by Alex
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1 hour ago, gigi riva said:

Last year the Americans only played one game outside of the US and that was against Canada, 

Cuba was in the Cayman Islands too. Sure, not a true away match, but still. How many away matches have we played last year? 1 and it was against the US. We haven't played an away friendly in 3 years. (Scotland in March of 2017 was the last one those who are asking) US meanwhile has played 4 and not some unknown teams (France, England, Portugal and Republic of Ireland) Sure, the US was able to play those because they didn't have CNL to worry about. 

Having a WCQ that is on a neutral site might be the most interesting here. I always think that we're better in Gold Cup than in WCQ for many reasons, but comfort is one of those reasons why. 

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16 hours ago, narduch said:

I prefer this format over being the 7th place team in the previous format. 

Its still not perfect, but that's CONCACAF 

At the end of the day, this is what matters. We get meaningful matches against at least one strong side, a crack at 1st place in one or two groups (assuming Mexico is the only absolute lock) and a decent chance to take a run at being the top second-places team regardless of where we land.  That is better than the CONCACAF minnow tour with a few banana peels.  

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21 minutes ago, dyslexic nam said:

At the end of the day, this is what matters. We get meaningful matches against at least one strong side, a crack at 1st place in one or two groups (assuming Mexico is the only absolute lock) and a decent chance to take a run at being the top second-places team regardless of where we land.  That is better than the CONCACAF minnow tour with a few banana peels.  

Exactly.  You're going to get 4 games against sides that people have been bragging that we shouldn't be afraid of anymore, plus 2 games against a side we want to be regularly challenging (Mexico/US/Costa Rica). To me, it's the perfect scenario both to test the players and Herdman as a manager.  Anything below 2nd is unacceptable.

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Let’s look at the teams ranked 13-35. My opinion is that Guatemala, St kitts and Bermuda are probably the tier 1 teams and most likely to advance while Suriname, Nicaragua, Cuba, Montserrat are the next best group of teams that can go through. 

 

I do hope we see some kind of group stage or knockout round between the 2nd place teams and the lower tier winner rather than just having the best 2nd place team going through. 

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