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The Road to Qatar.


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In an attempt to turn this frown upside down, is it a positive that our participation in the lower group would, at minimum, ensure a number of official home and away matches?  Good chances to get the guys together and bed in some new players (and cap a few youngsters).  

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1 minute ago, dyslexic nam said:

In an attempt to turn this frown upside down, is it a positive that our participation in the lower group would, at minimum, ensure a number of official home and away matches?  Good chances to get the guys together and bed in some new players (and cap a few youngsters).  

Shhhhhhhhhh.... and some trips to places that do not involve organs getting stolen....

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4 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

Let's get real for 1 second.. it will likely be about 6 teams playing for half a spot. I'm sure the remains 23 teams will just be happy to be playing for something as appossed to sitting at home watching on tv

Yes.  And Canada and Panama are the real front runners.

Curacao, Trinidad, Haiti and Guatemala are a step below, and they are all beatable.

Nicaragua, Bermuda and Guyana are very long shots.  Everyone else is just happy to be there.

One thing to note is that Guatemala are not going to be seeded in the group stage, they are outside of #7-#14, so we could easily end up with them in our group.  They could be a dangerous banana peel for us very early on the process.

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Same ****, different cycle. Our downfall every qualifying is our seeding isn't high enough, I'm convinced our mediocre squads in the 2014 & 2018 qualifiers could have gone through if they were in Pot 3/Top 6 seeded nation (EDIT: Through to the HEX, not necessarily the WC).

That being said, I don't think our NL draw could work out any better than we could have hoped. Two games against Cuba we should be able to win big and two games against a very highly ranked opponent we all believe we can get results against. 

Edited by Yoginess
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2 hours ago, canadafan101 said:

lets make a realistic qualiying tournament for canada to qualify:

Round 1 - Top a group of USVI Puerto Rico and Guyana (90%)

Round 2 - Beat Guatemala home and away (70%)

Round 3 - Beat Jamaica home and away (50%)

Round 4 - Beat Panama home and away (40%)

Round 5 - Beat Costa Rica home and away (30%)

Round 6 - Beat Uraguay home and away (20%)

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO imagine..... i wouldnt even get excited about winning a world cup qualifier until like round 5

 

30% to beat Costa Rica? Im trying to imagine  what Christian Bolanos and Bryan Ruiz will look like in 2 years running around bald on the field as im sure those flowing locks are about to fall out. You thought Kendal Waston was a red card machine before.. wait till that mid life crisis kicks in and he's mad at Alphonso Davies because he doesn't understand what "real" music is

Edited by SpursFlu
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Also those CNL playoff games would carry a big amount of weight for any team able to get some points out of them (almost as much as Gold Cup Knock out stage). I don't think teams in League B have the opportunity to play this as winners would get automatic promotion. 

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I'm confused by the outrage.

We have a way better chance at qualifying this way than the old way.

I love how everyone assumes us being top 3 in the hex is a lock getting 4th to grab the .5 spot would even be in question in the old way.

If we even were fortunate enough to make the hex, which we haven't been shown to be capable of doing.

This format gets us

1) more game for our team to continue to grow

2) The opportunity to beat mostly minnows to get the .5 spot which could be against anyone.

Being the 7th ranked team is our best shot at the WC and to be playing meaningful WC qualifying games for a longer period of time.

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1 minute ago, Razcal said:

I'm confused by the outrage.

We have a way better chance at qualifying this way than the old way.

I love how everyone assumes us being top 3 in the hex is a lock getting 4th to grab the .5 spot would even be in question in the old way.

If we even were fortunate enough to make the hex, which we haven't been shown to be capable of doing.

This format gets us

1) more game for our team to continue to grow

2) The opportunity to beat mostly minnows to get the .5 spot which could be against anyone.

Being the 7th ranked team is our best shot at the WC and to be playing meaningful WC qualifying games for a longer period of time.

Well I think we have to be resigned to this fate.  It may already be mathematically impossible for us to reach the top 6, even if we win the nations league, and even if we were to beat Germany in 2 friendlies. 

 

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While I think this may not have made our road to Qatar any harder, It's just plain stupid! Lets hope Panama and El Salvador switch places in 6 and 7. Panama is about the only team I would be concerned beating home and away 7 - 13.  

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10 minutes ago, Razcal said:

I'm confused by the outrage.

We have a way better chance at qualifying this way than the old way.

I love how everyone assumes us being top 3 in the hex is a lock getting 4th to grab the .5 spot would even be in question in the old way.

If we even were fortunate enough to make the hex, which we haven't been shown to be capable of doing.

This format gets us

1) more game for our team to continue to grow

2) The opportunity to beat mostly minnows to get the .5 spot which could be against anyone.

Being the 7th ranked team is our best shot at the WC and to be playing meaningful WC qualifying games for a longer period of time.

I think it's just a lot easier mentally to come to grips missing out on a world cup because we duked it out against the best in our region but fell short than losing in a home and away against someone like Curacao. 

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1 minute ago, BrennanFan said:

Well I think we have to be resigned to this fate.  It may already be mathematically impossible for us to reach the top 6, even if we win the nations league, and even if we were to beat Germany in 2 friendlies. 

 

And that's okay, we want more games and we want that shot at the 0.5.. NOT being in the top 6 probably gives us the best chance at doing that.

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1 hour ago, canadafan101 said:

we literally have to win 16 games in a row to qualify for the world cup. 29 teams are competing for a quarter of a spot. its over. focus on 2026

theres only 6 teams competing for the World Cup in concacaf this year

We literally don’t.  It’s not single knockout at any time.

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Just now, Yoginess said:

I think it's just a lot easier mentally to come to grips missing out on a world cup because we duked it out against the best in our region but fell short than losing in a home and away against someone like Curacao. 

If that's a legitimate concern we probably don't belong in the World Cup anyway.

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2 minutes ago, Razcal said:

If that's a legitimate concern we probably don't belong in the World Cup anyway.

I dont know.  There's zero room for error in home and away ties.  One bad penalty, one handball, one defender slips, one bad backpass and we could be eliminated. 

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6 minutes ago, Razcal said:

If that's a legitimate concern we probably don't belong in the World Cup anyway.

After losing to Haiti at a neutral venue, losing to a team in the 6 to 10 spots in a home and home is definitely a concern, thats even before we get to number 4 of the hex. 

Edited by king1010
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1 minute ago, BrennanFan said:

I dont know.  There's zero room for error in home and away ties.  One bad penalty, one handball, one defender slips, one bad backpass and we could be eliminated. 

you know this is going to happen to us at some point and it will be when it matters most

 

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4 hours ago, Ansem said:

 

The second part of the qualifiers, played across a Group Stage and knockout phase, will involve the Concacaf Member Associations ranked 7-35 according to the FIFA Ranking published after the FIFA window of June 2020.

This is the problem with this qualifying format. If you are in 6th place in the rankings you get the same shot as the 1st place team in the rankings at qualifying. If you are the 7th place team, you get the same shot at the 35th place team at qualifying.

Why are 6th and 7th being treated so wildly differently whereas 7 gets to be treated in the same manner as the 35th/last place team.

What is so magical about the #6 in this case? If there 6 spots up for grabs I could understand drawing the line there, but there aren't so why bother?

With our luck, who wants to lay the odds that we end up 7th in the FIFA rankings in June 2020?

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16 hours ago, jtpc said:

I really wish El Salvador had qualified for League A now for the Nations League and had been drawn into Mexico's group.

According to the projected July rankings upthread, we'll be 29 points out of 6th and we have a year to try and make that up. Panama and Curacao will of course be trying to do the same thing. Imagine how close we would be for 6th with that QF win against Haiti, if our Gold Cup victories against French Guiana in 2017 and Martinique this year had been victories against actual FIFA members, and if our last Nations League qualifier (a 4-1 win over French Guiana) had been a victory against a FIFA member.

With El Salvador playing League B teams and Panama playing Mexico twice in the Nations League, if we could ever come up with something incredible against the US (once at least, preferably twice), I wonder if that 29 point gap could realistically be closed within a year, through a combination of the Nations League and friendlies scheduled against comparable teams to us.

The bold above really displays how BS this is. So much riding on FIFA ranking which in turn depends so much on stupid things like this. We had no idea the Gold Cup was essentially WCQ. We thought maybe Nations League might be tied to it, but didn't know the FIFA rankings were going to be so instrumental in this WCQ campaign.

There is a gap (when you average out over time) in quality between the 2nd best team in CONCACAF and the 3rd best team in CONCACAF. But there is a canyon between the chances for the 6th ranked team and the 7th ranked team with this stupid format. I would argue that there are about 8 teams that could fight it out over that 3rd place spot (with the first two being USA and Mexico) but this system guarantees that at least 4 of those teams will have to fight it out with at most 1 of those teams having a chance at the 4th spot, which then also has to go through an inter-continental playoff.

This is not the mood I needed before going to a Canadian Championship game tonight.

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I haven't been following any soccer for the last year or so. I got back into it for the WWC and Gold Cup. My two cents based on the performances at the Gold Cup:

The team has improved big time and there are some genuine scorers that can make a difference. This being said, the fact that we were not able to beat Mexico and the collapse against Haiti shows me that we are not there. We have improved big time but so has most of Concacaf. 

WCQ: Let's be honest, we had very little chance to make the Hex under the old system. I like this new qualifying system. It rewards the top teams. Unfortunately, we are not one of the top teams. We will only qualify for the World Cup when we can beat teams like Mexico and the USA. We are certainly not there yet. Nations League will be a good test and I hope we will get a result against the USA. I don't realistically think we will but I hope we play better than we are.

That is my two cents after being away from the game for a while and looking at things in a more realistic way. Canada is not a top football nation at this time and we have to lower our expectations.

 

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