The Road to Qatar.

[SthMelbRed]

2 hours ago, A Different Perspective said:

I agree with this... Concacaf also does not want the US, and perhaps rightfully so for monetary reasons, to be upset - and perhaps not Mexico either ... can you imagine if we did get either those teams and we found lightning in a bottle and upset them before the octagon (unlikely but not improbable with our newfound studs),

As aside - not a bad 80's movie, the Octagon with Chuck Norris 

 

Every movie starring Chuck Norris is a bad movie.

[xabuep2]

@archer21

The journalist  David Samudio was not specific about how to lead teams ranked 17-35 in home/away matches until qualifying 10 of them to the second round. He even mentioned 41 teams (including non-FIFA members). I guess it was a mistake on his part, because the non-fifa members do not participate. 

 

If he said Panama would need to play 18 matches to get a ticket to Qatar 2022 is because the Octagonal is home/away.

Panama. Second round: 2 matches. Third round  2 matches. Octagonal 14 matches=  total 18. The same situation with Canada. 

Too many matches.... However I cannot deny how exciting it will be if this proposal is accepted, 9 home games in Canada ! pick the venues 😉

[archer21]

49 minutes ago, xabuep2 said:

@archer21

The journalist  David Samudio was not specific about how to lead teams ranked 17-35 in home/away matches until qualifying 10 of them to the second round. He even mentioned 41 teams (including non-FIFA members). I guess it was a mistake on his part, because the non-fifa members do not participate. 

 

If he said Panama would need to play 18 matches to get a ticket to Qatar 2022 is because the Octagonal is home/away.

Panama. Second round: 2 matches. Third round  2 matches. Octagonal 14 matches=  total 18. The same situation with Canada. 

Too many matches.... However I cannot deny how exciting it will be if this proposal is accepted, 9 home games in Canada ! pick the venues 😉

Well let’s hope this is legit. Seems too good to be true, and impractical. I’d be happy with this format though. Third round would be very scary but I’d be confident in our ability to beat a team ranked 9-16 in concacaf over 2 legs. Then you get to earn it on the field over a large sample of games to see who really deserves it.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

Amazing to think that 4 years ago we had only two games left in our 2018 WCQ campaign.

[johnyb]

18 hours ago, xabuep2 said:

No Problem @CanadianSoccerFan

According to this proposal, the format would be as follows:

First Round:  

Home/away matches between 17-35 ranked teams, until completing 10 teams. (total 19 teams)

Second Round: 

Home/Away matches between 10 winners of First round vs 7-16 Concacaf ranked teams (total 20 teams)

Third Round:

10 winners of second round join 1-6 Concacaf ranked teams in Home/Away matches (total 16 teams)

Final Round: Octagonal (total 8 teams)

The 8 winners of Third Round play in a round robin in which the first 3 will qualify for the world cup and the fourth place will play the intercontinental play off.

According to this journalist, it would be an octagonal, since he indicated that Panama would need to play 18 games to qualify for the World Cup. And it would begin from January 2021 until June 2022 approximately .... But  its approval or not will be in the next days.

I like it, seems like a few missing pieces, but I never liked the top tier, bottom tier thing. At least this way everyone has a shot of playing their way in.

[Alex]

I don’t understand how this format will work. If it is in fact correct and there’s a possibility we can play 18 games why aren’t they just keeping the original format but obviously start it later??

[archer21]

32 minutes ago, Alex said:

I don’t understand how this format will work. If it is in fact correct and there’s a possibility we can play 18 games why aren’t they just keeping the original format but obviously start it later??

Yeah seems odd to change the format because match days got canceled, then go to something that needs even more match days than the original format. Maybe a hybrid system. Keep the hex but have to qualify to get to the hex the way that you have to qualify for the octagonal right now.
 

Round 1 - teams 14 to 35 play home/away to get down to 24 teams total

Round 2 - 24 remaining teams play home/away (1 vs 24, etc)

Round 3 - 12 remaining teams play home/away (1 vs 12, etc)

Round 4 - 6 remaining teams play Hex format.

Every team has at least 14 matches to qualify, with a total of 16 match days. I believe there were 20 match days in the reported format. Seems like a good middle ground between the pre covid format and the new proposed format. 

[TGAA_Star]

31 minutes ago, archer21 said:

Yeah seems odd to change the format because match days got canceled, then go to something that needs even more match days than the original format. Maybe a hybrid system. Keep the hex but have to qualify to get to the hex the way that you have to qualify for the octagonal right now.
 

Round 1 - teams 14 to 35 play home/away to get down to 24 teams total

Round 2 - 24 remaining teams play home/away (1 vs 24, etc)

Round 3 - 12 remaining teams play home/away (1 vs 12, etc)

Round 4 - 6 remaining teams play Hex format.

Every team has at least 14 matches to qualify, with a total of 16 match days. I believe there were 20 match days in the reported format. Seems like a good middle ground between the pre covid format and the new proposed format. 

This idea is actually better at least going forward for CONCACAF teams 

[SpursFlu]

Sounds good, when do we start?

[lamptern]

3 hours ago, archer21 said:

Yeah seems odd to change the format because match days got canceled, then go to something that needs even more match days than the original format. Maybe a hybrid system. Keep the hex but have to qualify to get to the hex the way that you have to qualify for the octagonal right now.
 

Round 1 - teams 14 to 35 play home/away to get down to 24 teams total

Round 2 - 24 remaining teams play home/away (1 vs 24, etc)

Round 3 - 12 remaining teams play home/away (1 vs 12, etc)

Round 4 - 6 remaining teams play Hex format.

Every team has at least 14 matches to qualify, with a total of 16 match days. I believe there were 20 match days in the reported format. Seems like a good middle ground between the pre covid format and the new proposed format. 

I like this format. Although round 3 is kind of......you know.

[Kent]

It will be interesting to see if Asia really can fulfil their plan to have qualifiers in the fall. Several Asian countries are getting hit hard now by COVID. India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Bangladesh were all in the top 10 for new cases today. Iran was 11th and Iraq 14th, and tiny Qatar came in 20th. Indonesia at 21st also had more than 1000 cases. So 8 of the 21 Nations with 1000+ new cases today were all from Asia.

Note, this was raw numbers and of course Asia is by far the most populous continent. From the list of countries above off the top of my head I believe only Iraq and Qatar have a smaller population than Canada. It just seems to me that they are just starting to get hit more now.

[JamboAl]

These WC qualifiers all over the world may have problems with player availability if the pandemic continues well into the fall.  

Imagine a Japanese player in the Bundesliga (quite a few of them) playing a qualifier in a country that has a significant number of cases.  

1) Will Germany allow a non-citizen to enter back into the country when they have visited a place that is banned for non-Germans to have been in.  

2) If they are allowed back, what kind of quarantine would Germany have once the player returns?  They could miss multiple league matches which the clubs and the player would be unhappy about.

3) How is travel within a FIFA window (which is difficult at the best of times) going to happen with all the protocols and restrictions in place when 2 or more countries are being visited by any player?

4) Will a player even want to do this?

Now replace Japanese player In the Bundesliga with Davies and trips to Canada and unnamed CONCACAF country.  I see problems regardless of format.  

Edited June 18, 2020 by JamboAl

[An Observer]

14 hours ago, JamboAl said:

These WC qualifiers all over the world may have problems with player availability if the pandemic continues well into the fall. 

This is going to be a problem well into 2021. The pandemic will continue until their is a vaccine readily available to all. 

That is why I can’t see World Cup qualifying for all regions being able to go ahead until then. For example, what happens if the pandemic gets a second wave in Mexico in early 2021. Mexico gets the automatic points as teams refused to travel there or  refuse them entry?  The reality is that many counties will have second and third waves which will completely put waste to a World Cup qualifying. They either need to move to tournaments at neutral venues or move the World Cup until late 2023. That is what they should be planning

[Bison44]

I'm starting to be skeptical about MLS/NBA restarts in Florida with whats going on there lately.  

[TOcanadafan]

Realistically we may see qualifying games played at a neutral venue (most likely US). This would allow for more “group” play as you can avoid home/away fixtures and cut the number of games in half.  We would also get to avoid those tricky Central American away fixtures.

[Alex]

The federal government just announced that Vancouver, Edmonton or Toronto can be an NHL hub city and all players and staff will be exempt from the mandatory 14 day quarantine period. Local health authorities have said they will keep everyone separate from the teams. A similar situation can take place for other sports id assume. 

[An Observer]

7 hours ago, Alex said:

The federal government just announced that Vancouver, Edmonton or Toronto can be an NHL hub city and all players and staff will be exempt from the mandatory 14 day quarantine period. Local health authorities have said they will keep everyone separate from the teams. A similar situation can take place for other sports id assume. 

Very different as this only involves two countries and everyone is quarantined from locals for the period they are all playing out of a neutral venue (hub).  World Cup qualifying requires constant travel throughout the year with well over 100 countries having their nations sided moving around their region and drawing players from all over the world. It doesn’t take much to shut that down for at least some nations who have outbreaks or for players coming from those nations representing multiple countries to not be able to travel to play for their national side.  Plus for most of the world you need fans to make this economically possible as tv alone won’t cover the costs. 
 

I just don’t see that being possible in the next year. 

[CanadianSoccerFan]

This mega window in the winter was first rumoured by the Daily Mail a few months ago.  

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8312961/England-bonanza-FIFA-planning-radical-overhaul-international-football-calendar.html

 

The journalist from Panama mentioned games being played in January so I think this has legs

Edited June 20, 2020 by CanadianSoccerFan

[TGAA_Star]

I mean it makes sense but I don't see how this works...may as well postpone the 2022 FIFA World Cup until 2023

[SpursFlu]

I could see this suppossed extended window in December used to plow thru round 1 and 2. It would involve 3 teams you could put in 1 location if need be(12 locations) Get to a final 12, play that in the first window of 2021 and have the Hex lined up by next Summer

Edited June 20, 2020 by SpursFlu

[CanadianSoccerFan]

16 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

I could see this suppossed extended window in December used to plow thru round 1 and 2. It would involve 3 teams you could put in 1 location if need be(12 locations) Get to a final 12, play that in the first window of 2021 and have the Hex lined up by next Summer

The reports from Panama are that it's an octagonal ending June 2022.  They could use this winter window to weed it down to the 8.  Then the Octagonal could take place  in March, June, Sep, Oct, Nov, Mar 2022, and June 2022 for all 14 match days (7 windows).  The June 2022 window is slated for 4 matches instead of just 2 so you can finish the Octagonal and still squeeze in the intercontinental playoff after in June 2022.  Alternatively they could play the intercontinental playoff in the September 2022 window.  

[SpursFlu]

Oh ok.. I think you have a typo in there. Do you mean 2021? There is also a gold cup in there somewhere 

Edited June 20, 2020 by SpursFlu

[CanadianSoccerFan]

2 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

Oh ok.. I think you have a typo in there. Do you mean 2021? There is also a gold cup in there somewhere 

Gold Cup is scheduled for July 2021.  There are FIFA dates in early June 2021.

 

You can see everything here in the FIFA calendar linked below.  You can bet the World Cup draw will be moved back to after June 2022

https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/international-match-calendar-2018-2024-x4858.pdf?cloudid=s1a1uo8jtuyu23wxuq6j

[Ansem]

Fun facts

What does our 3 last losses against Mexico, USA and Haiti have in common?

Henry started those games while Davies was LB.

We might want to not do that again. Just a thought in regards to Henry.

In regard to Davies, Canada isn't Bayern, that's why he shouldn't be LB against stronger teams.

The US played a very different game when Davies was put LB instead of LW. The US pressed more while they were way more careful in game 1 fearing a counter attack caused by turnovers where they'd have no chance in catching either David and Davies.

Since defense is our biggest liability, you want stronger teams to be more cautious about their pressing.

[SpursFlu]

8 minutes ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

Gold Cup is scheduled for July 2021.  There are FIFA dates in early June 2021.

 

You can see everything here in the FIFA calendar linked below.  You can bet the World Cup draw will be moved back to after June 2022

https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/international-match-calendar-2018-2024-x4858.pdf?cloudid=s1a1uo8jtuyu23wxuq6j

K thanks got it