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The Road to Qatar.


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1 hour ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

 

I'd like to avoid Suriname in November.  They just passed a law allowing dual citizenship for footballers and have started recruiting Dutch ringers for the qualifiers.

 

 

Assuming that all these new, Dutch recruits are based in the Netherlands for club football, I wonder how much appetite they'll have to travel back and forth to the Americas during these unprecedented times.

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2 hours ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

 

I'd like to avoid Suriname in November.  They just passed a law allowing dual citizenship for footballers and have started recruiting Dutch ringers for the qualifiers.

 

 

But each nations individual laws don't supersede FIFA's rules.   So players who have played for another nation would still be in-eligible, right?

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1 minute ago, Acid-Tone said:

But each nations individual laws don't supersede FIFA's rules.   So players who have played for another nation would still be in-eligible, right?

Presumably these are Dutch players of Surinamese descent who have never represented the Netherlands at senior level. If they've played in age-level representative teams for the Dutch, they'd have to file their one-time switch.

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1 hour ago, Bdog said:

So November and March it's only two games each?

Damn, I looked at their Wikipedia page and they actually look kinda scary.

If they even get half those guys, they will be formidable.  Would be our luck to go out against them as they emerge as a new footballing power within Concacaf

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1 hour ago, Acid-Tone said:

Right.  I get that.   But those guys would have always been eligible to get a passport from Surinam (through their family connections) and play for them.  So I'm just a little confused as to what in practice has actually changed.

 

Surinamese law previously prohibited dual citizenship, no? You're not likely to want to represent Suriname in football if doing so meant you had to renounce your Dutch citizenship and all the benefits, including rights throughout the EU, that come with it.

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26 minutes ago, narduch said:

So what happens if we still have travel restrictions in November?

That is totally possible at this point

Personally, it’s a pipe dream they will start qualifying in November. I live in Hong Kong and they just extended travel restrictions until 31 December. So Hong Kong where I live (assuming Asia is on the similar qualifying timetable as Concacaf) is out of World Cup qualifying. Of course, who cares as they aren’t going to qualify anyway. But anyone travelling to Brazil anytime soon. Are we kicking them out to? Oh no, all their players are in Europe so you can just play there. Oh sure, so the South African based players on Peru and Chile will be banned from travelling to those matches to play Brazil. It will be a farce. Just delay the tournament till 2023 and start qualifying in late 2021 when hopefully we have a vaccine

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I think there is no reason to ban travel until any period that isn't within 2 weeks to a month at a time. What's the benefit of that? Perhaps it would land you a job with France League Un. So who knows, in the meantime people have to plan and try to make things happen. Proof is the pudding and as time goes on perception and attitudes change 

I would love to see Canada play a friendly in Europe with whoever they can get in October 

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1 hour ago, An Observer said:

Personally, it’s a pipe dream they will start qualifying in November. I live in Hong Kong and they just extended travel restrictions until 31 December. So Hong Kong where I live (assuming Asia is on the similar qualifying timetable as Concacaf) is out of World Cup qualifying. Of course, who cares as they aren’t going to qualify anyway. But anyone travelling to Brazil anytime soon. Are we kicking them out to? Oh no, all their players are in Europe so you can just play there. Oh sure, so the South African based players on Peru and Chile will be banned from travelling to those matches to play Brazil. It will be a farce. Just delay the tournament till 2023 and start qualifying in late 2021 when hopefully we have a vaccine

I agree with everything you say up until this point.

I know people are praying a vaccine will come save us, but that's also a pipe dream.

I am in no way, shape or form a medical person, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but a vaccine won't eradicate covid-19 by late 2021. It may not eradicate covid-19 at all. 

I am sure this is an unpopular opinion, but I think we are stuck with covid-19 for the foreseeable future. We must learn to live with it. That doesn't mean we stop trying to control, prevent or eradicate it, but at some point things must resume, including world cup qualifying.  

We are not talking about Ebola here. We are talking about an illness with a mortality rate in line with the seasonal flu. 

And yes, I am sure I would feel differently if I was personally affected by covid-19? I am very fortunate to not have not been. That hasn't been lost on me. 

Edited by Obinna
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For next Monday, July 27, we will have a new format according to local media. In fact, the fepafut (Panamanian Football federation) was waiting for the confirmation of the beginning of Concacaf qualifiers to choose its new coach: the Danish Thomas Christiansen.

https://www.laestrella.com.pa/deportes/futbol/200722/200723-thomas-christiansen-nuevo-dt-seleccion-futbol-panama


And according to the media today, the format will be a little different from what was public yesterday.
First round: 6 groups of 5 countries. Each country will play 4 games: two at home and two on the road. 


Second round: The six group winners will meet in March in round-trip matches that will be previously drawn to define the 3 winners.


Final Round: Octagonal with Mexico, Honduras, USA, Costa Rica and Jamaica and the 3 winners of previous rounds.

(About first round it remains only to guess how they will define which teams will play the 2 games at home and  the 2 on the road  ... They may do something similar to the 2019–20 CONCACAF Nations League qualifying draw)....

 

https://www.telemetro.com/futbol/2020/07/23/oficial-panama-jugara-octubre-noviembre/3068690.html?utm_content=buffere1c0f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=app+buffer+/

(this source indicates that only the winner of each group  of the first round will advance)

https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/universal-deportes/futbol/concacaf-nuevo-formato-para-las-eliminatorias-mundialistas

(this Mexican source says that in the 6 groups of 5, the first two places will qualify and then play in round trip games. But in my opinion it is a mistake in writing, because it would involve more games)

 

Edited by xabuep2
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So we start qualifying in October then? Also, is the June 2022 window also 4 games like the June 2021 window? That’s the only way they get in the 14 game octagonal before the intercontinental playoffs which are supposed to be June 2022.

Edited by Alex
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28 minutes ago, Alex said:

So we start qualifying in October then? Also, is the June 2022 window also 4 games like the June 2021 window? That’s the only way they get in the 14 game octagonal before the intercontinental playoffs which are supposed to be June 2022.

Yes, it's 4 games in June of both years.  FIFA made the 2022 June window an extra week to make up for lost windows in the fall of 2022

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2 hours ago, xabuep2 said:

For next Monday, July 27, we will have a new format according to local media.

The final decision on that proposed format will take place at the CONCACAF meeting on Monday ( July 27th )

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/sports/20200723/ready-whatever-jff-content-ahead-key-meeting-confirm-revamped-wcq-format

An official announcement will take place sometime after that. Given that the JFF have a planning meeting on the Thursday after (July 30th), CONCACAF may not make an official announcement until the week after (earlier August).

 

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18 minutes ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

The final decision on that proposed format will take place at the CONCACAF meeting on Monday ( July 27th )

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/sports/20200723/ready-whatever-jff-content-ahead-key-meeting-confirm-revamped-wcq-format

An official announcement will take place sometime after that. Given that the JFF have a planning meeting on the Thursday after (July 30th), CONCACAF may not make an official announcement until the week after (earlier August).

 

Crucial part of that article is FIFA has already approved it.  FIFA had rejected the previous proposal

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9 hours ago, Obinna said:

I agree with everything you say up until this point.

I know people are praying a vaccine will come save us, but that's also a pipe dream.

I am in no way, shape or form a medical person, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but a vaccine won't eradicate covid-19 by late 2021. It may not eradicate covid-19 at all. 

I am sure this is an unpopular opinion, but I think we are stuck with covid-19 for the foreseeable future. We must learn to live with it. That doesn't mean we stop trying to control, prevent or eradicate it, but at some point things must resume, including world cup qualifying.  

We are not talking about Ebola here. We are talking about an illness with a mortality rate in line with the seasonal flu. 

And yes, I am sure I would feel differently if I was personally affected by covid-19? I am very fortunate to not have not been. That hasn't been lost on me. 

I agree with this and that we will have to start living with it.  I just don't think that will happen globally until 2021 so I just don't see World Cup qualifying starting up in October and November.  I just don't think people globally are there yet.  I certainly can tell you they aren't in Asia and I cannot see China, Korea, Japan and Australia opening their borders to allow travel in and out without quarantine.  You don't need many countries to not comply to throw qualifying into doubt

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12 minutes ago, canadafan101 said:

This is another horrible format and extremely tough to get into the final 8. We’ll have to win 6 straight games to make it while Jamaica and Honduras get a free pass 

I don’t know.  It seems better than the previous route where the “low road” allowed almost no room for error.  And it is better than the straight-up hex format because we weren’t in it.  At the end of the day, we have to accept that our results to date haven’t justified us being given any sort of free pass into the later rounds of WCQ.   We need to consistently do better (much better) than we have if we want to get any sort of preferential treatment in the qualification process.  

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