Opponent watch: Suriname (why they have the potential to be a tough team)

[SthMelbRed]

1 minute ago, aloyol said:

I never really understood why Kazakhstan is in UEFA. They aren't really good but they would've a better chance to do well in Asia.

The Soviet Union was a member of UEFA. When the USSR broke up, all of the individual republics within the union, regardless of their real geographic location, were given the option to join UEFA independently. Most elected to do so, but some of the ones in Central Asia elected to join AFC instead.

[The Real Marc]

Kazakhstan originally joined AFC upon independence and switched to UEFA in the early 2000s. Playing in UEFA is more lucrative, bigger home draws, their teams can enter the UEFA cup, etc.

Edited December 21, 2021 by The Real Marc

[El Diego]

When I was a kid a lot of my sense of geography was based on sports, so I thought that Israel was very much European. I also thought England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland were totally separate at first.

[Unnamed Trialist]

8 hours ago, CanadianSoccerFan said:

The confederations are all arbitrary anyway.  People get hung up on which continent they're on but does it really matter?  There's a bunch of Central Asian countries in UEFA, Australia in the AFC etc.  

Technically a team from Martinique could win the French Cup and play Europa League. So could Spain's Ceuta or Melilla, inAfrica.

Israel is in UEFA, and we know why, but Lebanon is in Asia. Folks complain about Israel then have nothing to say about nations much further from Europe.

But hey, if Suriname applied to play in Comenbol they could be accepted, why not? Aruba, Trinidad and Curaçao are just off the Venezuelan coast, a short ferry hop. It goes on and on. 

But they should rethink some qualifying, like Oceania. 

[ADP10]

I have heard that although Suriname, Guyana, and FG are technically in South America, there culture is actually more aligned with the Caribbean, which is one of the main reasons they play in Concacaf.

[VinceA]

It already looks like Honduras and Costa Rica will be struggling in 2026, so right then and there I feel like Curacao and Suriname could take advantage and make some noise.

Suriname got hosed when they drew us, any other team I think they would have won the group and made it through to the play-off.

[VinceA]

Also I'm a bit sad that Aruba doesn't seem to have the same pool of players available to them. It would have been awesome for them to also improve and move forward. Although that profile Jon Arnold did on them a while back seems to indicate that the federation is working hard to expand the pool and improve the professionalism of the program.

[SoccMan]

The beautiful thing about growing up being a soccer fan, geography was always one of my favourite subjects in school lol. 

[Ngravs]

5 minutes ago, SoccMan said:

The beautiful thing about growing up being a soccer fan, geography was always one of my favourite subjects in school lol. 

Same, I can correctly name about 96% of all flags because of my extensive research into World Cup qualifying throughout the years.

[JamboAl]

We are all geography nerds!  I did two elective Geography courses in university while I was a pre-med major.   

[CanadianSoccerFan]

Canada to UEFA???

 

 

[aloyol]

4 hours ago, SthMelbRed said:

The Soviet Union was a member of UEFA. When the USSR broke up, all of the individual republics within the union, regardless of their real geographic location, were given the option to join UEFA independently. Most elected to do so, but some of the ones in Central Asia elected to join AFC instead.

That's what I was thinking. My comment was more related to the fact that they aren't anywhere near being competitive in UEFA (AFAIK they never qualified for Euro or WC). Maybe the lucrative aspect as The Real Marc said is the reason why they haven't applied to get back to Asia.

 

[Tyson M]

4 hours ago, JamboAl said:

We are all geography nerds!  I did two elective Geography courses in university while I was a pre-med major.   

I have used my geography knowledge acquired from following footy in to real cash! It has won me many pub quizzes over the years!!!

[Trois Reds]

7 hours ago, aloyol said:

I never really understood why Kazakhstan is in UEFA. They aren't really good but they would've a better chance to do well in Asia.

OT, but I do know this one, too. The Asian countries in UEFA were all part of the former Soviet Union, so they already technically played in Europe. Kazakhstan is a special case compared to the others. It is economically and politically closer to Russia than Central Asia, and much of the economy is geared towards Russia, like Canada to the US. Russia still uses the Kazakh Desert for their space launches.

After the fall of communism, Kazakhstan was actually almost half ethnically Russian.  That's why we had Kazakhstan in hockey championships until the mid-2000s.  They were all Russians who suddenly became Kazakh.

Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan weren't really "colonized", so they went their own way and stayed in the AFC.

Sorry, back to talk about Suriname.

[Unnamed Trialist]

On 12/21/2021 at 4:19 PM, VinceA said:

Also I'm a bit sad that Aruba doesn't seem to have the same pool of players available to them. It would have been awesome for them to also improve and move forward. Although that profile Jon Arnold did on them a while back seems to indicate that the federation is working hard to expand the pool and improve the professionalism of the program.

"... working hard to expand the pool..." 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by Unnamed Trialist
After a few days of greater sanity, better to remove that pic of the Aruban in her poolside attire.

[Atlantic]

Saw this the other day 

https://twitter.com/futlegionnaires/status/1727402476087992644?s=61&t=NTtDJBeSEaddbQ1qq60wYg

[SpursFlu]

17 minutes ago, Atlantic said:

Saw this the other day 

https://twitter.com/futlegionnaires/status/1727402476087992644?s=61&t=NTtDJBeSEaddbQ1qq60wYg

I watched some of the Caribbean finals and Robinhood had decent support