Addona

There's no way everyone is that dumb ... right? My sense is that teams who are in the 15-35 don't mind it since they don't have to play the top 6 (a plus), and they were never going to qualify anyway, so no big loss. On average, more of the games they play will be "competitive" (i.e. not vs. top 6) and their chance of qualifying went from 0.001 to 0.0001, or whatever. That's 21 teams right there! The top teams: Mex, U.S., CR, Honduras will obviously love this format since it eliminates all chances of an upset before the HEX. That's 4 more teams in favor ... Leaving 10 teams or so who might realize that this could be really bad for them ... at the moment, ES doesn't care, they're all for it! As is Jamaica ... it really just screws 8 teams, including Canada, Panama, T&T, Haiti, etc. who would otherwise have had a realistic shot at the HEX. When you think about it, it is a brilliant piece of f**king some teams over while gaining the support of a majority!

Ricky Gomes ...

We have to agree to disagree on this one ... if I said to someone, we need to beat the U.S., Mexico, and Brazil, they would rightly believe we have a lower chance of qualifying than if I said we needed to beat USVI, Dominica, and Bolivia. Not all teams are equal, and even if they were, we could use 50% for every match up to arrive at a reasonable *estimate*. Of course, I am an academic statistician, so my leanings are clear ... Just because someone is using seemingly subjective probabilities, it doesn't mean there is no value to the method. Assess the reasonableness of those probabilities! Some may agree with my numbers, and some would believe different values are more appropriate ... nothing wrong with that.

This seems tremendously pessimistic ... so, what do you think Canada's position distribution in the HEX would be (1st-6th): 0%, 0%, 0%, 15%, 40%, 45%? If so, then yes, it's about the same ... but I think the above numbers are too skewed to 4th-6th. I don't think CR, Honduras, and Jamaica are really that much better than us. My sense is that Canada's 1st-6th distribution (if they're in the HEX) is something closer to: 0%, 0%, 4%, 32%, 32%, 32%. Or, even if that's a little optimistic, this is totally reasonable: 0%, 0%, 2%, 28%, 35%, 35%. The 2% and 4% may seem silly to include, but they are absolutely non-negligible! They allow us to avoid 2 rounds of potential elimination, and qualify directly!

I, and others; absolutely ARE taking this into account...

But in the 2014 WC, all minnows except 5 got a minimum of 6 games, and 5 got at least 8 games: 2 in the 1st play-in round, and 6 in the 2nd round (where Canada entered) ...

I don't get this point ... I hear it A LOT. But the format for Brazil 2014 had a group stage that most minnows played. There were a handful of knockout matches in an initial stage among the real minnows of minnows. Then a group stage with Canada level teams playing in a group ... then the SF round where the top ranked teams entered. Finally, the HEX. I never understood what was so wrong with this format ... it seemed fine to me!

I thought about this a little more; one issue with my proposal is that in the HEX, once it becomes clear that a team won't finish top 2, there is no incentive to try to keep playing hard (since 3rd-6th are all still alive). One possible remedy: Top 2 from the HEX go to WC. 3rd and 4th place go directly to the SF of that last mini-knockout tournament. 5th and 6th place from the HEX face-off against the top 2 from the non-HEX side with the winners moving on (note: now from the non-HEX side, you'd have to win the group stage and 2 knockout rounds). This way, there is still incentive for teams in the HEX to finish as high as possible, even if their chances at top 2 are gone. Everything else stays the same. The winner of this extra knockout stage goes to the WC. The finalist plays for the 0.5 spot.

What if they used the June 2020 rankings to give top 6 direct entry to HEX. Top 2 from that HEX go to WC. The other 4 (3rd-6th), and the top 4 from the non-HEX side (i.e. the winners of the group stage and 1 knockout round) then play more knock-outs for the remaining 1.5 spots. If you win this mini-tourney of 8 (i.e. you win 3 knock-out rounds) you go to the WC. The team that loses in the final plays vs. CONMEBOL / AFC / OFC. Haven't given it too much thought, but at least there is: 1. more in it for the non-HEX teams, and 2. no one from the HEX side gets outright eliminated (the way 5th and 6th place do in the actual proposed format); they get another shot to show that they deserve a spot ... Also, I don't know if it's too many matches ... you'd have 2 fewer knockout rounds on the non-HEX side at least ...

Let me try one more argument. Suppose we assume that the 4,5, 6, ranked teams have no chance of finishing in the top 3, and we have a 100% chance of advancing past the minnow stage of the non-HEX tournament. I don't think either of those things is true, but let's pretend they are, just for the sake of argument. In order to get to the same position as the 4th place HEX team, we need to outperform 3 teams (win the QF, SF, and Final) of the non-HEX tournament. The 4th place HEX team only had to outperform 2 teams (5th and 6th place). Finally, and this part is crucial to the whole argument, 3 > 2.

Let's put it this way: suppose you are the #6 team in the rankings. Your chances of being eliminated *before* the HEX have dropped to 0. They would certainly not be 0 otherwise. One might say, "but the #6 team has little chance of finishing top 3". Sure, but that's not who they're competing against necessarily. The difference in quality between #4, #5, and #6 is rather small. What are the chances that #6 finishes ahead of #4 and #5? I don't think it's crazy to say that it's 33%. So, even if the #6 has a 0% chance of finishing top 3, they have a 33% chance of finishing in 4th. At that point, they need to win 2 home-and-away tilts. In the first, they would likely have a 50% chance of coming out on top. In the second, maybe it's lower, say 40%. That means #6 has roughly a 7% chance of qualifying for the WC. What about the #7 ranked team? There is essentially zero difference in quality between #6 and #7. But, in the new system, there is no way that the #7 ranked team has a 7% chance of qualifying for the WC ...

The other factor here is that we better hope that Mex and the U.S. don't falter in the Hex, or we really are f**ked. They need to be in the top 3 ... the other 4 teams are at least beatable.

I was going to post something like this, although I had us at more like 7-9% of making it to the WC under the old format, and roughly 1-2% under the new format.

Rage drinking... definitely rage drinking... this format has definitely lowered our chances IMO.

Is Gutierrez committed to us?