Why do the South Americans get byes in the world cup play-offs?

NEW ZEALAND ARE CHANGING THE SHAPE OF THE BALLB BE WARE

What "doesn't seem right" is your poor geography...

Mexico is in North America ffs

You know what I mean soft lad.

would you prefer it if Europe got only 4 places and 1 play off "bye"?

Who plays who in the WC play offs rotates anyway. This year it is Asia v South America and North America v Oceania. Last time it was South America v North America (Uruguay beat Costa Rica). Before that Uruguay lost to Australia (back in the days when they were still Oceania).

Uruguay should've had to play Denmark instead of Jordan

Almost 50% from the S.American W,C qualifying  league actually go through to the world cup.

Nov 13, 2013 -- 5:39PM, anton66 wrote:

Almost 50% from the S.American W,C qualifying

anton66 • November 13, 2013 5:39 PM GMT
Almost 50% from the S.American W,C qualifying  league actually go through to the world cup.

60% of its members. Not quite the global game methinks. Even if they are the better teams.

and rightly so when 5 of the top 12 in the world rankings are from South america

Nov 13, 2013 -- 5:45PM, Biscuit1979 wrote:

and rightly so when 5 of the top 12 in the world rankings are from South america

While I understand why you've said it, I'm not sure I agree with that argument though. Being guaranteed qualification to the World Cup, etc, guarantees more FIFA ranking points anyway, so it's a vicious circle. While CONMEBOL keep getting vastly more spots than any other confederation in terms of percentages, they will also continue to dominate the World rankings. They might well be the best teams, but the current set up ensures they will always be at the top of the rankings.

The top 7 ranked teams who won't make it are all European.  Denmark, having finished second should have at least faced a play off.

That's correct Biscuit. I forgot about those world beaters Uruguay, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador. Fifa rankings dont you just love them.

if you're taking the rankings as gospel then 20 out of 32 at the world cup should be european instead of the risible 13

ludicrous that there are a similar number from africa, asia and concacaf as europe then again the likes of denmark and sweden don't keep old sepp in a job

Nov 13, 2013 -- 8:30PM, mafeking wrote:

if you're taking the rankings as gospel then 20 out of 32 at the world cup should be european instead of the risible 13ludicrous that there are a similar number from africa, asia and concacaf as europe then again the likes of denmark and sweden don't keep old sepp in a job

Except it's called a World Cup, not a World Championships. For me, FIFA should just ditch the pointless Confederations Cup and replace it with some form of World Championships, even if it's still only eight teams.

there will be a few decent European sides out come fir, mex and Uruguay have had it easy,and don't deserve their place,specially Uruguay who only finished 5th in group with hardly any more than that and without brazil

mexico are the luckiest side. won 2 out of 10 scoring only 7 goals in that joke region and only scraped into a play off cos panama bottled it

it's virtually impossible for mexico not to qualify under current rules

It really was crazy how Mexico actually managed to come within a hairs breadth of failing to qualify. Jamaica, USA, Panama, Honduras and Costa Rica, and they were a minute away from managing to finish below four of those five. Incredible.

Considering the size of the nation/its population and popularity of football, its realistic to say they'll never fail to qualify for a World Cup under the current rules and certainly are the nation with the easiest route to qualification.

CONCACAF used to get 1 place when there were 16 teams in the World Cup

Now they get 3 guaranteed + a 4th if they win a play off vs a mug team

anton66 13 Nov 13 19:20 
That's correct Biscuit. I forgot about those world beaters Uruguay, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador. Fifa rankings dont you just love them.



Uruguay are the current South american champions. Chile are decent and play great football, which we should see on friday. Colombia have Falcao and a number of other good players. So i for one am glad they're going to the world cup over some mugs from the far east. Ecuador i'll give you though, they only qualify because they play home games on mount everest and the away sides can't breathe.

But on todays evidence i'm quite glad we won't be having Jordan or NZ at the world cup.

Why not have 31 groups of 6/7 teams and the winner of each group qualifies along with the host.

Seed the top 31 in the world rankings so they are kept apart.

That's correct Biscuit. I forgot about those world beaters Uruguay, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador. Fifa rankings dont you just love them.

What the hell are you suggesting? That only world beaters should get entry into the worldcup? lol wat?

Ecuador are good. They beat Portugal 3-2 in Portugal and they battered Germany when they played them recently even though they lost 4-1.  they should have scored at least 4 themselves, just kept getting done on the break.

arent they talking about increasing it to 40 teams - platinis suggestion i think ,as blatter wants more non-european teams , and platini doesnt want to cut the european allocation to accomodate

Give me Ecuador over some mugs like Greece or Romania anyday

Ecuador have some decent players but the fact is they would NEVER qualify if they didn't play home games on the moon.

Their home record in qualifying, W7 D1
Away record W0 D3 L5

That's true, but a number of European teams who have qualified would have similar away records against Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia.

Nov 13, 2013 -- 10:29PM, gotitwrong- wrote:

arent they talking about increasing it to 40 teams - platinis suggestion i think ,as blatter wants more non-european teams , and platini doesnt want to cut the european allocation to accomodate

Platini is right that the European allocation shouldn't be cut. South America are hugely over-represented in terms of the number of their members.

Fair point

the more the merrier i say -i think it would increase the time taken to play the tournament by a week

It wants shortening by a week, not lengthening, theres far too many garbage teams going now, without, adding any more rubbish to the tournament.

40 teams would be a farce

You would have 8 X 5 team groups , with only the bottom team being eliminated in a group stage that would last about 18 days

Then 32 team knockout

Platini has already fkd up the Euros with a 24 team format so it will probably happen

Nov 13, 2013 -- 10:56PM, tobermory wrote:

40 teams would be a farce You would have 8 X 5 team groups , with only the bottom team being eliminated in a group stage that would last about 18 daysThen 32 team knockout

Or top 2 from 5 as opposed to top 2 from 4..

well yes that would make more sense tbf

though , still you have the scenario of one team finishing their group games and the other teams knowing what result they need to get above them

i think it was as ocustinky suggests , top 2 from 5 , that was being proposed

Nov 13, 2013 -- 11:20PM, tobermory wrote:

well yes that would make more sense tbf though , still you have the scenario of one team finishing their group games and the other teams knowing what result they need to get above them

Yep. And a potential return of dodgy matches a la Argentina-Peru or the German-Austrian Anschluss.

If it was fair each continent would get the equivalent to the number of countries in that continent..

Europe 7
North America 6
South America 2
Asia 7
Africa 7
Oceania 3

In this case i think being fair would totally devalue the tournament. It's fine as it is.

mexico have been that bad in qualifying up to this evening they would've had trouble if they were the only side in the group.

Bore off - the lot of you

imagine a world cup with fixtures such as

Romania v Italy
Greece v Denmark
Bulgaria v Norway
Russia v Sweden
Poland v Ukraine
Czech Rep v Turkey
Portugal v Croatia


no bugger would watch it ,boring enough as it is

Atleast Ecuador or Costa Rica may throw up an upset or something slightly different

on the subjest of qualification ,

i'd say around 50% of western european teams reguarly qualify

Coachbuster you basically just described the euros

Dont forget that some federations such as CONCACAF are getting these places in return for supporting Blatter and voting for him to stay in power.

That wont change while he still needs them to retain his position.

Nothing wrong in Jordan v Uruguay, 1.74 Uruguay/Uruguay.That was a very fair price!

If it was properly done the World Cup would comprise of something like this -

Spain
France
Italy
Belgium
Netherlands
England
Portugal
Brazil
Argentina
USA
Mexico
Costa Rica
Panama
Honduras
Trinidad & Tobago
Australia
New Zealand
Tahiti
China
Japan
Iran
Iraq
Saudi Arabia
North Korea
South Korea
Morocco
Nigeria
Ivory Coast
Ghana
South Africa
Tunisia
Cameroon

Wouldn't that be more interesting?

How about less qualifying regions. Merge North and South America, and merge Asia, Africa and Oceania while keeping Europe.

Europe - 16 spots
American - 8 spots
Asia/Africa/Oceania - 8 spots

They couldn't do it because each continent has their own organisation running them.

I do agree though, that North and South American qualifying should be merged.

I cannot believe that people are looking at South America as the continent where places whould be cut. It's obviously North America & the Caribbean, isn't it?

Looking at the teams that have officially qualified so far, we have:

South America: (Brazil), Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, vs:
North America: USA, Honduras, Costa Rica.

Put that lot all into the same group and how do you think the North Americans would do?

A similar argument could be made for Asia, but at least it contains about 60% of the world's population.

how about a system that studies how well each qualifying nation from each continent fares in the world cup and if they fail to meet up to a certain standard, they lose a spot. they already do it with champions league (as in, the prem was facing having only 3 qualifying due to city, united and chelsea all going out in the group stage a few years ago)

so if only one of usa, honduras, costa rica and mexico get past the group stage, they lose a spot?

or would that never really work out?

It makes sense, lots of sense, and sounds a good idea. Though I don't know how FIFA voting works - like turkeys voting for Christmas.

Heaven forbid, I think the current system is fine. Uruguay proved what a joke it would be to invite more Asian teams.

After Colombia winning in Belgium and Chile winning at Wembley, perhaps we should be looking at giving South America more WC places