[anunderwaterguy]

Pirata Morado, on Sep 11 2009, 02:41 PM, said:

Upon further review, these are the proportion of countries advancing to the World Cup per Confederation:

Africa: 5+1 spots out of 53 teams (11%)
Asia: 4.5 spots out of 43 teams (10%)
Europe: 13 spots out of 53 teams (25%)
Concacaf: 3.5 spots out of 35 teams (10%)
Oceania: 0.5 spots out of 10 teams (5%)
Conmebol: 4.5 spots out of 10 teams (45%)

Clearly Europe is the strongest of all Confederations and Conmebol is second.

If we could join all the Americas, then there would be 8 spots out of 45 teams for 18% more in line to what Europe has.

I think that would definitely make the tournament better as it would promote more competition between the CONCACAF/CONMEBOL teams and ensure you don't have teams like Jamaica/Trinidad and Tobago qualifying at the expense of a good team like Uruguay. I guess it would make things harder for Mexico, but it can't be that exciting beating teams like Belize 7-0 in the early rounds when you could be playing big games against better teams. I'm sure Mexico could beat teams like Argentina and Brazil at the Azteca in any case.

[Pirata Morado]

anunderwaterguy, on Sep 11 2009, 08:05 AM, said:

I think that would definitely make the tournament better as it would promote more competition between the CONCACAF/CONMEBOL teams and ensure you don't have teams like Jamaica/Trinidad and Tobago qualifying at the expense of a good team like Uruguay. I guess it would make things harder for Mexico, but it can't be that exciting beating teams like Belize 7-0 in the early rounds when you could be playing big games against better teams. I'm sure Mexico could beat teams like Argentina and Brazil at the Azteca in any case.

I'm all for it.

México has qualified to all World Cups since the failure of Spain 1982, we didn't go to Italy 1990 but that was because we cheated on the ages of some players in the sub-something teams.

We have qualified to USA 1994, France 1998, Japan-Korea 2002, and Germany 2006 and are about to qualify to South Africa 2010. But we haven't been able to advance to the fifth game in the World Cup. On all those championships ('94, '98, '02 and '06) we advanced to the second round but immediately lost in the second round. Why? Because we don't play regularly against Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, etc.

If we had to eliminate against those teams, I'm sure we wouldn't be going to South Africa, we were playing awful football last year and early this year. It was not until Javier Aguirre took over the team that we started playing better. But I wouldn't mind, it would do us a favor. It would be better in the end. But as you said, we have been able to beat Brazil and Argentina, even there at South America in the Americas Cup before, so, I'm sure we can beat them at Azteca Stadium!

This post has been edited by Pirata Morado: 11 September 2009 - 06:18 AM

[Pirata Morado]

After some research I just noticed that Euro 2012 is going to be co-hosted again, now by Poland-Ukraine, nice idea, I see that Ukraine is having some organization issues, but perhaps it will hold.

I see that it will be the last 16-team tournament, so with 2 hosts, they will need 14 teams to qualify. The 7 group, top 2 teams makes sense again.

But I see that for 2016 they will expand to 24 teams, kind of like what World Cups used to be from Spain 1982 to USA 1994, another nice idea.

I found out the seeding procedure, seems like they changed the seeding procedure last year, after the fiascos we've been talking about. This is the current ranking (as of May 2009):

1 Italy
2 France
3 Czech Republic
4 Germany
5 Portugal
6 Netherlands
7 England
8 Spain
9 Greece
10 Sweeden
11 Croatia
12 Romania
13 Poland
14 Turkey
15 Russia
16 Switzerland
17 Denmark
18 Bulgaria
19 Serbia
20 Norway
21 Israel
22 Ukraine
23 Scotland
24 Slovakia
25 Ireland
26 Finland
27 Belgium
28 Bosnia
29 Austria
30 Latvia
31 Hungary
32 Lithuania
33 Slovenia
34 Wales
35 North. Ireland
36 Albania
37 Estonia
38 Macedonia
39 Belarus
40 Georgia
41 Cyprus
42 Iceland
43 Moldova
44 Armenia
45 Liechestein
46 Kazahstan
47 Azerbaijan
48 Malta
49 Andorra
50 Luxemburg
51 Faroe Islands
52 San Marino
53 Montenegro

[Pirata Morado]

Following anunderwaterguy's proposal, they should make these preliminary matches:

Kazahstan - Montenegro
Azerbaijan - San Marino
Malta - Faroe Islands
Andorra - Luxemburg

Winners advance to the groups round.

Make 7 groups of 7 teams each (49 teams). Top 2 teams advance to the Euro! Each team would play 12 games, I don't think it's impossible to schedule 12 games scattered in 2 years!

Edit: Duh!!! Ukraine and Poland have to be taken out since they are already in.

So make 2 preliminary matches:

Luxemburg - Montenegro
Faroe Islands - San Marino

Winners advance to the groups round. 7 groups of 7 teams each (49) + 2 eliminated teams in preliminary round + 2 host teams = 53 Voilá!

This post has been edited by Pirata Morado: 11 September 2009 - 06:49 AM

[Pirata Morado]

By the time 24 teams are needed, and assuming there are still 53 teams in UEFA, and assuming 1 host:

We will need 23 teams out of 52, there are 2 alternatives:

Option A
Trim down to 48 teams, 8 groups of 6 teams each, top 3 teams go ahead (24), except for one group (-1) = 23, the worst third team doesn't go in.

Option B
Trim down to 49 teams, 7 groups of 7 teams each, top 3 teams go ahead (21) plus the two best 4th teams (+2) = 23.

[Pirata Morado]

The final stage is ready with the 32 teams decided.

1. South Africa (host)
2. Denmark
3. Switzerland
4. Solavakia
5. Spain
6. England
7. Germany
8. Serbia
9. Italy
10. Netherlands
11. France
12. Portugal
13. Greece
14. Slovenia
15. Cameroon
16. Nigeria
17. Algeria
18. Ghana
19. Ivory Coast
20. Australia
21. South Korea
22. Japan
23. North Korea
24. Brazil
25. Paraguay
26. Chile
27. Argentina
28. USA
29. Mexico
30. Honduras
31. New Zealand
32. Uruguay

It's going to be interesting.

[anunderwaterguy]

The draw is on the 4th of December, for anyone interested. FIFA don't announce the seedings until the last minute, but some people have worked out that it will probably look like this:

Pot 1

South Africa
Germany
Brazil
Italy
Spain
England
Netherlands
Argentina

Pot 2

France
Portugal
Switzerland
Greece
Serbia
Denmark
Slovakia
Slovenia

Pot 3

Mexico
USA
South Korea
Japan
Australia
Honduras
New Zealand
North Korea

Pot 4

Paraguay
Ghana
Cameroon
Cote d'Ivoire
Nigeria
Uruguay
Algeria
Chile

This post has been edited by anunderwaterguy: 02 December 2009 - 03:08 AM

[anunderwaterguy]

I'm hoping for a group like this:

England
Portugal
Cote d'Ivoire
USA

Wouldn't help the USA much, but it would certainly make things difficult for England.

This post has been edited by anunderwaterguy: 02 December 2009 - 03:09 AM

[anunderwaterguy]

The draw was made today and the groups ended up as:

Group A

South Africa
Mexico
Uruguay
France

Group B

Argentina
Nigeria
South Korea
Greece

Group C

England
United States
Algeria
Slovenia

Group D

Germany
Australia
Serbia
Ghana

Group E

Netherlands
Denmark
Japan
Cameroon

Group F

Italy
Paraguay
New Zealand
Slovakia

Group G

Brazil
North Korea
Ivory Coast
Portugal

Group H

Spain
Switzerland
Honduras
Chile

For those who aren't familiar with the tournament, the teams play each other once and the two teams with the most points in each group go through to the next phase. This is a very kind draw for the United States - England are a tough team, but Algeria and Slovenia are two of the weakest sides they could have been drawn against, so they have a very good chance of getting to the next round.

This post has been edited by anunderwaterguy: 08 December 2009 - 04:56 AM

[Pirata Morado]

It's clear that the Brazil / Ivory C / Portugal group is the group of death.

México had good luck, South Africa is the "easiest" of the head teams and Uruguay is also the easiest of the Pot C teams. We are going to avenge the Irish by beating the French!

[Sancho Panza]

Pirata Morado, on Dec 7 2009, 03:19 PM, said:

It's clear that the Brazil / Ivory C / Portugal group is the group of death.

Yes.

Pirata Morado, on Dec 7 2009, 03:19 PM, said:

We are going to avenge the Irish by beating the French!

Take that, France!

Mark my words, Pirata - you guys do that and a donation of 100 is yours!