2018 Russia qualifying competitions

Kroezero · Post by **Kroezero** » Mon Feb 02, 2015 14:39

Three weeks ago CONCACAF had the draw for the first two qualifying rounds in the region. To be played in march and june, so half of their teams will allready be out, before the official draw in july.
Next week AFC will draw the first round of their qualifiers, to be played in march, to be followed by the group draw in april and start in june.
And OFC will start in juni with a preliminary groupstage.

Lorric · Post by **Lorric** » Mon Feb 02, 2015 21:11

That's an interesting new system they have.

My initial reaction was disappointment that they threw away the group stage for KO matches, but they've switched it up and it's not too bad. The top 6 still make the last 12, so no having to play the best in the KOs any more, and it's interesting the way they've split it up into 3 rounds of KOs, with only 7th and 8th getting byes to the final round of KOs. Some of the better teams in the region (Canada, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala) are going to have to win 2 ties to make the last 12.

Trinidad and Tobago are perhaps even more of a Cuba than Cuba were last time if you know what I mean. T+T getting seeded into the last 12 and Pot B when they didn't even make the last 12 last time, at least Cuba did that the time they got seeded.

Lorric · Post by **Lorric** » Mon Feb 02, 2015 21:21

Let's have a look at this in more depth.

The top 5 are the top 5 from the Hex. Jamaica, the 6th team, are 7th.

Let's compare them to T+T.

T+T didn't make the 12 while Jamaica made the 6.

Now T+T win big in the next comparison, they came runner up in the 2012 Caribbean Championship, thus qualifying for the Gold Cup, while Jamaica were bottom of their group. T+T had a pretty good tournament which included a win over Honduras on their way to the quarter finals.

Jamaica won the 2014 Caribbean Championship, beating T+T in the final.

So I guess you can kind of see how T+T have bounced back enough to take over that spot. Jamaica really shot themselves in the foot by not qualifying for the Gold Cup. T+T will probably at least be a tougher prospect than Cuba despite that failure in 2014 WCQ.

spoonman · Post by **spoonman** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 13:30

First results from Asia (Round 1, 1st leg):

Timor-Leste 4-1 Mongolia
Cambodia 3-0 Macau
Sri Lanka 0-1 Bhutan
Taiwan 0-1 Brunei

Huge away win for Bhutan.

They're currently last in FIFA rankings (209th place, 0 points), while Sri Lanka are on 174th place.

Bhutan always reminds me of the great documentary "The Other Final" about the 2002 match between the two lowest-ranked FIFA teams, Bhutan v Montserrat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phIT4CD01GA

Thunder_PT · Post by **Thunder_PT** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 15:44

spoonman wrote:First results from Asia (Round 1, 1st leg):

Timor-Leste 4-1 Mongolia
Cambodia 3-0 Macau
Sri Lanka 0-1 Bhutan
Taiwan 0-1 Brunei

Huge away win for Bhutan. They're currently last in FIFA rankings (209th place, 0 points), while Sri Lanka are on 174th place.

Bhutan always reminds me of the great documentary "The Other Final" about the 2002 match between the two lowest-ranked FIFA teams, Bhutan v Montserrat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phIT4CD01GA

Actually, with the exception of Macau's loss, all results look pretty surprising.

And India vs. Nepal is still goalless after 60 minutes.

Spoke too soon, 2-0 for India. Sunil Chhetri, one of the weirdest Sporting signings in recent years, scored at 53' (livescore was late showing this one) and 71'.

Lorric · Post by **Lorric** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 19:25

There's an article about Bhutan on the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31833911

Also, Zimbabwe have been ejected from the World Cup:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31851586

Todor · Post by **Todor** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 20:36

It looks very unfair to get eliminated from the World Cup more than three years before its start after just two games.

Lorric · Post by **Lorric** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 00:11

Meanwhile in the battle for Pot A in Europe, the rankings have shifted.

Spain have dropped from the top 10 overall, while the top 9 in Europe are now Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Romania.

My England are 11th after the Czechs. Guess England need to keep on winning and hope someone slips. There's 50pts between England and Romania.

Lorric · Post by **Lorric** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 00:23

Todor wrote:It looks very unfair to get eliminated from the World Cup more than three years before its start after just two games.

To be fair to Asia though with the revamp only 6 teams in the whole confederation will meet that fate. I know what you mean though, others from other confederations will meet that fate.

The last first leg result: Yemen 3 Pakistan 1.

Maxi Lozzo · Post by **Maxi Lozzo** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 01:58

Todor wrote:It looks very unfair to get eliminated from the World Cup more than three years before its start after just two games.

I think that the more unfair thing is that few teams will be eliminated just after one tie, that isn't enough for me (and not only in Asia).
In 3 years they should have time enough to play at least a small GS, for example a one legged Group at a centralized venue, at least 3 matches per team vs 3 different opponents.
However in last Edition in AFC there were 2 KO rounds with more team involved. so this format looks much better to me.

Another strange thing is the date: it's out from the usual international break and on Tuesday and Wednesday the 2nd MD AFC Cup was played: only India has clubs involved in this competiton, but more could have qualified and few teams could have foreigners involved in this WC Qualifiers.

Maxi Lozzo · Post by **Maxi Lozzo** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 02:28

I'm curious to know the players that will be officially called up, anyway in CONCACAF First Round there should be few decent squads.
The strongest tie should be Curacao (that has several elements playing in Holland and Romania, the Head Coach is Patrick Kluivert) vs Montserrat (that is improved from "The Other Final" and could field several players from English and Scottish lower tiers), while Belize, St. Kitts and Nevis, Barbados (Boyce from Wigan could play) and Nicaragua should be the other most notable teams.

About the following Rounds, Suriname is trying to change its laws about nationality to allow footballers with Surinamese descent, that have other nationalities, to play in their NT.
If they managed to do that, Suriname could become a strong contender in CONCACAF.

nogomet · Post by **nogomet** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 10:40

Lorric wrote:Meanwhile in the battle for Pot A in Europe, the rankings have shifted.

Spain have dropped from the top 10 overall, while the top 9 in Europe are now Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Romania.

My England are 11th after the Czechs. Guess England need to keep on winning and hope someone slips. There's 50pts between England and Romania.

Ed from football-rankings has done the simulations. England are sure to be in Pot 1 if they beat Lithuania and Slovenia, regardless of their friendlies.

Unless something crazy and unpredictable happens, the fight will be between Italy, Czech Republic and Croatia for the last two Pot 1 spots, with Croatia - Italy on 12 June most likely set to be a "winner takes it all" decider in Zagreb.

The predicted pots for the UEFA WC18 qualifying draw based on these assumptions are (teams are presented by their position in the predicted July 2015 ranking):
pot 1: Germany (2), Belgium (5), Netherlands (6), Romania (7), Portugal (9), England (10), Spain (11), Italy (13), Czech Republic (14)
pot 2: Croatia (15), France (16), Switzerland (17), Slovakia (18), Austria (23), Denmark (24), Ukraine (25), Israel (27), Republic of Ireland (28)
pot 3: Bosnia-Herzegovina (29), Iceland (31), Poland (33), Greece (35), Sweden (36), Scotland (37), Wales (41), Serbia (42), Hungary (46)
pot 4: Albania (50), Slovenia (51), Northern Ireland (52), Finland (56), Turkey (63), Norway (65), Bulgaria (76), Montenegro (80), Estonia (85)
pot 5: Cyprus (86), Armenia (88), FYR Macedonia (93), Lithuania (95), Belarus (101), Latvia (106), Moldova (112), Azerbaijan (115), Faroe Islands (119)
pot 6: Luxembourg (132), Kazakhstan (138), Georgia (139), Liechtenstein (141), Malta (156), San Marino (186), Andorra (199)

fillow · Post by **fillow** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 11:56

Expect Malko to look in this thread to complain about rubbish FIFA rankings and France in pot 2

matt · Post by **matt** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 14:19

Todor wrote:It looks very unfair to get eliminated from the World Cup more than three years before its start after just two games.

Afc merged world cup qualifing and Asian cup 2019 qualifing so 6 teams will be eliminated from both after only 2 matches...but at least the remaining teams will play at least 8 matches in the group stage.

spoonman · Post by **spoonman** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 14:21

@nogomot: Thx for the overview!

By the way, you can edit your post and click on "Disable Smilies in this post" to get rid of the guy with the sunglasses.