football thread No11

[Arwon]

It should be noted that the U.S. always has an advantage in this tournament, since they always host. So it's not really an equivalent cup IMO. It's more of a money making exhibition tournament for the confederation

We're not a well balanced confederation. Mexico dominates, the U.S. pretends to, then you have a group of countries a couple levels below that.. and a lot of minnows. I don't know if it'd be easy to have one tournament with both north and south america. South America is so well balanced, there's 10 teams who can more or less compete against each other. CONCACAF in comparison is a circus

I'd suggest that it's South America which is, globally, the exception in terms of balance. Oceania is the only other one where every member participates in the championship tournament but it is hideously unbalanced. Aside from those two, every other confederation has staggered qualifier stages to weed out the likes of Faroe Islands, Bhutan, Djibouti, or Sint Maarten.

I do tend to think combining the two smallest confederations with neighbours (Oceania with the AFC and CONCACAF with COMNEBOL) would produce a better championship in both cases tho. Would probably also be fantastic for the US and Mexico in terms of preparation and development to have regular tougher competition, and the same is true of NZ in Asia.

 

[warpus]

One of the problems would be that countries like Costa Rica, Panama, Canada, Cuba.. Right now they all have a chance to qualify for the WC. If you bring in 10 teams from south America into the mix, they will most likely take a lot of the spots that would have otherwise been up for grabs for these lesser footballing nations.

There's also the insane travel distances.

 

[Snerk]

The benefits of a merge far outweighs the drawbacks here IMO. There are plenty of ways to ensure WC qualifications will still be somewhat spread around. And as for travel, there are planes, it's doable.

 

[warpus]

I don't think you appreciate how quite how crazy the distances would be. A flight from Ottawa to Buenos Aires would be 15+ hours, if you could find a plane that flies it direct (I don't know if any do)

To compare to for instance UEFA WC qualification, it would be like flying from London, England to Jakarta, Indonesia. Even flying to Kazakhstan is about half this distance, and that's a UEFA extreme.

There are many small countries in CONCACAF that would find it tough to make this economical. Regional qualifying makes a lot more sense in this case rather than trying to for some reason fly teams halfway around the world for their games

 

[AdrienIer]

A game between Iraq and Japan in the Asian confederation means a long flight too, which doesn't stop them from doing such games

 

[warpus]

A game between Iraq and Japan in the Asian confederation means a long flight too, which doesn't stop them from doing such games

As far as I know the Asian federation did not at one point exist as two separate federations that decided to merge. Asia also isn't an example of a confederation with 10 or so big/strong countries and countless minnows. They have a lot more variety in the mix

There are a lot more cons than pros in merging CONCACAF with CONMEBOL. To do it "just for fun" makes zero sense. You might as well merge UEFA with CAF

 

[Snerk]

I guess I just don't see the cons from my side of things. It would make for a more epic and entertaining cup, with a lot wider appeal. Yes there will be the usual suspect come finals and yes there will be micro nations that gets chewed up, but like already stated that's already the norm and it's fine. Also there will be travelling but that's already the case and the WC will include more travelling at any rate.

 

[Takhisis]

A game between Iraq and Japan in the Asian confederation means a long flight too, which doesn't stop them from doing such games

Historically all games in the same stage have been played at one host country for the entire group involved.

 

[warpus]

I guess I just don't see the cons from my side of things.

You should look at a list of CONCACAF members. Then check how big they are, how big the population is, how much money you think their football associations have...

Why not just merge all confederations into one then? All the pros you list would be the same. There's reasons why we have regional competitions to qualify for the WC

 

[Snerk]

If San Marino can travel to the Faroe islands and play WC and EURO games then there should be a way.

We do sort of merge all the confederations every WC and it's great. In between we need something else and that's where regional cups shine. But they're less interesting if there's too few participants.

 

[warpus]

San Marino is a lot more rich than your average CONCACAF member

 

[Snerk]

For all I know you're right, and it's just not practical. But it would definitely make for a great tournament.

 

[warpus]

I don't disagree! For Mexico and the U.S. Occasionally there's a 3rd CONCACAF team that gets in form and can sort of compete, like Costa Rica. Maybe one day Canada. But all other CONCACAF members would probably hate it

 

[Snerk]

Practical issues aside, Mexico and US might be the only ones not benefiting from it as they would lose their hegemony. Small nations might well enough thrive in a more fleshed out tournament with more international attention. A nation really doesn't have be among the contenders for the medals to find meaning and enjoyment in a cup. Norway's goal is always to qualify for EURO/WC in the first place, not to win the damn thing. Smaller nation's goal is to win over other small nations during the qualifying stages, or get the occasional good results against assumed stronger sides. And every cup has some small country with a golden generation of good players that propels them up on the center stage, like Iceland did a couple of years ago.

 

[warpus]

I suppose right now the Gold Cup is just.. a money grabbing tournament and not a real "Champion of the region" type cup tournament, like in Europe. I don't take it seriously, I only watch the games Canada participates in, and cheer against the U.S. so that TFC players can go back to their club quicker and help out. We usually have some American internationals on our roster.. I usually wouldn't cheer against them.

So I'm all for changing the format of the Gold Cup. But I'm not so sure a merged format would be as interesting as you think. I mean it would be a bit interesting, but.. I would be a lot more pro something like that if our region had more bigger teams. But we just have Mexico and sometimes the U.S. and that's it. You have two regions with completely different balances when it comes to the teams they have, IMO it makes sense to keep them separate.. and maybe occasionally have a merged tournament just for fun. I would support such an initiative. Gold Cup is a joke anyway, so why not

 

[Snerk]

When is the next Gold Cup being played?

 

[warpus]

I think they have this thing every 2 years, so in 2 years I guess. It's always hosted in the same country so I don't take it seriously

 

[Serutan]

Although amusingly enough hosting isn't much if any of advantage for the US against Mexico - they have lots of support in this country and not just from first generation immigrants. And I suspect the minnows don't complain for financial reasons.
Canadians can be safely ignored.

 

[Arwon]

Historically all games in the same stage have been played at one host country for the entire group involved.

World Cup QFs? It's just home and away legs.

As far as distance goes, Australia traveled to Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Thailand, Iran (to play Iraq) and Malaysia (to play Syria) on the path to the 2018 WC.

I don't even know how you'd go about getting to Bishkek, Amman or Dushanbe commercially from here lol

 

[warpus]

Although amusingly enough hosting isn't much if any of advantage for the US against Mexico - they have lots of support in this country and not just from first generation immigrants. And I suspect the minnows don't complain for financial reasons.
Canadians can be safely ignored.

It's not about one particular team. If you want to stage a proper continental cup, you need to move hosting around so that it's more or less fair.

As things stand now, this isn't a continental cup, but rather a money grab. Which is fine, this confederation needs some funding. But many fans don't care about this tournament, usually we're just waiting to get our players back