2014 FIFA World Cup Qualification

[Touring Mars]

Ronaldo makes it 3-2. with his 3rd for today. Another counterattack.

Game over for Sweden... 4 goals from Ronaldo in the two ties... he wins.

 

[zzz_pt]

Ronaldo, what else.

Portugal!!!

So many Ronaldo haters. LOOOOOL... Who can not enjoy this man playing footbal? What a joke.

 

[MoLiEG]

I'm so heartbroken right now... both Ibra and CR7 should be on Brazil... I'd gladly trade the entire Mexican Team for Zlatan...

And France... Ohhh...myyy... goood...

To anyone that saw the game.. did Ukraine showed up??????? For real???????

 

[zzz_pt]

I've heard that France had a friendly referee... Or maybe Platini's hand. Who knows.

PS: I would trade all Potuguese strikers for Zlatan.

 

[Bram Turismo]

Honda carrying Japan yet again, what an impressive player!

 

[AlvaroF]

Honda is a very impressive player indeed.

I would also trade Zlatan for any striker from Portugal

And who else but Ronaldo? He is the best (tied with Messi, two different styles), but as patriotic football fan, he is clearly the best.

P.S: Blatter 🤬 you

 

[Famine]

Boo hiss. France overturn a 2-0 deficit, Croatia knock Iceland out and Burkina Faso fail to qualify on away goals...

 

[zzz_pt]

Just saw the highlights of France-Ukraine and France simply demolished them... lol Congrats to France.

 

[Carbonox]

Big yawn, all the more boring teams got through at UEFA.

Especially frustrating was France. They should deserve to drop out just to pay back the cheating from 2010 qualifying.

 

[MoLiEG]

^Hopefully they won't survive long in Brazil...

I don't care how many goals Henry scored in his life or how many trophies he won... for that game only, for me at least, he's nothing more than a pig...

Still can't believe Ibra won't be there... unbeliebable...

 

[Lucas]

Ibra didn't lie when he said he deserved to be on the World Cup, despite some people said he was being selfish and should have said Sweden deserved to be on the World Cup.

Had I been him, I would have abandoned the pitch after Ronaldo's third goal. Working so hard to score, only for your team to concede so easily.

 

[zzz_pt]

Portuguese team is better then Swedish team and the best portuguese player is also better then the best swedish player.

I think Sweden should be in the World Cup though. It doesn't make any sense having Jordania vs Quatar or New Zeland vs Uruguai and Portugal vs Sweden.

Both, Portugal and Sweden should have a place in the WC.

 

[CinnamonOD]

Mexico vs. New Zealand right now, we'll see if the kiwies can get over that 4 goal deficit

Edit: Half time and the mexican team is winning 3-0, which could easily be 5 or 7 instead of 3, but the keeper is pretty much doing a good work

 

[Inferno251]

Boo hiss. France overturn a 2-0 deficit, Croatia knock Iceland out and Burkina Faso fail to qualify on away goals...

Tbh, Iceland was going to have a tough fight regardless of which team they played. At least they managed to play well and not get thrashed

 

[CinnamonOD]

Well, New Zealand gave all they got all the game, and Mexico with their typical "Yeh, we're winning, no need to push" and then they received 2 goals in like 5 minutes, but anyway, Mexico is in and it is all that matter for me now

 

[Carbonox]

Portuguese team is better then Swedish team and the best portuguese player is also better then the best swedish player.

I think Sweden should be in the World Cup though. It doesn't make any sense having Jordania vs Quatar or New Zeland vs Uruguai and Portugal vs Sweden.

Both, Portugal and Sweden should have a place in the WC.

That's the problem with WC qualifying, European teams receive way too few spots even though their quality is much higher than that of African or Asian sides - the last 2 Cups are living proof of that. Like, which team is better, Iran or Sweden? Costa Rica or Ukraine? Well, unfortunately in both examples, the worse team is going to be in the spotlight next year because they were basically guaranteed to make it because they had the berths, which should've belonged to UEFA teams.

 

[Touring Mars]

Below is the list of berths per FIFA zone as per Famine's first post in this thread, and in brackets is the number of teams from each zone that rank in the top 32 nations in the world, according to the current FIFA World Rankings. At first glance it might look like UEFA is hard done by...

CONCACAF - 3.5 berths (3)
AFC - 4.5 berths (0)
OFC - 0.5 berths (0)
CAF - 5 berths (3)
CONMEBOL - 4.5 berths (6)
UEFA - 13 berths (20)

... but it looks a bit different when you consider the share of the world's population by zone. The number in brackets in the number of teams each zone would get in the World Cup if it were decided solely on population:

CONCACAF - ~8% (2.5)
AFC - ~59% (19)
OFC - ~2% (0.5)
CAF - ~15% (4.5)
CONMEBOL - ~6% (2)
UEFA - ~10% (3)

Taking both things into account, I think UEFA get a fair number of berths personally - it could hardly be called "The World Cup" if the balance was tipped even more strongly in favour of European nations... that said, Asia (AFC) gets the most disproportionate number of berths based on the 'quality' of the teams in that zone, where currently none belong in the top 32 in the FIFA World Rankings. But, considering that 8 of the world's 13 most populace nations are in the AFC, and the AFC alone accounts for almost 60% of the world's entire population, it seems unrealistic to expect them to have less nations taking part in the World Cup than their current 4 or 5, even though the top AFC nation is ranked just 44th in the world (Japan).

That said, we Scots have more reason than most to be crying into our beers about the number of UEFA berths. We're now ranked 35th in the world, and yet we're only 21st in UEFA, and therefore still a longshot for a World Cup spot... heck, we can't even qualify for the Euros, which only has 16 teams... I reckon the Euros needs to be expanded to 32 teams, and this should compensate somewhat for high ranking UEFA teams that get stiffed by the World Cup... of course, our top secret plan is to host the World Cup and/or annexe Brazil in order to get a berth next time.
💡

 

[Carbonox]

that said, Asia (AFC) gets the most disproportionate number of berths based on the 'quality' of the teams in that zone, where currently none belong in the top 32 in the FIFA World Rankings. But, considering that 8 of the world's 13 most populace nations are in the AFC, and the AFC alone accounts for more than half of the world's population, it seems unrealistic to expect them to have less nations taking part in the World Cup than their current 4 or 5, even though the top AFC nation is ranked just 44th in the world (Japan).

But then again, the countries that make up most of Asia's population (China, India, Indonesia etc.) are ranked quite poorly in the world, and it's only Japan and South Korea that are really able to make an impression in the big tournaments. High population really doesn't equal high quality in this case.

To me and maybe a few others, the World Cup means, or should mean at least, a tournament for the 32 best teams in the world, not the 32 teams that made it through a heavily luck-based qualifying process.

 

[Touring Mars]

The problems with that idea, however, are manifold... firstly, FIFA World Rankings are largely determined by the quality of teams you play against and the importance of the game. This means that federations that have a larger number of quality teams automatically get a rankings boost, and that's before the FIFA multiplier (which gives UEFA and CONMEBOL an arbitrary boost) is taken into account. Secondly, tournament qualifiers are an important way of determining rank in the first place... so if tournament berths were arbitrarily assigned to the top ranking teams, there would be no need for qualifying games and thus one's rank would only be determined by tournament games and friendlies, which is not feasible. Thirdly, different countries are at different stages of economic and sporting development, and are already fighting against a ranking system that heavily favours established footballing nations. Disposing of the current system that atleast gives smaller or developing nations a chance to compete at the top level i.e. at tournaments (where games are ranked as the highest importance) would only make it harder for them to ever reach the top 32. Given that the World Cup is an economic exercise as much as anything else, I think it unlikely that the system will be changed in a way that makes it harder for developing nations to break through. If anything, it is likely to be the complete opposite...

 

[MUSC4EVER]

Another brilliant performance by Ronaldo, someone needs to give him the Balon D'dor quick!

France made a bit of history last night, they became the first team to qualify for the World Cup after being 2-0 down from the first leg

Uruguay will become the last team to qualify, they are 5-0 up in their play-off against Jordan with the second leg tonight..

 

[Horde_R35]

For Portugal and friends from CR7 ! "EU ESTOU AQUI!" (I am here)!

 

[Akmuq]

But, considering that 8 of the world's 13 most populace nations are in the AFC, and the AFC alone accounts for almost 60% of the world's entire population, it seems unrealistic to expect them to have less nations taking part in the World Cup than their current 4 or 5, even though the top AFC nation is ranked just 44th in the world (Japan).

That's more a case of bad ranking system IMO. Japan are in reality about the 12th or 13th best in the world. Australia and South Korea would probably be in the best 32 as well.

 

[Brend]

Ronaldo is in amazing form right now, with Messi kind of off the boil at the moment he should win the Balon D'or, although him spitting the dummy out because someone made a joke about 'MUH HAIR' might not work in his favor.

 

[sumbrownkid]

When will the seeding ceremony take place?

 

[Pagey279]

When will the seeding ceremony take place?

6th of December

 

[Famine]

Just to round off the qualifiers, Uruguay drew 0-0 at home with Jordan.

 

[daan]

Just to round off the qualifiers, Uruguay drew 0-0 at home with Jordan.

Does that man ever sleep?

 

[C-ZETA]

5-0 away.

0-0 home.

Perhaps they didn't put in much effort, but still the logic is odd.

Also in terms of the World Cup format arguments; the truth is, it's the World Cup, and therefore as many quarters from around the world should be represented.

 

[Carbonox]

Also in terms of the World Cup format arguments; the truth is, it's the World Cup, and therefore as many quarters from around the world should be represented.

But every continent is already being represented. Thing is though, we don't need any more than 2 teams from Asia and North America (aside from USA and Mexico, none of the teams up there are competitive at all).

 

[MUSC4EVER]

So I was playing Football Manager 2014 earlier and it got to the World Cup and here's what happened to England

England team

Goalkeepers
Hart, Ruddy, Forster

Defenders
Johnson, Shawcross, Jagielka, Baines, Gibbs, Jones, Smalling, Walker, Cole

Midfielders
Gerrard, Milner, Lennon, Wilshire, Young, Cleverley, Carrick

Strikers
Rooney, Walcott, Ings, Welbeck

They were in the same group as Argentina, Ivory Coast and Iran, they made it to the Quarter-finals were they were knocked out by Chile 2-1 after extra time...the World Cup was won by France!