An off-handed Tweet today led to a long debate with an English Twitter friend of mine about the quality of CONCACAF as compared to the rest of the world.
Responding to my observation that the AFC has nothing on CONCACAF for ease of World Cup qualification for its top teams @Wanchope_Dickov (It's a Manchester City thing) responded by telling me that I was insane, basically.
A typical response:
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
If you genuinely believe that CONCACAF is better than AFC then you're blind mate, absolutely blind. It's the worst on the planet.
Putting aside the nuance of what exactly “better than” means, I guess I'm blind. Yes, Aruba v Cayman Islands is pretty damn terrible, but those two counties have very little to do with the World Cup Finals. And, my argument was that the upper middle of CONCACAF was better than the upper middle of AFC. Basically, that the teams competing for the final World Cup spot in CONCACAF are better – and have constantly demonstrated themselves to be better – than those same teams in AFC.
Before I continue this discussion you should know something about Mr. Wanchope_Dickov. He might watch more obscure football than anyone on the planet. His job is a play-by-play broadcaster for a company that is contracted to do webcasted games from all over (including a great deal for CONCACAF.com – the poor bastard has done his share of TFC games). So, he's not a typical fan. He has a perspective that few of us do.
But, it's still a subjective perspective and CONCACAF always gets the short end when it comes to subjective opinion. That, in turn, makes it difficult for people that support the game in CONCACAF countries to promote and grow the game at home. The struggles here in Canada are well documented, but this country is hardly unique in having a majority of fans focused “over there” rather than here.
The other area where those subjective opinions hurt CONCACAF is in World Cup allocation. CONCACAF is still stuck on 3.5, while Asia has 4.5.
This is where I lose my mind. There is literally no objective arguments (outside of population differences) that can be made that justify that extra spot.
None. Zero. No, really. Go ahead and try and find data to back it up. I'll wait...
Football fans – like most sports fans, really – prefer the subjective to the objective. Stats are seen as boring, those that use stats to back up an argument are viewed as somehow lacking in passion and/or knowledge of how the game is “supposed to be played.”
You see this kind of resistance with the Opta stats that are beginning to gain some traction in the football blogging world. The criticism is bunk, of course, but sports commentary has always been based on the mystic rather than the boring reality of actual results.
Back to the original point: Over the last four World Cup cycles CONCACAF and AFC have played each other twice in intercontinental playoffs. Both times CONCACAF has advanced. If you look at the final AFC team and final CONCACAF team to qualify and then compare their results at the World Cup CONCACAF has been stronger in all four cycles.
2010 – Honduras 0-1-2 -3; North Korea 0-0-3 -11
2006 – T&T 0-1-2 -4; Saudi Arabia 0-1-2 -5
2002 – Costa Rica 1-1-1 -1; Saudi Arabia 0-0-3 -12
1998 – Jamaica 1-0-2 -3; Saudi Arabia 0-1-2 -5
That's an overall record of CONCACAF 2-3-7 -11; AFC 0-2-10 -33
Neither is great, of course, but the apples to apples results aren't close. Using the only equal data available, CONCACAF clearly has better results.
But, AFC has one more World Cup spot. Subjectively, they must be better.