WCQ: Third Round - Window 5 (March 24 - 30, 2022)

[footballfreak]

5 hours ago, Gian-Luca said:

Actually FWIW (and it isn't worth much), I would probably be screaming for us to stay in such a hypothetical confederation, as my guess is that we would have made about 4 of the 8 World Cups that we missed in between 1986 and 2022. But that's neither here nor there, because my criticism wasn't so much for Australia wanting to play against better teams more consistently by moving to Asia, but rather directed against FIFA for allowing it. They shouldn't be allowing something which is clearly wrong (ie. Australia is clearly not a part of Asia) just because a country wants it or thinks it will be better for them. If Mexico and Venezuela agreed to switch confederations because it would be mutually beneficial (Venezuela would have a better chance to qualify for the World Cup in Concacaf, Mexico pulls an Australia and moves to confederation where they will allegedly improve by regularly playing against better teams), it doesn't mean that FIFA should just say "Sure, go ahead". Otherwise, what's the point of regional confederations at all? Every team can just start to organize their own confederations that suit them best. And this isn't an Israel situation where the other teams in the region were refusing to play Australia for political reasons.

I don't disagree about folding the two confederations, that idea always made a lot more sense to me than allowing one of the two big teams in Oceania to leave.

Continental federations are all artificial constructs. If you want to go strictly by geophysical constraints, then all of Eurasia should be one confederation. Australia borders Indonesia. It’s not like we’re talking about USA joining UEFA.

And no way in hell would we have made 50% of those World Cups playing Cuba as a warm up for Argentina or Uruguay and then slinking away for 4 years. You can’t build a program like that. Australian football has unquestionably benefited since the move, and I have no doubt the other OFC nations would as well.

Longterm, we will see a West Asian and East Asian/OFC federation. OFC will still have a regional tournament like the Gulf Cup, etc, but OFC as a confederation has no future.

[TGAA_Star]

But I definitely loved how the Draw was handled for the most part

[Gian-Luca]

1 hour ago, footballfreak said:

Continental federations are all artificial constructs. If you want to go strictly by geophysical constraints, then all of Eurasia should be one confederation. Australia borders Indonesia. It’s not like we’re talking about USA joining UEFA.

And no way in hell would we have made 50% of those World Cups playing Cuba as a warm up for Argentina or Uruguay and then slinking away for 4 years. You can’t build a program like that. Australian football has unquestionably benefited since the move, and I have no doubt the other OFC nations would as well.

Longterm, we will see a West Asian and East Asian/OFC federation. OFC will still have a regional tournament like the Gulf Cup, etc, but OFC as a confederation has no future.

Its a silly hypothetical to begin with, but even sillier still if you are projecting that for some reason this new Confederation would have been only playing Argentina or Uruguay every time out in one of the intercontinental playoffs. What is this based upon? Never mind that Argentina only once had to go through the playoffs, in past cycles if we look at the 4th place team from this region, T&T got Bahrain, Mexico got NZ & now so has Costa Rica. Last time round Honduras got the 5th place team from Asia - ironically Australia who benefited from getting into that spot because Syria was forced to play its home leg in the 5th place playoff in Malaysia (otherwise, Syria to Sydney wouldn't have benefited anyone in terms of travel).

Regardless, although I don't think Australia has been improving in recent years and seem to be in a downhill spiral, as I said I fully understand why they wanted to join Asia, so there's no need to belabor the point. Especially since that's a totally different issue as to whether FIFA should permit that sort of nonsense, and also is a completely different answer to whether I personally would have preferred to us to leave this imaginary new confederation of Canada, Cuba and presumably several other Carribbean islands to make it a comparable one.

I do hope that you are correct about the merging of the federations for the future. Either way, I return back to my original point that I would find it utterly hilarious if NZ qualified through Oceania and Australia doesn't make it through - I personally hope NZ makes it, even if either they or Costa Rica are likely to get crushed into oblivion once they make it through given the draw they got.

[footballfreak]

11 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

Its a silly hypothetical to begin with, but even sillier still if you are projecting that for some reason this new Confederation would have been only playing Argentina or Uruguay every time out in one of the intercontinental playoffs. What is this based upon? Never mind that Argentina only once had to go through the playoffs, in past cycles if we look at the 4th place team from this region, T&T got Bahrain, Mexico got NZ & now so has Costa Rica. Last time round Honduras got the 5th place team from Asia - ironically Australia who benefited from getting into that spot because Syria was forced to play its home leg in the 5th place playoff in Malaysia (otherwise, Syria to Sydney wouldn't have benefited anyone in terms of travel).

Regardless, although I don't think Australia has been improving in recent years and seem to be in a downhill spiral, as I said I fully understand why they wanted to join Asia, so there's no need to belabor the point. Especially since that's a totally different issue as to whether FIFA should permit that sort of nonsense, and also is a completely different answer to whether I personally would have preferred to us to leave this imaginary new confederation of Canada, Cuba and presumably several other Carribbean islands to make it a comparable one.

I do hope that you are correct about the merging of the federations for the future. Either way, I return back to my original point that I would find it utterly hilarious if NZ qualified through Oceania and Australia doesn't make it through - I personally hope NZ makes it, even if either they or Costa Rica are likely to get crushed into oblivion once they make it through given the draw they got.

It’s based upon the history of the World Cup playoff. Australia played both Uruguay (2002, 2006) and Argentina (1994) in the playoffs.

1986 - Scotland

1990 - Colombia (Israel was the OFC representative that year)

1994 - Canada + Argentina

1998 - Iran

2002 - Uruguay

2006 - Uruguay (qualified)

Since Australia left, New Zealand has played:

2010 - Bahrain (qualified)

2014 - Mexico

2018 - Peru

2022 - Costa Rica

Other than 2022 Costa Rica and *maybe* 2010 Bahrain, we would have been sizeable underdogs in all of those ties. 2010 might even be charitable since we were absolute trash that cycle. And bear in mind you’re going into all of those games cold while the other team has come through the gauntlet of qualifying. Imagine heading into the Suriname game but instead it’s Ecuador. Maybe we make one World Cup. Probably not.

Before 2006, Australia had not qualified for 32 years. They had to go all the way to a penalty shootout (at home) to make it back. Since moving to Asia, they’ve made 3 straight automatically and are still alive for a fourth. Both the national club teams get to play meaningful games every year against teams of comparable talent. They weren’t getting that in Oceania. No Australian fan, player or coach would willingly choose to go back. OFC is a ghetto for teams too poor and out of the way to figure out what to do with.

I could be wrong about the merger. I doubt there’s much appetite in AFC at the moment. The biggest chance for it to happen would be if FIFA were to guarantee OFC’s half slot transferred to AFC. AFC would probably take that deal, so it would depend largely on whether or not New Zealand are content content to be King of the minnows and cash in on a playoff game every 4 years.

[Gian-Luca]

^^^^

Just to clarify, you are looking at who OFC played in the playoffs, I was referring to who Concacaf has played in the playoffs, given that, if Concacaf had broken up with some teams including Canada splitting off into a different confederation, the half-spot that the new confederation would be given would surely be taken away from Concacaf since it was the source of that half-spot to begin with and since Concacaf would be losing a bunch of teams in order to form this new confederation. I would have fancied Canada's chances against Bahrain & NZ twice, hence why I expect we would have made more World Cups than the zero that we did make after 1986 in such an imaginary situation over the past 3.5 decades. But since this is all imaginary and never actually happened, it doesn't really matter. Especially with a more exciting and real future ahead of us!

[footballfreak]

14 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

^^^^

Just to clarify, you are looking at who OFC played in the playoffs, I was referring to who Concacaf has played in the playoffs, given that, if Concacaf had broken up with some teams including Canada splitting off into a different confederation, the half-spot that the new confederation would be given would surely be taken away from Concacaf since it was the source of that half-spot to begin with and since Concacaf would be losing a bunch of teams in order to form this new confederation. I would have fancied Canada's chances against Bahrain & NZ twice, hence why I expect we would have made more World Cups than the zero that we did make after 1986 in such an imaginary situation over the past 3.5 decades. But since this is all imaginary and never actually happened, it doesn't really matter. Especially with a more exciting and real future ahead of us!

My hypothetical wasn’t predicated on CONCACAF breaking up. I was simply using CONCACAF quality teams to explain the predicament Australia was in.

Just so we’re clear though, in such a situation as you’re envisioning, we wouldn’t have gotten CONCACAF’s half spot. The teams involved in the breakaway would have had zero leverage because we all sucked. If both OFC and our CONCACAF breakaway group both existed, both would would almost certainly have gotten a quarter spot - breakaway vs OFC, winner gets to the inter-confed playoff.

Which brings us to: the old inter-confed playoffs were predetermined, not drawn. The OFC champs, being the weakest, almost always got put up against South America. Before Australia left OFC, only one playoff actually had a draw (2002). They went back to predetermined brackets for 2006 and 2010 before finally settling on draws from 2014 onwards.

Every 4 years we would play Cuba, Dominica, etc, a playoff against Australia, and then South America. Lather, rinse, repeat. That has a knock-on effect. Good luck getting Borjan, Eustaquio, Vitoria, Hoilett, etc to commit to a program that plays 2-4 meaningful games every four years. Maybe Phonzie decides to play for Ghana, etc. 

As you say though, it’s a good thing it’s just a hypothetical.

 

 

 

[Gian-Luca]

23 minutes ago, footballfreak said:

My hypothetical wasn’t predicated on CONCACAF breaking up. I was simply using CONCACAF quality teams to explain the predicament Australia was in.

Just so we’re clear though, in such a situation as you’re envisioning, we wouldn’t have gotten CONCACAF’s half spot. The teams involved in the breakaway would have had zero leverage because we all sucked. If both OFC and our CONCACAF breakaway group both existed, both would would almost certainly have gotten a quarter spot - breakaway vs OFC, winner gets to the inter-confed playoff.

In the situation I'm envisioning (which is the only way, short of using a fully-functioning TARDIS, to make the hypothetical work even on a theoretical level, and even then I don't think it does), Canada & a handful of other teams would never break-away from Concacaf in the first place unless they were to get at least a half-spot. Otherwise, there would be no point in splitting off from Concacaf if the pathway to the World Cup becomes more or just as difficult as a result of them doing so. So that's a non-starter.

Yes, I know it would never have and did never happen, but when the hypothetical was put to me, that's what I was envisioning as the closest way to make it a reality, even though it is of course an impossible hypothetical.