Quote (fender @ Nov 14 2017 01:18am)
i disagree, the fifa rankings are inaccurate enough that romania (who didn't even qualify for the 2014 wc, finished last in their group at the 2016 euro, and now finished 4th in their incredibly weak qualifying group - behind poland, denmark, and montenegro) made it into pot 1, while france for example (who are amongst the title favourites) were in pot 2 - they certainly are the main flaw of the current system, which otherwise makes a lot of sense in terms of fairness.
and i still don't fully understand what the point of "better quality games" would be - you are aware this is just the qualification for the tournament, right? the point is not to make it a spectacle, but to find a somewhat fair wayto determine who is worthy of the spots we got for the world cup finals.
i agree it is seriously flawed and i support changing it as part of the solution.
but a team that beats virtually no one would surely not be highly ranked.
you kind of have to not lose almost every game in order to get significant points in their ranking system.
whether a team is improperly ranked 8th or 16th would suddenly matter way less for group draws if more than one team in a group gets through, and if the groups are more condensed with reasonably decent teams.
they would have more opportunities to play against good teams and see who is actually better and deserves the spot.playing against teams who stand no chance instead of playing games against competitive teams is a poor way to see who is deserving of a spot.
Every other region aside from South America(low # of countries, hyper competitive and they do a full double round robin) has a process for whittling down the teams to a more manageable number before the main qualifying stage.
If you are trying to see who goes to the playoffs in an american sport you dont have the best teams play against high school teams, you have them play against other pro teams.
just like in champions league the shittier teams have to play in qualifying rounds before facing the big boys instead of giving the Gibraltars and Andorras of the world an automatic spot in the group stage on the merit of them existing.
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also, it would help if you could be a little more specific as to how many groups and how many games your suggestion would mean for each team, and how many qualifying rounds you suggest - because it's pretty difficult to argue the benefits and drawbacks of such a vague suggestion...
this would depend on how many spots they are getting. whether its the current 13 or more in the expanded format.
Many flexible options there. If you see that there is merit there the numbers can be worked out on what would be the best.
This post was edited by cambovenzi on Nov 14 2017 12:53pm