Despite this week being an international break with qualifying games being scheduled for the 2022 World Cup, I wanted to discuss something that will be a topic of conversation for 2026 World Cup Qualifying.
Conmebol is scheduled for six berths in a ten team confederation and I will be very disappointed if they have the same qualifying format. They would basically have 18 game qualifying and there would be way too many teams playing meaningless games.
The way to fix it isn't easy. My fear is that they don't even fix it at all. I really hope there will be some kind of change. In most Confederations, dropping points at home two or three times is almost the death of a country trying to qualify.
Concacaf is set to have six teams qualify. Currently, there are 35 teams and so there is still a very competitive competition formats available.
Move the Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and Guatemala to Conmebol in exchange for Ecuador, Venezuela and Peru.
As crazy as it sounds. The competitive balance is I think almost equal. Conmebol would have 13 teams which is a odd number but they would still be competitive qualifying.
Concacaf could have 32 teams and have a number of different potential formats. I know it's not perfect but a complete merger isn't very realistic logistically with travel. The easiest thing for Conmebol to do would be to have one Hex and a seven team group for qualifying. I am aware seven team group isn't ideal but UEFA does five team groups and they have done seven team groups in the past.
From a Regional Cup point of view I would love to have a Gold Cup every four years and combined Cup competition the other odd years. This would make a Cup to look forward to three out of four years.
How likely is this to happen? Not likely but I have a fun imagination. This weeks games in both confederations are goin to be intense.
No comments:
Post a Comment