World Cup 2018 Qualification

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 5:59 am

CONCACAF Qualification has started

U.S. Virgin Islands vs. Barbados (March 22, 7 p.m. and March 26, 3:30 p.m.)--U.S.V.I wins 1-0 in the first leg.

Winner plays Aruba in the second round (June 8, 16).

Saint Kitts and Nevis vs. Turks and Caicos Islands (March 23, 8 p.m. and March 26, 7 p.m.)

Winner plays El Salvador in the second round (June 8, 16).

Nicaragua vs. Anguilla (March 23, 8 p.m. and March 29, 5 p.m.)

Winner plays Suriname in the second round (June 8, 16).

Bahamas vs. Bermuda (March 25, 7:30 p.m. and March 29, 3 p.m.)

Winner plays Guatemala in the second round (June 8, 16).

Belize vs. Cayman Islands (March 25, 10 p.m. and March 29, 8 p.m.)

Winner plays Dominican Republic in the second round (June 8, 16).

British Virgin Islands vs. Dominica (March 26, 7 p.m. and March 29, 5 p.m.)

Winner plays Canada in the second round (June 8, 16).

Curacao vs. Montserrat (March 27, 8 p.m. and March 31, 6:30 p.m.)

Winner plays Cuba in the second round (June 8, 16).

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Wed Apr 01, 2015 7:18 am

CONCACAF FIRST ROUND RESULTS

U.S. Virgin Islands 1, Barbados 4.

Saint Kitts and Nevis 12, Turks and Caicos Islands 4.

Nicaragua 8, Anguilla 0.

Bahamas 0, Bermuda 8.

Belize 1, Cayman Islands 1. (Belize advances on away-goals rule)

British Virgin Islands 2, Dominica 3.

Curacao 4, Montserrat 3.

CONCACAF SECOND ROUND (ALL MATCHES PLAYED ON JUNE 8th, JUNE 16th)

Barbados vs. Aruba

Saint Kitts and Nevis vs. El Salvador

Nicaragua vs. Suriname

Bermuda vs. Guatemala

Belize vs. Dominican Republic

Dominica vs. Canada

Curacao vs. Cuba

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines vs. Guyana

Antigua and Barbuda vs. Saint Lucia

Puerto Rico vs. Grenada

Post by **Shirley** » Wed Apr 01, 2015 8:24 am

wlu_lax6 wrote:Saint Kitts and Nevis 12, Turks and Caicos Islands 4.

I bet that was a fun one.

If I moved to one of these places, would I have a shot of making the team? I mean, these countries have the equivalent populations of a small US town (50K and 30K).

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Wed Apr 01, 2015 8:43 am

So way way back. I must have been in elementary school, my dad had a meeting in Bermuda. So the whole family got to go and stay at the Southampton Princess and enjoy a winter vacation. Well walking through town we saw a sign for a Bermuda World Cup Qualifier. My dad and I were in. We bought tickets at the gate and where the only white guys in the place. It was a zero zero snore fest, but very cool experience. The stadium was not as nice as a baltimore county public school stadium. I also remember the taxi driver who brought us home stopped to pick up his dry cleaning and left the meter running.

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Wed Apr 01, 2015 9:27 pm

Shirley wrote:
wlu_lax6 wrote:Saint Kitts and Nevis 12, Turks and Caicos Islands 4.
I bet that was a fun one.

If I moved to one of these places, would I have a shot of making the team? I mean, these countries have the equivalent populations of a small US town (50K and 30K).

This was a fun book that focused on a few world cup no hopers.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Thu Apr 02, 2015 9:03 am

Pruitt wrote: This was a fun book that focused on a few world cup no hopers.

Like Canada?

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:25 pm

Asian 2018 World Cup Draw

Starts at 35:00.

40 teams divided into 8 groups of 5. Top team in each Group + 4 best 2nd place go to 3rd round of World Cup qualifying and qualify for the 2019 Asian Cup. Next best 20 teams will go to repechage Asian Cup qualifying tournament.

Keep your eye on Thomas Dooley's Philippines!

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:38 pm

degenerasian wrote:Next best 20 teams will go to repechage Asian Cup qualifying tournament.

New corporate sponsor?

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 5:20 pm

I have no knowledge of skin care products

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Fri Jun 12, 2015 2:13 pm

Couple of good news items

Thomas Dooley's Philippines upset Bahrain 2-1 in Manila. That group is wide open with Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Philippines. North Korea and Yemen.

Also, Guam won a World Cup match for the first time ever, 1-0 over Turkmenistan.

And Indonesia got kicked out for government interference.

Tom 1860 · Post by **Tom 1860** » Sat Jun 13, 2015 4:29 pm

By defeating Belgium, Wales have moved into the top tier of WC group seeding in Europe. This means they will automatically avoid Germany, Spain, France, Italy, England, Holland etc...

Wales have never been in this position before and have always been caught by the group seedings due to previous performances (as we have discussed on his board at length in the past). This has led to them to ending up in horribly tough qualifying groups, that are harder to get out of than almost all WC finals groups.

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Sat Jun 13, 2015 6:59 pm

Tom 1860 wrote:By defeating Belgium, Wales have moved into the top tier of WC group seeding in Europe. This means they will automatically avoid Germany, Spain, France, Italy, England, Holland etc...

Wales have never been in this position before and have always been caught by the group seedings due to previous performances (as we have discussed on his board at length in the past). This has led to them to ending up in horribly tough qualifying groups, that are harder to get out of than almost all WC finals groups.

Nice that they got a draw with Belgium, Israel, and 3 teams that pretty low ranking

Post by **brian** » Sat Jun 13, 2015 8:03 pm

Go Belize! Hope they make the round before the Hex

Tom 1860 · Post by **Tom 1860** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 2:32 am

wlu_lax6 wrote:
Tom 1860 wrote:By defeating Belgium, Wales have moved into the top tier of WC group seeding in Europe. This means they will automatically avoid Germany, Spain, France, Italy, England, Holland etc...

Wales have never been in this position before and have always been caught by the group seedings due to previous performances (as we have discussed on his board at length in the past). This has led to them to ending up in horribly tough qualifying groups, that are harder to get out of than almost all WC finals groups.
Nice that they got a draw with Belgium, Israel, and 3 teams that pretty low ranking

This is for the Euro 16 qualifying, so 23 teams go through to join France as Hosts. It is easier than the European WC qualifying and Wales got Bosnia as its top group seed, which was great, followed by Belgium in pot 2 and then Israel in pot 3.

Wales were ranked 34th in Europe at the time of the draw, so they were in the 4th pot.

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 6:22 am

Qualification draw takes place is Russia today.
Folks helping with the draw.
Africa: Rinat Dasaev and Samuel Eto'o
CONCACAF: Fabio Cannavaro and Madjer
Oceania: Alexey Smertin and Predrag Rajkovic
South America: Ronaldo and Diego Forlan
Europe: Alexander Kerzhakov and Oliver Bierhoff

howard · Post by **howard** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 10:27 am

Has someone created the .gif of this chick stroking the balls before she pulls them?

Tom 1860 · Post by **Tom 1860** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 10:31 am

So the cross zone playoffs (home and away) will be:

North America, Central America & West Indies (4th place) vs Asia (4th place)

Oceania (1st place) vs South America (5th place)

So pretty nice draw for whoever is 5th in South America (likely New Zealand)

Tom 1860 · Post by **Tom 1860** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 10:32 am

howard wrote:Has someone created the .gif of this chick stroking the balls before she pulls them?

She has more makeup than the cast of the 'Thriller' Video...

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 10:58 am

Here we go!

Baloney · Post by **Baloney** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 11:17 am

howard wrote:Has someone created the .gif of this chick stroking the balls before she pulls them?

Blimey that was a quick change, outfit & earings

Tom 1860 · Post by **Tom 1860** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:19 pm

What a difference being seeded... Wales have Austria, Serbia, Eire, Moldova & Georgia to contend with.

We'll see what this means in a couple of years time.

Post by **brian** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 2:07 pm

Already announced that US vs. St. Vincent or Aruba game will be in St. Louis on Nov. 13. If I weren't just getting back from Mexico that day I might have considered a trip out there to see that. Would be cool to see a soccer game in Busch Stadium, especially one that's hopefully going to be a walkover.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 2:12 pm

brian wrote:Already announced that US vs. St. Vincent or Aruba game will be in St. Louis on Nov. 13. If I weren't just getting back from Mexico that day I might have considered a trip out there to see that. Would be cool to see a soccer game in Busch Stadium, especially one that's hopefully going to be a walkover.

What kind of attendance will this get? Can Aruba or St. V game fill Busch Stadium?

We sure got lucky with this draw. T&T and Guatemala. Costa Rica, Panama, Haiti and Jamaica is one hell of a group.

Post by **brian** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 2:16 pm

Yeah, I was fully expecting to get fucked. Nothing ever certain since it can get dicey with only 6 games, but should be a walk more or less to the Hex. I've always said the next time the US doesn't make the World Cup it'll probably be after getting knocked out of the earlier round of qualifying not the Hex (assuming qualification says the same in the future).

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 2:25 pm

Last campaign US started against Antigua and it drew 24,000 in Tampa.

Would tickets be cheaper? Could get over 30,000.

Post by **brian** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 2:40 pm

If the weather is decent, it should draw a nice crowd. Busch isn't ideal for soccer obviously, but I imagine the lower bowl would be more or less filled. Probably 25K to 30K sounds about right.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 3:51 pm

brian wrote:If the weather is decent, it should draw a nice crowd. Busch isn't ideal for soccer obviously, but I imagine the lower bowl would be more or less filled. Probably 25K to 30K sounds about right.

It's looks like the advent of the soccer specific stadiums is actually hurting conditions for the USMNT. The field conditions in a lot of the Gold Cup games were supposedly attrocious. To the point that the Central American and Caribbean nations were complaining. 10 years ago, this was not the case. It seems like the larger venues don't cater to soccer conditions anymore, as most games, primarily MLS, are played in smaller soccer stadiums, averaging around 20,000. My understanding was the intention of having the USMNT play games in these stadiums. Is the increased interest in soccer causing higher ticket sales than expected 5-10 years ago, so the soccer stadiums are too small for Gold Cup and meaningful games?

Post by **brian** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 3:55 pm

I think it is more that the Gold Cup is a straight up CONCACAF money grab whereas US Soccer gets to decide where to host the WC qualifiers. Thus CONCACAF doesn't really give a fuck where the Gold Cup games are as long as they can sell tickets and make money. (Hence we get the Confed Cup playoff in the Rose Bowl in what will amount to a home game for Mexico).

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 4:16 pm

brian wrote:I think it is more that the Gold Cup is a straight up CONCACAF money grab whereas US Soccer gets to decide where to host the WC qualifiers. Thus CONCACAF doesn't really give a fuck where the Gold Cup games are as long as they can sell tickets and make money. (Hence we get the Confed Cup playoff in the Rose Bowl in what will amount to a home game for Mexico).

CONCACAF claims they will give equal ticket allocations to both nations. Not sure the US has ever done a good job blocking foreigners from getting their tickets. The best thing the U.S. has done as part of WC qualification is find cities that don't have heavy Mexican populations and are hard to fly to.

St. Louis has a reputation as a great soccer town. Time to prove it.

Wonder if any U.S. stadiums will look and see if the new London stadium is a good surface (field turf for NFL/concerts under a tray for EPL-level grass)

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 4:21 pm

The tray idea is fascinating. Are the big US stadiums constrained by the location of their seating areas from having a full-sized (not just 'within regs') field surface for soccer?

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 8:17 pm

Jamaica is down 0-2 already after 10 minutes in the prelims!

Post by **brian** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 9:37 pm

Down 3-1 now. That game's in Jamaica too. They're in deep shit. Playing in Guatemala is no joke.

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 9:50 pm

Just back from the Canada-Belize game in Toronto. A beautiful night for a game between a really poor national team and 11 guys who must have won a contest.

Canada won 3-0 and it wasn't even that close. A laugh riot from start to finish - only Canada's complete lack of quality up front kept this from being in double digits.

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 2:20 pm

I heard there was some trouble at BMO Field. Throwing smoke bombs onto the pitch is not cool.

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 2:58 pm

degenerasian wrote:I heard there was some trouble at BMO Field. Throwing smoke bombs onto the pitch is not cool.

Twas absolutely nothing and happened at the very end of the game.

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 7:21 am

Semi final qualification groups all set in CONCACAF. Jamica moves on due to an 89th minute strike. Guatemala stops Steve Sampson and his Antigua and Barbuda. Canada has a tough road to the Hex after taking care of Belize

GROUP A: Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Canada

GROUP B: Costa Rica, Panama, Haiti, Jamica

GROUP C: United States, Trinidad & Tobago, Saint Vincents and the Grenadines, Guatemala

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 8:34 am

Group A is kinda group of death-y for a qualifying round.

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 8:37 am

I like that Canada has a tough group. Young team needs experience and 3 trips to Central America will certainly do that.

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 9:08 am

degenerasian wrote:I like that Canada has a tough group. Young team needs experience and 3 trips to Central America will certainly do that.

Which will be good because they won't get many meaningful games in 2017 after failing to make the Hex again. Just don't see Canada finishing top 2 in that group.

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 9:47 am

wlu_lax6 wrote:
degenerasian wrote:I like that Canada has a tough group. Young team needs experience and 3 trips to Central America will certainly do that.
Which will be good because they won't get many meaningful games in 2017 after failing to make the Hex again. Just don't see Canada finishing top 2 in that group.

Honestly, canada is so bad, 4th place is a distinct possibility.