Huuuuuge News For Australia!!

Punkt said:

for me the better would be unit CONCACAF with CONMEBOL and form an united american confederation.

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The only way I could see that happening is if FIFA were to boost our qualifying spots to equal Europe's.

But how would that benefit anyone, anyhow? Its plain unpractical. CONMEBOL is already seeking to alter its Qualifiers to reduce traveling costs and fixtures. Throwing in Caribbean and North American nations together with SA would just increase both.

Not to mention it would give the stronger nations even more leeway in qualifying for the World Cup.

Punkt said:

for me the better would be unit CONCACAF with CONMEBOL and form an united american confederation. Imagine an american confederation with all american countries and continental competitions like UEFA with pré-rounds. And put all OFC nations in AFC.

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Totally agree.

I don't see why not on this one. With the geographic locations closing to each other, it'll make the BEST EVER pre WC qualifying campaign.

Ruben Sosa said:

The only way I could see that happening is if FIFA were to boost our qualifying spots to equal Europe's.

But how would that benefit anyone, anyhow? Its plain unpractical. CONMEBOL is already seeking to alter its Qualifiers to reduce traveling costs and fixtures. Throwing in Caribbean and North American nations together with SA would just increase both.

Not to mention it would give the stronger nations even more leeway in qualifying for the World Cup.

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Yea, the travel would be insane.

Vancouver to Valparaiso, no thanks.

Bobby said:

Yea, the travel would be insane.

Vancouver to Valparaiso, no thanks.

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well, travel from west europe to any place on the ex-USSR is insane too, some countries are in asia like Kazakhstan or Armenia.

the teams in the uefa competitions are always praying in the draws to avoid the east teams

ok so let me get this straight, when Australia/Oceania were lobbying FIFA for an outright world cup place for OFC most you people were calling it a joke, as this supposedly translated into a free ride for Australia to the cup.

Now Australia asks to get into Asia and tough it out against 40 odd other countries, FAIR & SQUARE, and they get trashed and labelled as selfish opportunists, and cowards for ditching Oceania and running away from Sth America?

How does it make more sense to travel halfway across the world to play a CONMEBOL team when a country like Malaysia is still closer to us than say a Western Samoa is. Asia lies midway between Australia and Europe where most of our players are based so its perfect for us.

Besides, you need not be geographically attached to a particular continent to become a fully fledged member of its footballing federation, good examples are Kazakhstan, Israel, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Guyana (sp?) and so forth.

The real problem is not WHO it is you play, its this unreliable & strenuous playoff system, where a team thats barely played a dozen games together in 4 years (just casual friendlies mind you) will have to travel hundreds of miles and have the entire future of the sport in its country rest on the outcome of a couple of games where one bad day can make all the difference. There's a huge mismatch between both teams because the 5th placed Sth American side would've already had 18 highly-competitive world class matches of qualifying under its belt, and by the time it gets to the playoffs it would obviously be a lot more established and battle-hardened than before, as opposed to its Oceanian counterpart.

The only people who should really be bothered about this are the Asians themselves, as they could potentially lose a world cup spot to us. Its not like they aren't having it good right now anyways, 4.5 places for a continent with only 2 or 3 decent teams

Like it or not this is a major feat for Australian football, and is a tribute to all the good work many people here have put in to revive the game in the country, particularly the late Johnny Warren God bless his soul.

so, this means 'no 5th spot' for Conmebol?? it's ridiculous. Australia deserves to play in a WC, but just 4 spots (well, 2 spots: Brazil and Argentina always qualified for WC) for the sudamerican NTs is not right. Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela, Peru and Chile fighting for just 2 spots? they're far better than most of the Asian teams and better than almost all the CONCACAF teams.

Bobby said:

Yea, the travel would be insane.

Vancouver to Valparaiso, no thanks.

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we have never played in Valparaiso

if USA and Mexico can play in the Copa America and mexican teams can play in Copa Libertadores, why the **** their NTs can't play against us in the WC qualifiers? of course countries like St. Kitty would get their asses wiped sometimes, but that isn't an excuse

Actually the 5th spot will be easier to get 'cuz they'll play with the champion of OFC which would end up being Fiji, New Zealand, Solomon Islands or someone else, suppose they end up playing against Colombia for example, so they'll end up like 14-0 in the global. And nowadays from the CONCACAF, United States played the Copa América just once. More likely the ones that play the Copa América now are Mexico and Costa Rica.

Punkt said:

well, travel from west europe to any place on the ex-USSR is insane too, some countries are in asia like Kazakhstan or Armenia.

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the distance between Yerevan(the capital of Armenia) and Paris, for example, is not very long. but it depends on the route, of course. if the route runs through the sea, then it's short enough. The distance between Moscow and eastern Russian city Vladivostok is four times longer than the distance between Moscow and Lisbon

imagine if some team of Vladivostok qualifies for UEFA

I think the point was that they can't necessarily afford the travel expenses from South to North America. European nations for the most part don't have this problem. Have you ever heard France say it couldn't afford to send the nat'l team to Kiev?

If it were up to me, i'd just combine OFC and AFC. There are too many terrible teams in both conferences, so we might as well let those teams get more experience playing each other. The OFC is hardly a conference anyway; it's just us and a bunch of nations where the first 11 males to turn up at the match get to play (American Samoa's star players were two 14 year old twin strikers on that record setting day). Have regional phases at the start of qualifications so that teams don't need to excessively travel if they're not going to qualify anyway.

Don't worry about combining qualification spots...the 4.5 that AFC already had is more than enough. Give OFC's former 0.5 spot outright to CONMEBOL; they deserve to have at least 5 teams in the WC.

Even with OFC/AFC sharing 4.5 spots, we'd only really see 3, maybe 4, quality teams in the WC. But it's better than watching Saudi Arabia or China getting bloody flogged every 4 years.

Austraila joining Asia DOES help out all sides in consideration. Asia gains another strong side, Australia gets a bigger chance to qualify for the WC and other club competitions, while the competition in Oceania gets better spread out so that all the countries as a whole can make progress and grow.

Though having a single American federation is simply absurd. Yeah from a fans point of view it would be awesome but that simple-minded thinking, The traveling, the gap between the teams from CONMEBOL and the teams from CONCACAF, and the poorness of play for most CONCACAF nations would simply hurt North America as a whole, setting back pretty much the whole continent in it's progressing stage.

In other words CONMEBOL sides would have things easy while it would pretty much become an impossible situation for all CONCACAF sides except the US, Mexico, and Costa Rica.

It wouldn't work.

How about combining OFC and AFC then splitting it into two, say East and West AFC, with the border being say, India/Pakistan or even as far as Burma/India. Then the developing nations of the OFC can play against those of East AFC, and not have to travel to the other side of Asia, ie Oman or Yemen. I am sure the likes of American Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti, and all could learn by playing nations such as Guam, Laos, and Cambodia, and the stronger teams such as Australia and New Zealand could battle for the WC spots against the likes of Japan, China and Korea.

If they were to combine the two confederations, they could have 5 WC places, say give 3 to East AFC with probably China, Korea, Japan, Australia battling it out. and 2 to West AFC, with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Bahrain battling out with that. Or even the top 2 of East and West qualify direct and there is a playoff between the third best for the fifth place. Even with 4.5 places between East/West AFC, this could function, with a possible playoff with South America or CONCACAF or even UEFA.

This is all about producing better competition for football in general. A stronger AFC and a stronger OFC, will see a stronger World Cup, with less of a gap between nations at the WC. That should be the ultimate goal of FIFA.

Raikkonen said:

so, this means 'no 5th spot' for Conmebol?? it's ridiculous. Australia deserves to play in a WC, but just 4 spots (well, 2 spots: Brazil and Argentina always qualified for WC) for the sudamerican NTs is not right. Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela, Peru and Chile fighting for just 2 spots? they're far better than most of the Asian teams and better than almost all the CONCACAF teams.



we have never played in Valparaiso

if USA and Mexico can play in the Copa America and mexican teams can play in Copa Libertadores, why the **** their NTs can't play against us in the WC qualifiers? of course countries like St. Kitty would get their asses wiped sometimes, but that isn't an excuse

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It's not the US and Mexico, it's St. Kitts ect.

It's not that they would be whipping boys, but they can barely afford to travel within CONCACAF.

If the US and Mexico were to leave CONCACAF would be very weak, sure CR and Jamaica are decent, but they can't be called powerhouses.

Let's just have an FA Cup style 200 nation knockout tournament this June. Seed the top 50 or so nations, and draw the rest. Last 32 teams standing play in the WC next year.

It'll cost a ton of moeny, but it'd be fun to watch!

::shinji:: said:

why's that so great, it just means it's gonna be harder for Australia to qualify, unless I'm reading that wrong. Now instead of having to play _one_ decent team from South America, they'll have to play tough qualifying matches against several tough teams...Iran, Korea, Japan, China..

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it's a lot easier to qualify through a group stage rather than a one-off playoff.

Consider Portugal v Greece at euro04..... nine out of ten times, Portugal will beat Greece. But it just so happened that in the final, Greece came out victors. now imagine if your whole four-yearly cycle rested on that one game.

In the past, australia has only had three non-friendly opportunitites to play every four years:

- Oceania Nations Cup
- Confederations Cup Qualifications
- World Cup Qualifications

Of those, the play-off is the only game that clubs will actually release players for. So we go into it with, basically, zero meaningful full-strength sides.


Now compare that to the 5th placed South American team; who will be quality regardless. They have a qualification system where they basically they play 18 games (I believe) at full-strength against the likes of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay etc. They come to the play-off about as match-ready as you're going to get in international football, and we put on a side that's played maybe two games in the previous few years.

We generally don't like our chances here.




Aside from qualification, it also has billions (hyperbole alert) of other benefits; primarily Asian Champions League entry for our new leauge, which will do a hell of a lot for the game in this country, as well as entry to the Asian cup - meaning we will actually get some meaningful games

Avalanche1996 said:

If the OFC don't reject it, FIFA most certainly will.

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If Australia thinks it will help them, and Asia thinks it will help them, and Oceania thinks it will help them - what reason would FIFA have to disagree? Assuming that all parties are for it (and the islanders are desperate to get rid of us), I don't see FIFA disagreeing with it. If nothing else, then they will just let all of Oceania be absorbed by the AFC.

Rob said:

For so long Australia fought for the rights of the OFC and then they are going to abandon them like that because it suits them?

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Rob said:

So hypocritical and plain selfish.

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If anything, it gives the other countries SOME chance of getting to WC. I mean, with the current system, first they need a huge stroke of luck to beat Australia then another huge stroke of luck to beat 5th South America. Luck of that magnitude won't happen twice - this gives New Zealand, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, or whoever the chance to go straight up against 5th place South America. Then who knows, they might fluke entry into the WC.

Avalanche1996 said:

If the OFC don't reject it, FIFA most certainly will.

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If Australia thinks it will help them, and Asia thinks it will help them, and Oceania thinks it will help them - what reason would FIFA have to disagree? Assuming that all parties are for it (and the islanders are desperate to get rid of us), I don't see FIFA disagreeing with it. If nothing else, then they will just let all of Oceania be absorbed by the AFC.

Rob said:

Like it or not, Australia is a minow nation. We have done nothing on the world stage and until we do something we are and always will be .. a minow.

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International tournaments Australia has won in the last 25 years: Four
International tournaments England has won in the last 25 years: Zero



And then we consider THAT game two years ago:

Total goals England scored at home against Australia: One
Total goals Australia has scored away against England: Three

Goals scored by England's strongest available XI against Australia's strongest available XI: Zero

Goals scored by Australia's strongest available XI against England's strongest available XI: Two









Who's the minnow?

4 international tournaments? Which are those? Those involving only Oceania teams don't count due to the immense crappiness of Oceania teams.

this is good to see a country from every continent in the world cup