Point being you have to allow for the occasional giant killing even in qualifiers, have you no romance left in your cold, hard, snobby heart?

comment by Hector (U3606)
posted 18 minutes ago
Point being you have to allow for the occasional giant killing even in qualifiers, have you no romance left in your cold, hard, snobby heart?
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The Swiss format would allow for those giant killings whilst also bringing some interest to qualifying. We would play Andorra and Malta, but also play Italy and Spain - it’s a great compromise and would make these whole thing much more interesting.

I hear many a Scotland fan moaning at how easy Englands group is - well if we keep the same format then it will only get easier.

England do have an easy group, but that's the luck of the draw. There's tougher second seed sides we could have been paired with. Not like all the big nations are having it easy in this form of qualifying. Italy (who in general are a big advert for how the big nations do sometimes come unstuck) are second in their group, six points behind their second seed side (Norway), and tied with their third seed side (Israel). Belgium are in second trailing North Macedonia. Netherlands are only top of their group on goal difference. Sweden and Germany are both only two games into qualifying, but both of them are third, behind Kosovo and Northern Ireland respectively.

Don't think the South American system would work with the sheer quantity of European sides, and being real, outside of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, South American teams are probably 3rd tier of European sides, generally speaking. From a practical perspective, FIFA prefers these kind of setups because they want those marquee games to happen at the tournaments people watch.

Also, selfishly, if we were playing France, Spain etc in qualifying, a richer streamer would pick that up. Having them on ITV allows for me to watch them so I prefer that, even though it can be fairly tedious.

comment by Lubo - Struijk of Genius (U14008)
posted 2 minutes ago
England do have an easy group, but that's the luck of the draw. There's tougher second seed sides we could have been paired with. Not like all the big nations are having it easy in this form of qualifying. Italy (who in general are a big advert for how the big nations do sometimes come unstuck) are second in their group, six points behind their second seed side (Norway), and tied with their third seed side (Israel). Belgium are in second trailing North Macedonia. Netherlands are only top of their group on goal difference. Sweden and Germany are both only two games into qualifying, but both of them are third, behind Kosovo and Northern Ireland respectively.

Don't think the South American system would work with the sheer quantity of European sides, and being real, outside of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, South American teams are probably 3rd tier of European sides, generally speaking. From a practical perspective, FIFA prefers these kind of setups because they want those marquee games to happen at the tournaments people watch.

Also, selfishly, if we were playing France, Spain etc in qualifying, a richer streamer would pick that up. Having them on ITV allows for me to watch them so I prefer that, even though it can be fairly tedious.
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Every now and then one of the better Euro sides will miss out, but it’s almost guaranteed that 90% of England, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Netherlands, Portugal will qualify.

The same will be true in the Swiss format, the difference is we will along the way get some challenging games. It’s not good for Englands tournament chances to just keep playing weak sides in tournaments. Then they go to the finals and get another weak group due to amount of teams now qualifying and our seeding. Then the rounds of 32 and 16 are likely to be fairly weak this time round for us. We will probably only start facing the top sides from the Quarter finals and we will likely struggle at that point as we’re just not used to playing these games.

It’s really poor and UEFA need to fix it, I fail to see who is benefitting, the likes of Andorra are never going to give England a proper game no matter how much experience they gain by playing these matches, they simply do not have the population to support such a pool of players

comment by Gillespie Road. (U18361)
posted 10 hours, 38 minutes ago
Take all the European sides and throw them into brutal South American-style groups of 10.

There's plenty of time for 18 games of round-robin qualifiers. And we'd actually see more of the big sides playing each other.

Wasn't that the entire premise behind the breakaway "Super League" and the new Swiss model of the Champions League?
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You could do six groups of nine if you wanted to go that route I suppose. Maths works with Russia banned.

comment by Darren The King Fletcher (U10026)
posted 1 hour, 53 minutes ago
comment by Gillespie Road. (U18361)
posted 10 hours, 38 minutes ago
Take all the European sides and throw them into brutal South American-style groups of 10.

There's plenty of time for 18 games of round-robin qualifiers. And we'd actually see more of the big sides playing each other.

Wasn't that the entire premise behind the breakaway "Super League" and the new Swiss model of the Champions League?
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You could do six groups of nine if you wanted to go that route I suppose. Maths works with Russia banned.
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It will still have seeds and you would have England, France, Spain and then 2 of Italy, Germany, Portugal, Croatia, Belgium, Netherlands in the top spot.

The Swiss format could see England playing: Spain H, France A, Poland H, Denmark A, Estonia H, Slovenia A, Cyprus H, Malta A

That would make things much more interesting

You’d still have seeding for a Swiss model, not sure how you’ve figured England would have those kind of fixtures under that format so would like to see your working out.

UEFA’s problem is that there are so many teams and not enough good teams for the qualifying system to regularly pit the best against each other.

Qualifiers for the smaller nations is the only way to achieve more competition in the qualifying, but the World Cup and Euros being expanded means there’s less jeopardy in qualifying even if that were to happen.

comment by Darren The King Fletcher (U10026)
posted 16 minutes ago
You’d still have seeding for a Swiss model, not sure how you’ve figured England would have those kind of fixtures under that format so would like to see your working out.
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Like the champs league, you play 2 from:

Pot A: Spain, France
Pot B: Poland Denmark
Pot C: Estonia, Slovenia
Pot D: Cyprus Malta

England would still be seeded but because we would be forced to play 2 sides from pot A the seeding is irrelevant as everyone has to play 2 sides from pot A - it’s basically the current CL format

comment by Darren The King Fletcher (U10026)
posted 12 minutes ago
UEFA’s problem is that there are so many teams and not enough good teams for the qualifying system to regularly pit the best against each other.

Qualifiers for the smaller nations is the only way to achieve more competition in the qualifying, but the World Cup and Euros being expanded means there’s less jeopardy in qualifying even if that were to happen.
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The Swiss model takes care of that, the smaller sides will still play the same amount of games against the better sides, the only difference is the better sides will also play against the better sides

Don’t forget also when we get to the World Cup finals, England are nailed on to be seeded and will go into 1 of 12 groups of 4 sides. Therefore we will avoid France, Spain, Argentina, Brazil and so on.

We then can finish as low as 3rd in that group and still qualify for the knockouts - it could literally be a matter of beating Bolivia or Uzbekistan to get to the knockout stage. If we win the group then we will again get a favourable fixture in the round of 32 - probably against a 3rd place finisher.

It’s just so weak

comment by Striketeam7 - more welching more often (U18109)
posted 5 hours ago
comment by Hector (U3606)
posted 18 minutes ago
Point being you have to allow for the occasional giant killing even in qualifiers, have you no romance left in your cold, hard, snobby heart?
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The Swiss format would allow for those giant killings whilst also bringing some interest to qualifying. We would play Andorra and Malta, but also play Italy and Spain - it’s a great compromise and would make these whole thing much more interesting.

I hear many a Scotland fan moaning at how easy Englands group is - well if we keep the same format then it will only get easier.
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I don't know any Scotland fan who is the slightest bit interested in England's group tbh, we move in different circles.

It wouldn’t work like that because the CL has 36 teams and UEFA qualifying had 54.

If you want four pots that would mean that the top 13/14 ranked teams in Europe would be in pot one. You’re failing to acknowledge the size of UEFA membership.

That’s why you’d need qualifiers for all the smaller nations to reduce the size of the group stage qualification for it to work.

comment by Darren The King Fletcher (U10026)
posted 6 minutes ago
It wouldn’t work like that because the CL has 36 teams and UEFA qualifying had 54.

If you want four pots that would mean that the top 13/14 ranked teams in Europe would be in pot one. You’re failing to acknowledge the size of UEFA membership.
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It’s much simpler than that, you just have 6 pots with 9 in each. It results in 12 games but when you take the friendlies into account that what these sides play over the qualifying period anyway - so it has the additional bonus of ditching meaningless friendlies.

Therefore other advantage of the model is it gives those lower nations a couple of games each qualifying round where they legitimately stand a chance of winning

That would work better, though given you’d have the top 9 European teams in pot one you wouldn’t always get the kind of fixtures you originally mentioned with a four pot system.

The UEFA members wouldn’t go for this anyway, it’s not really in their interest to change the format which is why it’s remained this way for decades.

comment by Darren The King Fletcher (U10026)
posted 58 minutes ago
That would work better, though given you’d have the top 9 European teams in pot one you wouldn’t always get the kind of fixtures you originally mentioned with a four pot system.

The UEFA members wouldn’t go for this anyway, it’s not really in their interest to change the format which is why it’s remained this way for decades.
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They should look to do something, I mean England haven’t won a tournament for nearly 60 years but at the same time have lost 1 qualifier in 16 years. It’s nonsense, the balance isn’t right at all