Anyone got anything booked already and heading out to SA for the WC, or do most feel it would be a pointless exersise. As we will not be allowed to leave our hotel and when we are will only to be frogged marched to the grounds for the games we were lucky enought to get tickets for. Lerts face it its proberbly the leastr safe destination for a WC ever bar Rio maybe but its not exactally pussyhole Germany, Japan or France thisn is South Africa there are no go areas were if you do not conform to the gangs way of life they burn you alive. Things like this and stories in have herd from mates and people has put me off for now.
Just wondered what others views are on the safety out at the WC. Now i was lucky enough to have been all over Africa so know a bit what it is like although i have never been to SA i have been to Ghana and Senegal and there is street codes layed down by Drug barrons and anyone man, women or child who disobeys these codes would not live longewr than a few hours to tell you about it sick lifestyle no?
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Having said that, i won't be going.
They did that in South Korea/ Japan had to collect tickets out there think this one maybe a bit different if you guys have been looking at prices any good tips on places to look for flights and that would be appricated.
Costa Rica play Uruguay in the other play-off.
Bahrain that would be hillarious if they got through i know New Zealand have been to finals once before but surley it would be Bahrains first finals? Uruguay should destroy Costa Rica i would have thought no Paolo Wanchope for Costa Rica anymore.
I'm sure they're doing ok without him
Clearly if they got to the playoffs who were the other CONCAF teams to go through USA, Mexico and Honduras?
I know this was intended as tongue in cheek JT (I thought Wanchope was pony too) but to be fair to RU, he scored 45 times in 74 appearances for Costa Rica so perhaps they do miss him!
Yep. USA scored a last minute goal to equalise against Costa Rica, thus denying them a place and sending through Honduras.
It's ridiculous that after all the qualifiers they seeded that draw so the bigger countries avoided each other.
It is a joke. They used the current rankings to seed the teams. This is the same set of rankings that has Croatia at 8th, yet the Ukraine at 22nd??!!!
The rankings are a joke. Croatia are 8th. USA are 11th (although they did well at the Confederations cup), Switzerland are 13th and the Czechs are 15th even though i think they came 4th in their group below Northern Ireland.
We know Scotland are rubbish but are they really worse than Gabon?
And are Wales really a worse national side than the footballing powerhouses of Benin and Uganda?!
We know Scotland are rubbish but are they really worse than Gabon?
And are Wales really a worse national side than the footballing powerhouses of Benin and Uganda?![/quote]
The rankings are weird surely Italy last times winners should be world number 1 otherwise whats the point of winning the World cup if not surely Brazil as they have won it more time than anyone else does the WC not have any effect on Fifa world rankings. Plus i think its ridiculous that the champions have to qualify for the next tournement why would you do that wots the point of winning the WC if it has no bareing on Fifa World rankings and you have to qualify for the next tournement surely if you win the WC you are good enough to qualify?
After the 2006 FIFA World Cup, a revised calculation procedure for the FIFA rankings was introduced; it is a significantly simplified procedure. The new rankings were compiled in response to criticism from the media.[2] Meetings were attended by FIFA staff and external experts and a large amount of research was conducted by this group, resulting in the new ranking system.[2] The new system was confirmed in Leipzig on 7 December 2005 by a committee of FIFA executives. Notable changes include the dropping of the home or away advantage and number of goals from the calculation, and the simplification of many aspects of the system.
The system, like the previous ones, is extremely similar to that of a league, though with changes made to ensure that it is still representative of the teams' performance despite playing differing numbers of matches per annum, and the differing strength of opposition that teams have to face. The factors taken into account are as follows:
Match result
Match status
Opposition strength
Regional strength
Teams' actual scores are a result of the average points gained over each calendar year; matches from the previous four years are considered, with more weight being given to recent ones.
Win, draw or defeat
In previous years a complicated system of points allocation was used, depending on how strong the opponent was, and how large the loss margin, which allowed weaker losing teams to gain points when playing a much stronger opposition, if they managed to put up a decent match. With the new system, the points allocation is simpler: three points for a win, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss, in line with most league systems around the world.
In the event of a match being decided by a penalty shootout, the winning team receives two points, and the losing team one point.
Result Points
Win (no penalty shootout) 3
Win (penalty shootout) 2
Draw 1
Loss (penalty shootout) 1
Loss (no penalty shootout) 0
In two-legged play-offs, if Team A loses the first leg 2 - 0, then matches the result in the return leg and wins after a penalty shootout, it will receive two points. However, Team A wins by one goal only, being eliminated in the process, it will receive 3 points.[12]
Match status
Different matches have different importance to teams, and FIFA has tried to respect this by using a weighting system, where the most significant matches are in the World Cup finals,[13] and the lowest weighted are friendly matches. FIFA states that it wishes to recognise that friendlies are still important, since they make up half of the competitive matches counted in the rankings.[14] FIFA also stated, however, that it did not plan to make any adjustment for teams that qualify directly for major tournaments.[15][16]
The match status multipliers are as follows:
Match status Multiplier
Friendly match x 1.0
FIFA World Cup and Continental cup qualifiers x 2.5
Continental cup and Confederations Cup finals x 3.0
World Cup finals match x 4.0
Opponent strength
Obviously, a win against a very highly ranked opponent is a considerably greater achievement than a win against a low-rated opponent, so the strength of the opposing team is a factor.
The new system uses an opposition strength factor based on team rankings. The previous system was based on points difference.
The formula used is:
with the exceptions that the team ranked #1 is given a multiplier of 2.00, and teams ranked 150th and below are assigned the minimum multiplier of 0.50.
Example 1: the opposition team is currently ranked 8th in the world:
so the opposition strength multiplier is 1.92
Example 2: the opposition team is currently ranked 125th in the world:
so the opposition strength multiplier is 0.75
Example 3: the opposition team is currently ranked 188th in the world:
Below 150th, so the opposition strength multiplier is the minimum 0.50
The ranking position is taken from the opposition's ranking in the most recently published FIFA World Ranking before the match is included in the ranking calculation.[17]
The rankings published before July 2006 are purely historical and are not used for the new ranking calculation. Instead, FIFA went back as far as 1996 to apply the new formula and is using those new rankings for the current calculations.[18]
See the detailed break-down of point totals for teams from the top 20 in the October 2007 rankings.[19]
Regional strength
In addition to the opposition strength multiplier, FIFA considers the relative strength of entire confederations in the calculation. Each confederation is assigned a weighting between 0.85 and 1.0, based on the relative performance of the confederations in the last three World Cups. Their values are as follows:[20]
Confederation After 2006 World Cup Up to and including 2006 World Cup
UEFA (Europe) 1.00 1.00
CONMEBOL (South America) 0.98 0.99
CONCACAF (North and Central America and Caribbean) 0.85 0.88
AFC (Asia) 0.85 0.85
CAF (Africa) 0.85 0.85
OFC (Oceania) 0.85 0.85
The multiplier used in the calculation is the average of the regional strength weighting of the two teams:
They are weird in terms of some of the rankings i mentioned further up (Scotland/Wales etc) but with regards to Italy they won the WC over 3 years ago, since then they did nothing at Euro 2008 and didn't get out of their group at the Confederations Cup. Brazil won that and also the Copa America so i don't think anyone can dispute them being the worlds best. Nor Spain being ranked above Italy after they won Euro 2008. The think i don't get is why Holland are ranked 3. They got knocked out of the last WC a round before us, they only made the quarter finals at the Euros and qualified out of the easiest WC qualification group, so why does that put them above Italy who as you say are the current WC holders.
I'm sure Italy were ranked no. 1 after the 2006 world cup, but a lot has changed since then.
I also can't believe you are seriously suggesting that there is no incentive in winning the World Cup just because you don't get to automatically qualify for the next one.
Worst scenario: England, Holland, Ivory Coast & Mexico
Best scenario: England, Slovakia, Algeria, New Zealand