As 2013 gets underway, I figured it’s high time to take a look around the world and see where everyone stands as competition resumes in North America on Wednesday (and everywhere else in late March). So we’ll start close to home first, and then we’ll take a stroll around the world.

CONCACAF
Starting Wednesday is the final phase of CONCACAF qualification, known in English and Spanish alike as the Hexagonal. The six teams in question are the top-two teams from each 3rd round group. To review, those teams are (in order of their FIFA ranking/ELO ranking): Mexico (15/7), the United States (28/27), Panama (46/37), Jamaica (58/72), Honduras (59/45), and Costa Rica (66/42).

To be blunt, Mexico and the US should qualify. That’s not to say there won’t be drama, however. Last time around, the US lost 3-1 at Costa Rica, for instance. There was also the really annoying tendency to give up early goals. At El Salvador, the US was down 2-0 in the 72nd minute before rallying to for the draw. The US went down 1-0 early at home against Honduras. The one time they did manage to score with in the first ten minutes was at Mexico, when Charlie Davies stunned the Azteca crowd to put the US up 1-0 in the 9th minute. The Mexicans tied 10 minutes later and finally broke through in the 82nd minute to secure the US’s only other loss. In their next four games, other than a 1-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago, the US was losing at some point in the contest. Perhaps none wound up being bigger than the last two games. The US surrendered a goal almost immediately after the half to go down 1-0 at Honduras with qualification on the line. Conor Casey came out of nowhere to become Man of the Match, as he scored in the 50th and 66th minutes to put the US up 2-1, and had an assist on Landon Donovan’s clincher in the 71st minute. The US ended up winning 3-2 after getting lucky with a missed Honduras penalty in extra time.

Perhaps the most dramatic moment ever in CONCACAF qualification occurred four days later in Washington, DC. Mexico and the US were already through to the World Cup. Mexico drew against Trinidad and Tobago earlier in the day, giving the US a shot to top the group with a win. The teams that cared about the results this day the most, however, were Costa Rica and Honduras. Costa Rica had 12 points at the time and Honduras had 10. In order to avoid a tough intercontinental playoff game against a South American team (which ended up being Uruguay, not exactly an easy match) Honduras needed to beat El Salvador and needed the US to draw or win against Costa Rica. The US decided to go for the points and started their full-strength lineup, however the team struggled throughout the match and surrendered two goals in quick succession in the 20th and 23rd minutes. Micheal Bradley finally broke through in the 71st minute, but it looked like the US (and Honduras) would fall short. The 90th minute came and 4 minutes were put on the board. Finally, with the referee liable to blow his whistle at any second, the US were given a corner kick. Robbie Rodgers kicked it, and Jonathan Bornstein instantly became a national hero in Honduras as he headed the ball into the net in what would be noted in the box score as the “90+4” minute. It looked something like this:

I still remember watching the footage from Honduras on Youtube later. First was the audio feed from the Honduran radio guys, who were still on air providing updates as they got them. (The Honduras game had been over for awhile at this point.) In the clip, you hear what sounds like someone shouting from the entrance to the room “Goal Estados Unidos!” followed by “Goal Estados Unidos?” “GOOOOOAAAAAALLL ESTADOS UNIDOS!!!!!! GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLL” Other clips included people celebrating the streets, many with Honduran flags but also several waving American flags. Even though he scored with his forehead, the Honduras football federation asked for Bornstein’s cleats. It was the first time the country had qualified for the World Cup since 1982.

Other than that, things weren’t great in Honduras then (Sports Illustrated international soccer writer Grant Wahl got mugged when covering the US’s away game there in 2009), and they’re a hell of a lot worse now. San Pedro Sula is possibly the least safe city on the planet right now (it currently has the highest per capita murder rate in the world), which probably has a lot to do with the game will start at 3PM local time on Wednesday. Of course, it probably also doesn’t hurt that it will be a very balmy 90 degrees at kickoff, either. In addition to the heat and security situation, the US has the other worries that traditionally come with qualifying in Central America. Hostile fans throwing anything and everything at the players (though the one upside of the Estadio Olimipico in San Pedro Sula is that the stands are relatively far away from the field), an around-the-clock party may be continuously occurring outside the team hotel, rather questionable playing surfaces, and sometimes even more questionable officiating. The US will be trying for three points, but don’t be surprised if in the end we have to settle for one.

In Mexico City, El Tri will be starting off with Jamaica. This shouldn’t present much challenge for the high-flying Mexicans, which makes it even more imperative for the US to get a result at Honduras. Rounding out the first set of games is Panama-Costa Rica. The Ticos just won the Central American Cup and Panama came in fifth. Most sources I’ve read indicate they’re a little weaker side than they were four years ago. They may have some issues on the road in Panama but I think they could still get three points.

CONCACAF is the only confederation playing in February, as the 6th is actually a FIFA friendly date, not what’s known as a “full international date”. The one downside of this is that for full dates, national teams can recall their squads up to a week in advance of the games, whereas it’s only a few days for friendly dates. For the Central American teams this isn’t a huge deal. For Mexico it’s becoming more a big deal, as 5 of their starting 11 are now based on Europe. For the US, though, it wouldn’t be surprising if as many as 8 or 9 of the starting 11 are based in Europe. This means that they flew to Miami Sunday night, and flew on to San Pedro Sula Monday night. That’s pretty rough. Add that into the other elements mentioned above, and fatigue could be a factor. One potential advantage could’ve been that the players will at least be in form, but Honduras were the runners-up in the tournament I mentioned above. For more on the calendar, you can view the FIFA match calendar here.

Let’s take a quick look at the situation abroad, though I’ll probably follow up with another post as we get closer to those dates in late March.

AFC
It probably wouldn’t be a shock, per se, but I’d still be pretty surprised if Uzbekistan topped Group A in Asia ahead of South Korea. The Koreans will get to exact some revenge on them and Iran as they close out with them in June, but the current status quo is likely to prevail as South Korea faces Qatar and Uzbekistan faces last-place Lebanon in March.

Japan has a very good shot at being the first team (other than the hosts) to qualify for the 2014 World Cup. They currently have an 8 point lead over Australia, Iraq, and Oman in their group and need only to beat last-place Jordan to get in. (That, or draw with Jordan and hope the Aussies draw with Oman.) The game is in Amman where the Jordanians did shock Australia 2-1 last September, so it’s not certain. Speaking of the Socceroos, “lackluster” might not be adequate to describe their campaign so far. Their only win has been over Iraq, where they had to come from behind after getting down 1-0 in the 72nd minute. Their best result could very well be a 1-1 draw at home with Japan.

CAF
Not much has changed in Africa, as most national teams have been playing in the Cup of Nations tournament the past few weeks. No World Cup qualifiers have been played since last June, and all teams still have four games to go in their qualification groups right now, so it’s tough to really make any bold statements. The most interesting thing so far might be that Ghana isn’t topping its group, but they still have plenty of time to rectify that.

CONMEBOL
South America has, of course, the most elegant qualifying format: a simple double round-robin between all the teams in the confederation. The top four go to the World Cup, and the fifth place team gets to beat play a team from the AFC. Currently Argentina tops the table with 20 points, three ahead of Ecuador. Colombia has also had a strong showing so far, going 5-1-2 (W-D-L). However, most of the teams still have 6 games to play, so there’s plenty of action left before they wrap up in October.

OFC
With a win on March 22, New Zealand will qualify for the Interconfederation Playoff to be played in November against the 4th place team from CONCACAF. Even though they shockingly lost to New Caledonia last year, the All-Whites should be able to clinch it at home.

UEFA
Most teams still have six games to play, so again, there’s no grand pronouncements to be made so far. We can note some surprises, though, such as Israel sitting in second in Group F ahead of Portugal on goal difference. It stands to reason that may change when the two sides face off in March, though. In Group G, Bosnia is currently tied for the lead in the group with Greece, and both are ahead of 2010 qualifier Slovakia. Exhibit A of why you can’t really tell anything yet is Group H, though. Montenegro are currently topping a group that also has England, Poland, and the Ukraine in it. Don’t get me wrong, they appear to be a quality side, but they’ve also already played hapless minnow San Marino twice. If you dislike potential chaos, though, Group I will make you happy, as Spain and France are currently topping the group.

That’s all for now. Don’t forget to check out the other resources on the sidebar on the right.

Last week, the draw for the qualifiers of the 2014 World Cup took place. This was after some regions held initial qualifying rounds among their minnows. Thanks mostly to action in Asia, the potential pool of teams is now down to 175 nations (from 207). For more details on the overall qualification process, see this post. You can also see the results for these rounds on my pages for Asia and North America.

So what to make of the draw? Let’s break it down, region-by-region.

AFC

The Asian Football Confederation started with 43 teams and is now, after two rounds of competition, down to 20. None of the teams from the first round advanced to the third, and the only thing that could really be termed an “upset” is Indonesia defeating Turkmenistan.

Broadly speaking, a “group of death” is unlikely to occur even in the third round of this competition. There are 5 groups, and all the highest ranked teams remaining were therefore drawn into separate groups. However, there are potentials for surprises. The 2010 World Cup teams received byes to the third round, however, they were seeded according to their current FIFA Ranking. Japan, Australia, and South Korea retain their top spots as the highest ranked teams in the region, but Bahrain and North Korea each ended up in pots 3 and 4. (Taking their place in the top 5 seeds were Iran and China.)

The top two of each group advance to the fourth round, and all the top seeds will be sure bets to advance. The most interesting draw is probably Group E, with Iran, controversial 2022 World Cup hosts Qatar, and 2010 qualifier Bahrain, along with Indonesia.

In the fourth round, the remaining 10 teams are divided into two pools of 5. This seeding has not occurred yet, but whichever group only gets one of the top three teams will be much easier for the remaining teams to qualify out of. The top two teams from each group qualifies for the World Cup Final, and the 3rd place teams playoff for the right to advance to the Inter-Confederation Playoff. In contrast to 2010, the draw for the Inter-Confederation Playoffs already took place, and so in November 2013 the AFC will face off against the 5th place South American team. Generally, this is not a desirable matchup, but lots can change between now and 2013.

CAF

The Confederation of African Football has not begun qualifying yet. 52 nations will compete, with the teams ranked 29th to 52nd playing the first round. This first round begins in November, and features 12 home-and-away matches.

The winners of the first round advance to the second round, where all 40 remaining teams are divided up in to 10 groups of 4. The winner of each of these groups advances to the third round, where the 10 teams will be paired in 5 home-and-away matches. The winners advance directly to the World Cup.

I personally think this format is, well, not that great. It sounds more exciting I’m sure but I generally like table-based systems that reward the top teams over a longer period of time.

A quick overview of the groups shows the other problems with 10 groups of 4. For reasons I’m not sure I completely understand, Burkina Faso is the 4th ranked team in CAF, higher than Nigeria, Senegal, and Algeria. I have a hard time believing this, resulting in Group E likely being the most volatile group, with the other seeded teams being Gabon, Niger, and the winner of a first round matchup involving Sao Tome and Pricipe versus the Congo. Group A may also be tight, due to South Africa likely being vastly overrated.

UEFA

Europe has 53 teams competing for 53 bids. The qualifying format is simple. There are eight groups of six teams and one group of five teams. The nine winners advance directly to the world cup, and the eight best second place teams playoff for the remaining spots. (You may recall France’s controversial win over Ireland in 2009, which took place in one of these playoffs.)

A quick rundown of each group:

• Group A: Croatia and Serbia duke it out for the top spot. Belgium and Scotland may make threatening noises. The minnows here are Macedonia and Wales, though at least the Wales-Scotland games may be interesting for a rare competitive match between the Home Nations.
• Group B: If Italy has regained any of their former mojo this group is theirs to lose. If not, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria all figure to make things interesting. Armenia and Malta (as in, the tiny island) round out the group.
• Group C: Zee Germans are probably locks to win this one, resulting in a knife-fight between Sweden and Ireland for second place. Austria is also a possibility. The Faroe Islands and Kazakhstan, not so much.
• Group D: 2010 runner-up, the Netherlands, should be able to take care of business, as should Turkey for second place. Hungary and Romania are the other two teams worth mentioning, but for the sake of completeness let’s also point out the other two teams are Estonia and Andorra.
• Group E: This may be the tightest group on paper. Norway is the highest ranked team, but both Slovenia and Switzerland played in the 2010 World Cup. Three teams that could easily qualify, but again there are only two slots. The real victims here are probably Albania, Cyprus, and Iceland.
• Group F: Portugal and 2018 hosts Russia will finish in the top two, the only question is in what order. Israel is also in this group, probably sailing to a comfortable third over Northern Ireland, Azerbaijan, and Luxembourg.
• Group G: I wouldn’t be surprised to see this one go according to seed. This has to be a dream draw for the Greeks, as they’ll face Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithunia, Latvia, and Liectenstein.
• Group H: Tell you what: England had better win this group. However, there are some plucky teams vying for second and a possible upset in the forms of Montenegro, the Ukraine, and Poland. Also here is Moldova, and the national team from one of the world’s smallest countries, San Marino.
• Group I: The current World Champions, Spain, are here. France is also, but luckily for them, the rest of the group is Belarus, Georgia, and Finland. 

You may’ve noticed that one group has one less team than all the others, so matches against the last place teams in the other groups don’t count in determining the best group runner-up.

CONCACAF

Thanks to the US being here, this is probably the region I know the most about. 35 teams entered the competition, however, 5 teams have already been eliminated in the first round. The five winners and the other 19 teams ranked 7th through 25th are now divvied up into six groups of 4. The only one of these groups that is likely to not go according to see is Group E. Grenada is higher in the FIFA rankings but Guatemala trounced them 4-0 at the Gold Cup, and I would say from a subjective viewpoint is better overall.

The third round is where CONCACAF’s big boys (Mexico and the US) enter, along with fellow 2010 World Cup qualifier Honduras, plus the next three highest ranked teams (Jamaica, Costa Rica, and Cuba). If everything goes according to seed (except for Group E), the three groups will look like this:

• Group A: US, Jamaica, Group E winner (likely Guatemala), Group F winner (Haiti)
• Group B: Mexico, Costa Rica, Group A winner (El Savador), Group B winner (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Group C: Honduras, Cuba, Group C winner (Panama), Group D winner (Canada)

Group C should be the most interesting of these three, unless the US or Mexico really screw up. The top two teams from each group then proceed to the fourth round, the a six team round-robin known as the Hexagonal. The top three teams automatically qualify for the World Cup finals, while the 4th place team plays a home-and-home playoff against the OFC qualifier (which will almost certainly be New Zealand).

CONMEBOL

South America’s qualification is as simple as it gets. Nine teams play a round-robin series of home-and-home matches. The top four teams qualify for the World Cup, and the 5th place team will face the playoff winner from the AFC. Brazil, as the hosts, are automatically qualified and will not participate. CONMEBOL did not lose any slots though, so this is a great opportunity some of the weaker teams in this region to get to the promised land. The remaining 9 are: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezual.

OFC

Last, and frankly, least is Oceania.With the departure of Australia after the 2002 World Cup, this region is New Zealand and bunch of tiny Pacific islands. There are only 10 FIFA members in the region, and if New Zealand doesn’t win the qualification tournament it would be a major upset. Anyway, the first round features the four lowest ranked teams (Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, and American Somoa) facing off in a single round-robin tournament, with the winner advancing to Group A in the second round along with Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tahiti. Group B consists of Fiji, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea. This at the 2012 OFC Nations Cup, so this is also a single round-robin. Finally, in the third round the remaining 4 teams will be play a double-round robin with the winner playing the 4th place team from CONCACAF for a spot in the World Cup.

And there you have it. There’ll be more news later this fall as more qualification rounds get under way, but after I update the AFC and CONCACAF pages I’ll be focusing my efforts on American football. So until then.

Well, sort of.

Two weeks ago qualifying began for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. If you’ve paid any attention to the site at all the past few years, you may’ve seen the detail I paid to the qualifying rounds of the 2010 World Cup. In my opinion, that is part of what makes the tournament so great – it’s not just a tournament of 32 teams, it’s really a tournament that features nearly every FIFA member in the world – 204 out of 207, in fact.

For those unaware, I will first explain the qualification structure.

All FIFA members are organized into six confederations which roughly correspond the continents: CONCACAF (North and Central America), CONMEBOL (South America), UEFA (Europe), AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), and the OFC (Oceania). For 2014, the bids are allocated thusly:

• UEFA: 13 bids (out of 53 entrants)
• CAF: 5 bids (out of 53)
• AFC: 4.5 bids (out of 43)
• CONMEBOL: 4.5 bids (out of 10; also Brazil qualifies automatically as hosts of the 2014 World Cup)
• CONCACAF: 3.5 bids (out of 35)
• OFC: 0.5 bids (out of 11)

All the whole number bids are direct entrants into the World Cup Finals – so UEFA gets 13 direct qualifiers, CONCACAF gets 3, and the OFC gets none. What are the half bids? The four half-bids will be contested in November 2013 for the final two spots in the World Cup. In a change from years past, this year on July 30th FIFA will draw which confederations will be matched against each other. (In 2010, the CONCACAF qualifier (Costa Rica) faced off against the CONMEBOL qualifier (Uruguay).)

Membership in the confederations is not fixed, and on occasion teams will move around. The two most notable examples are probably Israel (which switched from the AFC to UEFA) and Australia (which moved from the OFC to AFC prior to the 2010 World Cup cycle). The Israel move was for political reasons (the rest of the Middle East is in the AFC), and the Australia move was for competitive reasons (the only other sizable and competitive country in the OFC is New Zealand, the other countries are mostly remote Pacific micronations).

As you might’ve guessed, UEFA and CONMEBOL are the strongest confederations, and in fact no other confederation has ever produced a winner (or a runner-up, for that matter).

So, given that, how is the draw determined? Well, each confederation determines how to divvy up their bids. CONMEBOL’s is the simplest: all nine teams (Brazil is in automatically as hosts) will play a home-and-home double round-robin, and the top four teams get the automatic bid. Others, however, are more complicated. UEFA will draw eight groups of six teams and one group of five, with the nine winners advancing directly to the World Cup and the eight runners-up contesting among themselves for the final four spots. That’s still relatively simple, the other confederations have multiple rounds of tournaments.

One such tournament has already begun. In CONCACAF, Belize beat Montserrat 5-2 on June 15th, officially beginning the preliminaries of the 2014 World Cup. Unfortunately, four days later the Belize national football federation was suspended by FIFA, and unless the situation is resolved before July 10th the second leg will not take place (which would result in Montserrat going through automatically). The AFC will begin its qualifying tomorrow, however, with eight matches taking place. In fact, the AFC will be a veritable hub of World Cup activity over the next month, as the first and second rounds take place and the initial 43 teams whittled down to 20.

To help keep track of this action, I’ve created two sets of graphics that help visualize what is going on. First, for the AFC you can easily the first and second round pairings in every American’s favorite tournament abstraction, the bracket. (Of course, this being soccer all pairings are home-and-home, so each represents two games and the winner is decided on aggregate.) I’ve also made one for CONCACAF. I’ve used images instead of tables here to help show the individual early match ups and also to facilitate inling these brackets elsewhere. I may do one for the other confederations, though the other confederations make use mostly of drawn-out round-robin tournaments. Also, CAF and the OFC won’t begin their processes until next year, and the draws for these events have not yet taken place. (UEFA will start even later, as they are currently contesting their qualifiers for the 2012 Euro Cup.) I will update the brackets I’ve already made, of course, as action on the pitch warrants.

And speaking of “on the pitch”, it’s nice to be talking about FIFA and soccer again in that context, isn’t it?