Improving is not impossible (Part I: some Afc, Concacaf & Caf)

Disclaimer: one year ago, with some friends from the Facebook page “Calcio da dietro”, we tried to imagine a different football world. If they took care of club football, I covered int’l tournaments and possible change between confederations. This is just the first step of a series of pieces, which will translate what we wrote and thought for the sport we love and follow (you can find the full Italian guide here).

1st episode → Club World Cup could be better, but FIFA isn’t interested (here)

2nd episode → Why FIFA Rankings are obsolete and they should be replaced (here)

3rd episode → More (and well-placed) int’l football is good (here)

It’s probably a contradiction to back up the expansion of the FIFA World Cup up to 48 teams, but instead disapproved the expansion of UEFA Euro Championship up to 24 teams. It’s a little confusing: if the World Cup is a cultural phenomenon (rather than just a football competition), this also goes for European Championship. Many often mentioned lack of quality seen in the last edition or how the best third ranked-logic negatively affected the quality of the games.

We have though a couple of considerations to point out.

First of all, the new formula let a major number of NTs to play a continental competition, to experience something — at least in theory! — preparatory to a World Cup appearance. How can you play a WC final phase without even playing in your continental competition with a certain frequency? It’s a natural process of growth and empowerment.

Five debuts, but two would have taken place anyway even with a 16 teams-format.

Secondly, if we analyse the qualified teams to 2016 UEFA Euros and we try to move them to the old format, the group winners’ (directly qualified to final phase) would have still seen many surprises. Czech Republic won the Group A, just like Northern Ireland in Group F and Austria in Group G. Slovakia, instead, would have conquered a spot as best runners-up team: more known teams would have not still qualified.

AFC has been a forerunner in modernization: Asian Football Confederation already opted to expand AFC Asian Cup from 16 teams to 24 in August 2014. At the same time, AFC also changed the qualifying route to the World Cup, teaming it up with AFC Asian Cup qualifying process. A way to major involvement for Asian football federations: 12 teams qualified with years of advance, remaining 12 should qualify up to March 2018. There may be some surprises, giving a new start for many football movements.

From these six groups we’ll have the remaining 12 teams for 2019 edition (update to January 2018: eight squads obtained the pass with one game to play, no debutants for now).

Furthermore, you have to consider one more thing: Asian reform was important for smaller federations like Maldives, Bhutan, Malaysia, Myanmar, otherwise forced to stay aside and give up many games. Instead, these teams — thanks to the new qualifying route — they will have played from 16 to 20 official games up to half 2018 in the last three years. A possibility that didn’t exist previously.

Potentially, nine teams could have debuted to the continental stage in 2019.

• African Cup of Nations

Another confederation that might be interested in a 24 teams-format is CAF. The 2017 edition showed an almost-average level and African football has some troubles progressing, but only playing more games NTs could gain more experience and a major self-awareness.

Author’s note: I wrote this guide in December 2016. Little did I know that CAF would have partially satisfied me: in fact, already the next edition — 2019 AFCoN, to be hosted in Cameroon — will feature 24 NTs. However, CAF had also a bad idea, opting to play the tournament in June-July, with a torrid weather and under an unbelievable heat. Good luck: this makes sense only if you decide to play the tournament in a country below the Equator line.

Just like for UEFA Euros, you have to mention how 16 teams-formula didn’t avoid surprises: in 2012, Botswana, Equatorial Guinea and Niger debuted at the final phase; in 2013, this honour went to Cape Verde; in 2017, Guinea-Bissau did it. Furthermore, you have to remind that — despite AFCoN is played every two years — African football’s hierarchies are often reshuffled. Just think about Egypt: they won three times the tournament between ’06 and ’10. After those trophies, though, they missed the final phase for three editions, and then they reached another final in 2017. Alternatively, think about Nigeria, which won in 2013 and then missed the next two editions.

An expansion to 24 teams would let us see more fairy tales, but most of all it would permit several national teams to gain experience in view of a possible World Cup qualification: let’s take an example with 2006, when among CAF representatives for World Cup of the same year saw Angola and Togo. Angola just came back to AFCoN that year after missing three editions, while Togo didn’t qualify in 2004. Both collected an early exit from group stage in AFCoN and World Cup.

Furthermore, 24 teams would bring attention to other realities that still didn’t debut on the continental stage. Sometimes we forget how football is a soft-power tool, which could also work as a peace incentive (see the whole qualification of Cote d’Ivoire to 2006 FIFA World Cup, which practically interrupted the civil war for some moments).

Tough to believe it, but Chad, Eritrea or Somalia in African Cup of Nations may change something in those countries.

• CONCACAF Gold Cup

UEFA and AFC moves will soon be copied. Due to necessity, chances or interest, CONCACAF is already moving in this direction. Today Gold Cup features only 12 teams, definitely too few compared to 41 members of the North and Central American confederation. Born on the ashes of CONCACAF Championship, Gold Cup debuted in ’91 and during the years it had to feature even some “guests” team, like Brazil, Colombia and… South Korea (yeah, I don’t get it either why bother taking a plane from Seoul to Los Angeles to play a Gold Cup edition in the same year of FIFA World Cup).

This is a necessary move, since the duopoly Mexico-USA is losing some ground: last three editions — 2013, 2015 and 2017 — saw USA or Mexico winning the trophy, but against Panama and Jamaica twice. This is a sign of how the movement is transforming itself: if this duopoly isn’t in danger, rising football federations are pushing (just watch how well Costa Rica did in Brazil during 2014 FIFA World Cup). It would also be nice to see USA and Mexico engaging the qualifying process, just to not see any complacency in their regards, since they’re both really strong and they could probably experiment less stronger players in those qualifying games. If they fail, then you should get worried.

In addition, here, CONCACAF just made a step forward, because Victor Montagliani himself — chairman of the confederation since May ’16 — already let us know that this expansion move is on progress.

Looking to 2019.

It won’t be easy to change it all, because the current qualifying route must be revisited: like I said, USA, Mexico and even Canada (the reasons are obscure to me, since looking at their results Les Rouges wouldn’t deserve this free pass) are directly qualified to the final phase. Four teams qualify from Copa Centroamericana, just as much from Caribbean Cup, while last place is on the edge between the 5th-placed teams of both these competitions. This is a shame though, because only 32 teams are effectively taking part to qualifying process. Guatemala was suspended by FIFA, while six NTs (Bahamas, Bonaire, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, St. Lucia and Turks & Caicos) gave up even participating to Caribbean Cup qualification.