Qualifying to a soccer tournament and credibility.

[Ferbian]

With putting the best in, they are mainly european so it wont always be representative because a lot of them are going to be European. You do get great stories of the lesser nations though. Look at the FA Cup as a prime example. You have giant killings. Although they have Premier League sides enter in the 3rd round, but a lot of them do face smaller sides and when they get far into the tournament they gain a lot of support, just like Senegal 2002.

Just gonna focus on this very paragraph, while I do agree you get some good stories behind the whole "aww, they made it this far, let's cheer for them" but just because they get a large fanbase doesn't necessarily mean that they should be in the world cup.

I get what you tried to say about the whole "they're in there because they draw the crowd" but it's not necessarily true, because they still have the greater teams, and that's what the World Cup should revolve around, the greater teams, not the one with the bigger support, the most money, but the best talent.

 

[TheAnimal]

Just gonna focus on this very paragraph, while I do agree you get some good stories behind the whole "aww, they made it this far, let's cheer for them" but just because they get a large fanbase doesn't necessarily mean that they should be in the world cup.

I get what you tried to say about the whole "they're in there because they draw the crowd" but it's not necessarily true, because they still have the greater teams, and that's what the World Cup should revolve around, the greater teams, not the one with the bigger support, the most money, but the best talent.

I agree, generally though the greater teams are the ones with the bigger support, most money and best talent. I think seeding is the issue that this goes back to. I think Platini has tried to address this because if you look at the champions league some of the lesser nations only get 1 qualifier, the league winner, but then i suppose you could argue he doesnt by making Italian, Spanish and English etc 4th placed sides play each other in qualifying.

The WC issue is something that i dont think can be addressed, unless you truly make it world qualifying, like 1 african, 1 oceania, 1 americas, european sides etc all in the same groups, but then FIFA wouldnt do that because when the tournament proper starts it may have some of the gloss taken off, plus fans would have to pay a lot more to watch games. That may address some of the issues, but not many sides other than European would make it.

 

[Ferbian]

Sure but even the smaller teams and those who doesn't make it incredibly far in terms of the tournament are still a team that gets a large fanbase.

I believe I heard something along the lines of 90% of the Danish population following the World Cup during Denmark vs Holland, or in total, I can't remember which of them, but it's still 90% of a country that holds about 5 - 5.5 million people, that's more viewers than RAW gets.

So it's not necessarily always that we see the teams with the big support getting anywhere, so that kinda eliminates the whole "yep, they're gonna go far" deal.

And I don't believe that we should have 1 country from each continent, because even with that we don't get the best of the best most likely, because we still have to deal with an Asian, Australia/New Zealand and some African team, who holds nothing on some of the European teams, or Argentina / Brazil.