Is U.S. Soccer destined to be a member of Concacaf? For some of you, this might sound like a stupid question since the geographical location of a country decides which confederation the countrybelongs. Is this true?
Well actually no, since there are enough exceptions –- namely a total of seven countries are not a member of their natural or geographicalconfederations. Seven out of 210 FIFA members (3.3%) is a substantial number of exceptions. Israel is in UEFA whereas the country is in Asia. Australia, Guam and Northern Mariana Islands should be inOFC geographically but they are in AFC. Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana are in South America but they are member FAs of Concacaf. Israel’s move to UEFA was political, but the rest is based ondifferent reasons or arguments. So being in the confederation that your geographical location dictates is not a word of God that cannot be questioned or challenged.
So we have tolook at our relation with Concacaf. Is being a member of Concacaf an asset or a liability for U.S. Soccer? Since as the seven examples above show, we are not destined to be a member ofConcacaf and hence this is a valid question. We should do an analysis of what the pros and cons are.
One can argue that being in Concacaf literally translates into aninvitation into the men’s World Cup since the quota for Concacaf in a 32-team tournament is three and a half. USMNT have competed in all of the World Cus in modern times except the last one. Thelast one was a miracle and miracles do not repeat themselves. Let us not forget how many times the English MNT did not qualify for the World Cup; neither did the Netherlands and Italy for the lastone. So qualifying for the World Cup from Concacaf should not be something to brag about, not qualifying is painful but it is not the end of the world. It gave the opportunity for the soccer communityto reassess itself.
If USMNT manages to go out of the group stage, which it did four times out of seven, then just playing in the round of 16 will keep the USMNT rankinghigh for good while. Have a look at the years it went out of the group and our rankings following it.
Look at the jumps after 1994, 2002, 2010 and 2014.
It is clear that being in Concacaf helps with our rankings. But if we are not happy with plateauing around the 20th and 30th rankings, then we should ask for theoriginal question: Are we destined to be in Concacaf?
Let us have a look at where Concacaf stands with respect to other confederations using the FIFA rankings as the metric.I know the FIFA rankings are not perfect but this is the only valid metric we have.
18
Confederation
Total Members
Highestranked
Lowest ranked
No. of Top 100FAs
Percentage of FAs in Top 100
UEFA
55
1
137
46
83.64%
CONMEBOL
10
3
76
10
100.00%
CONCACAF
35
11
210
10
28.57%
AFC
47
28
205
38.30%
CAF
54
20
181
22
40.74%
OFC
10
122
203
0
0.00%
Since most probably only teams in top 100 rankings will compete in the coming World Cups with 32 teams (2022) and 48teams (2026), we chose to look at the top 100 teams.
The above table clearly shows that Concacaf is not a competitive confederation; it has the lowest percentage –- otherthan OFC -– of top 100 ranked teams (28.57%) among the other five. This is reflected and stamped by FIFA since 2006 in its choice of 32 MNT teams from the confederations.
- CAF (Africa): 5 (9.26%)
- OFC (Oceania): 0.5 (5%)
The numbers showsa clear bias towards Conmebol. Actually the percentages allocated to each confederation do not reflect the strength and rankings of the MNTs at the year of the World Cup. For example, in 2018, none ofthe teams from AFC were listed in the top 32 rankings. CAF had three MNTs, UEFA had two MNTs (one of them was the host) and Concacaf had one MNT out the top 32 rankings. In order to proliferatesoccer around the globe, FIFA chose some sort of affirmative action to achieve it. Actually, there is more parity among teams with the 32-team format of the World Cup. We do not see one-sided games orscores as we had seen in the past. With the 48-team format, we do not know what the future will bring. Just to give you an idea FIFA has decided to break down the 48 men’s World Cup format amongthe confederations as follows: (FIFA has not decided for World Cup 2026 whether all three hosts will have automatic berths or not)
- AFC 8 (17%)
- CAF 7 (17%)
- CONCACAF 6 (17%)
- CONMEBOL 6 (60%)
- OFC 1 (9%)
- UEFA 16 (29%)
- Play-off 2
Although confederation qualifiers are used to determine who will qualify for theWorld Cup, one can theoretically use the FIFA rankings for qualification; actually FIFA rankings will be used in the World Cup Hexagonal qualification by Concacaf. Using this month’s rankings,the quotas allocated to six confederations for a 32-team and a 48-team World Cup would be as follows:
Based on FIFA allocation
4.5
7
32-Team WC
32-Team WC
48-TeamWC
48-Team WC
Based onrankings
Based on FIFA allocation
Based on Rankings
AFC
1
4
8
CAF
3
5
6
CONCACAF
2
3.5
4
6
CONMEBOL
7
4.5
8
6
OFC
0
0.5
0
1
UEFA
19
13
28
16
If FIFA had used FIFA rankings then only USMNT and Mexican MNT would have qualified for the World Cup in Qatar.
Plateauing around 20-30rankings will always get us to the World Cups with 32 teams, our chances with 48 teams (excluding the WC 2026 in which we will most probably automatically qualify) will be even better. If qualifyingfor the Men’s World Cups and keeping on plateauing around 20-30 rankings is sufficient success criteria for U.S. Soccer, then the case is rested. But if U.S. Soccer and the soccer community arenot satisfied with those criteria then we have to say that being in Concacaf has a serious problem; it is not competitive enough for our MNT to move forward. The same is true for the Mexican MNT,which in the modern times (after the Second World War) did not play a single semifinal, including twice having the World Cup at home (1970 and 1986). In those years, they played in thequarterfinals.
Beating a Cuban MNT ranked 179 by a score of 7-0 gives the USMNT a false of feeling of security, and complacency as evidenced by a loss to a73rd-ranked Canada MNT immediately following the game against Cuba MNT. We have to be blunt: There are not enough competitive teams in Concacaf to develop a world-dominating MNT. This istrue for both Mexico and the USA MNTs. As said earlier, there are only four teams in the top 48 ranked teams and 10 teams in the top 100.
USMNT teams have to play more competitive games(both friendly and official competition) and they should play more away games. As I wrote in an earlier article, “comfort zone hinders maximum performance.. Iunderstand the business and logistical issues involved in playing at home but…
To see where we stand let us have a look at the MNT games played in the last 4 years:
GC
6
11
0
8
43%
WCQ
NL
F
CAC
Total
H/A
CONCACAF
CONMEBOL
UEFA
2016
0
0
7
6
19
14/5
8
7
1
2017
8
6
0
5
0
19
14/5
15
1
2
2018
0
0
0
11
0
7/4
1
5
5
2019
0
6
4
8
18
16/2
14
4
0
TOTAL
14
12
4
31
6
67
51/16
38
17
W/D/L
(6/3/5)
(10/1/1)
(3/0/1)
(14/9/8)
(3/0/3)
W%
83%
75%
45%
50%
USMNT played 67 games – with a winning ratio of 53% – in four years, 31 of thosewhere friendly games and of the 67, 51 (76%) were played at home. USMNT played 38 Concacaf teams (56%) and 17 CONMEBOL teams (25%). All Gold Cup (GC) games as well as Copa America Centenario(CAC) were played at home, which skews the home/away game averages also. Compared to other countries, USMNT play too many home games. Since the FIFA rankings are based on a many factors including theranking of both teams, the outcome of the game and the level of the game, the more competitive games you play will help you improve your ratings.
To finalize my thoughts,playing in Concacaf for the USMNT is not the best environment to improve the USMNT skill level. The level of MLS is still another issue for our development cycle, since nobody expects a radicalchange at the level of MLS in the near future we should look whether we can play our MNTs in a another confederation. Since going to UEFA is impossible, we should look southward.
I think the ideal solution will be the merger of Conmebol and Concacaf resulting in a new confederation – CFA Confederation of Football Associations of the Americas. It will have 45 memberswhich is a number close to all other confederations except OFC. Although one might say that logistics will be an issue, at least traveling teams will not have the issue of jet lag like some UEFA teamsface traveling 7 hours east-west. The distance between Reykjavik and Almaty is 3,839 miles, the two farthest away capitals of countries playing in UEFA. For CFA that will be 5,436 miles –Ottawa and Santiago. With today’s aviation standards, both are feasible single-flight distances.
I believe by creating the correct political environment a win-win situationso both confederations can be developed for the merger and FIFA will be delighted with such a merger.
I like the idea of combining the two confederations to create one, but the next logical step would be to make 2 divisions that would create a more competitive environment for the smaller CONCACAF nations. The big question: Which countries from CONMEBOL would be “demoted” to that lower division? Bolivia & Ecuador are the two teams not in the top 50 rankings, but they might be rankled to earn that distinction.
Like the idea of combining CONCACAF & COMMEBOL as well. It will offset some of the criticism ofen aired by CONMEBOL nations as being treated unfairly regarding WC Confederation allocation. It may have a positive ripple effect on the CLUB side as well by making for a CL of consequence.