Re: (recent) historical ranking of European countries

James Allnutt wrote:
> Its not like Andorra *only* plays against Portugal and the Netherlands - 
> if they did it would be a stupid set-up - they are playing against 
> mid-ranking teams and lower-level teams as well.  Outside of (as anders 
> noted) Conmebol where the situation is like this, only more so, no-one 
> gets this great "spread" of competition to help them improve.
>
> So, why change this great situation just so Italy plays four fewer 
> qualifiers (which they will just replace with three or four meaningless 
> friendlies)
No the argument is to keep the number of qualifying games roughly the 
same for Italy (maybe slightly increase them) but make the games all 
competitive, and the effects of the draw less marked.

eg if, through a preliminary round, you got down to 5 groups of six (I 
would prefer 5 groups of 8 though) , and the top 3 teams qualified, the 
playing field would be more level than it is now. And there would be no 
playoffs.

If 14 teams are needed, well why not 7 groups of six, top two going 
through ?

Asia, CONCACAF, Africa and Oceania can all live with preliminary rounds, 
why not UEFA ?




> James