USMNT March fixtures thread

[Sean Miller Fan]

I think he's OK with Muslims, but he's the fan that they reorganize and mess up sports for, fans like him are why Pitt doesn't play Penn State or WVU, and why the college conferences are reorganized and why why super stars are the focus of sports more than teams, I mean he seems to want to change qualifying to be based on getting "exciting" players and teams into the WC over the better teams that BEAT THEM, he's so out there with his "made for TV" world that he wants to move the USA to Europe.

Yea, its not a religion thing. I would have wanted Egypt to qualify due to Salah. What I don't like is that the Arab teams have players that nobody has ever heard of because they play in their crappy domestic leagues, mostly because they aren't good enough to play in the top Euro leagues. Player for player, they aren't as good as the better Sub-Saharan teams. But being that they play domestically, it gives them an inherent advantage in qualifying over the other African teams whose players play in many different Euro leagues. As a fan, I want to see players I heard of or even the African guys I didnt hear of, I can identify with them when the announcer says that some guy playing for Ivory Coast plays for Mallorca or whatever. That name sticks with me.

Africa is such a large continent with so many countries, I do think that the Sub-Saharan teams should be in their own confederation. Just as I think the Carribbean should have their own and that the AFC should be broken into an Arab confederation, Central Asia, and East Asia. This gives more teams from different parts of the world representation. And as a fan, I would be interested to see a Central Asian team like Uzbekistan. They are new to me. There are no Asian teams geographically between Iran and South Korea. That just isnt right. And people say, when it gets to 48, this will change. No. These are the Asian teams who will grab the 9 bids:

Iran
Iraq
UAE
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
Japan
South Korea
Australia

For Africa's 9 bids, it will be 4 from North Africa and 5 from Northwest Africa so most of the continent won't be represented.

Egypt
Algeria
Morocco
Tunisia
Nigeria
Ghana
Senegal
Cameroon
Mali/Ivory Coast

There will be 9 Arab teams and only 16 European teams.

 

[Pitt79]

I would have wanted Egypt to qualify due to Salah.

Just for one player? Even if his team as a whole isn't as good s the teams that BEAT THEM IN ACTUAL GAMES?

What I don't like is that the Arab teams have players that nobody has ever heard of because they play in their crappy domestic leagues, mostly because they aren't good enough to play in the top Euro leagues. Player for player, they aren't as good as the better Sub-Saharan teams. But being that they play domestically, it gives them an inherent advantage in qualifying over the other African teams whose players play in many different Euro leagues.

So the USA would have an inherent advantage if they had all MLS players rather than players spread all over Europe?

As a fan, I want to see players I heard of or even the African guys I didnt hear of, I can identify with them when the announcer says that some guy playing for Ivory Coast plays for Mallorca or whatever. That name sticks with me.

As a fan, I want to see the teams that won the actual qualifying games based on their GEOGRAPHIC defined group play, because, well it's a team sport. One of the things I like about soccer is that it is an actual team sport, where a team with inferior players has a chance to win by being disciplined and playing a system, yes, even a SUPER BORING system with skill-less players.