This debate raised its head again in England because we actually beat a team we're expected to by an distance we're supposed to be beating them by, and everyone asked if we should even be playing them in the first place. But it's not a new debate, and it's not just England that have asked the question.
Now I'm asking the question should there be pre-qualification in Europe for international football tournaments? And, the other question that would need some serious consideration if the first one was answered 'yes', how would this be organised?
A quick Google search will give you an array of pieces that try to answer the first question. Most of them flap around with some sentiment towards the spirit of the underdog before dismissing the 'minnows' as a waste of time for the larger nations with no-one really benefiting from one sided scorelines. I would argue these games bestow no real benefit to the top nations, or even the middle-tier nations, but it's hard to say they are of no benefit to the lesser nations - those shop owners and insurance salesmen that put on their national colours with pride and try valiantly in vain against some of the best players in the world. For the blokes playing it must be great. For the fans, they get to see the top players in their country. For the national bodies, they get to fund the running of their national team for another campaign. For hoteliers, restaurateurs, bar owners, taxi drivers, these games are a massive boost.
Now, getting rid of these teams, by and large, from the main qualification process will only be of benefit to the better footballing countries. It cuts down the amount of predictable and dull games they have to play to get to a World Cup or Euros. It means they can fill the gaps now arising in the international calendar with more lucrative friendly games against each other or the powerhouses of South America.
In European club competition we also see various levels of qualification criteria and pre-qualification, designed to get the biggest teams more often than not playing in the important stages of tournaments. It begs the question why a different attitude is taken to national competition?
Well one clear answer is numbers. There are far more poor quality clubs than countries, relatively speaking. However, one startling fact going against the numbers argument is that only UEFA and CONMEBOL (South
America) don't have any pre-qualifying for World Cup tournaments - the
South American confederation only has 10 teams mind, UEFA has 53, the joint highest. The
others all whittle things down before qualification proper gets under
way.
The general consensus is pre-qualification would be the way to go. The problem people who get to this conclusion, however they have got there, all stumble upon is how to arrange this. I have an idea...
The World Cup
For the World Cup, teams are generally seeded by world rankings, rightly or wrongly. I don't see any reason to move away from that. Generally 13 European countries get to the finals. An decent group size would be 5 nations per group, spread across 9 groups, means 45 of the 53 still get to the qualification proper.
The top 4 seeds in each group will be drawn from seeded groups of 9, making up 36 of the qualification competitors. The final pot would could from a pre-qualifying playoff round. Of the 17 remaining nations, the best would be straight in, the others would play each over two-legs in an open draw to gain one of the remaining 8 spots. The 8 teams that miss out can do what they will for two years - play a tournament amongst themselves, try and draw some lucrative friendly form bigger nations etc. Group winners and best runner up go to the dance, along with 4 winners of runners up playoffs.
That could work. Fewer games in qualification generally. The really poor teams that never look like improving won't be wasting anyone's time. As things stand, Northern Ireland would be pre-qualifying and Scotland are on the brink.
The Euros
Oh, darn it, here's where UEFA mess it up. For some reason they now want 24 nations making up the finals for this tournament. That's nearly half the members of the confederation. When you think of it that way, what's the point of pre-qualifying?
A better way to go would be to not make the best 8 teams have to qualify at all (how you decide best 8 would be up for debate - world rankings aren't really used for this tournament, maybe go with the quarter finalists last time around auto qualify). Really, reducing qualifying stages is for their benefit anyway so that they play less games against poorer teams. We know they are highly likely to get into a 24 team competition anyway, the outcome is known in advance, another reason people argue for pre-qualifying.
Then the remaining 45 battle it out in 9 groups of 5. Here, the minnows play the 2nd tier countries, giving them a chance to play against some bigger countries - for example, Croatia, Netherlands and Russia would be in the pot based on not being Euro 2012 quarter finalists. The holder and host should auto-qualify too, so if the host isn't in the 8 previous quarter finalists, it just reduces the amount of teams in the qualification stage by one.
These are my poorly conceived ideas if UEFA decide to cut down the amount of frankly boring international qualification games. Anyone do any better?
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