Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
So? They will never be more than fodder, and a waste of time. Put them in a "B" Pool. The IIHF does not invite Luxembourg or Mongolia to the World Hockey Championships.
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The thing is there are only a handful of teams that are truly uncompetitive in Europe. Outside of San Marino, Malta and Andorra even the lesser nations are able to compete most of the time. There are a few teams that are unlikely to ever qualify for a major tournament, but they aren't a laughing stock in the qualifiers either. They're good enough to deserve a shot. A team like Iceland is nearly always bottom of their group, but the scores are typically tight and having seen them play live I can tell you that nobody is excited to make the trip to Reykjavik, those aren't easy points to take.
The hockey comparison doesn't make sense. You're comparing the teams invited to the finals with teams competing in qualifiers. UEFA doesn't invite Luxembourg to the Euro's, but they are a part of the qualification process. It may be a good idea to have the bottom 2 or so teams from each group placed into some prelim qualifying groups, but that's not going to change things all that much.