Quote:
Originally Posted by ditty
It is strange to me that CONCACAF allows non-FIFA members to participate in the confederation's championship. I can't think of another confederation that does this. I know there are tournaments within other confederations that have had non-FIFA members participate. For example, there's a tournament in Africa called CECAFA which involves east African countries as well as Zanzibar, which competes independently of the country it's actually part of; Tanzania. But Zanzibar doesn't compete in the African Nations Cup, which is CAF's championship. Now that FIFA rankings and its points have such importance when it comes to WCQ, it's time that countries don't get punished for being drawn with the likes of Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Gold Cup, as you point out.
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Easy counterpoint to that is that if you can’t beat clubs and countries not even sanctioned with FIFA, you probably don’t belong in FIFA’s top championship tournament. And the dreadful result to Haiti isn’t far behind, given their FIFA accreditation has to be hanging on by a thread.
The Gold Cup seems to need other teams to fill out numbers for groupings, and that goes both ways. Probably some minnows just can’t afford to go, while others can.
Recall when Canada won in 2000 they beat Columbia in the tournament final game, though they were already Concacaf champions after beating T and T in Semis.
And Canada only got through the second round thanks to winning a coin flip over S Korea.