An Anticlimactic First Round?
The first round of 2022 World Cup qualification in the Concacaf region is complete. Emerging victorious from the six groups are El Salvador, Canada, Curacao, Panama, Haiti, and the surprise St. Kitts and Nevis. Across the four rounds of play, there was a lot of good football played and I thought it was a lot of fun.
I find myself writing about competition formats quite frequently, probably too frequently, but I am going to do so again here anyway. I don't really think that this format was a fair or fun way to decide who advances and who doesn't. Ignoring the byes given to the top five teams (which I largely have no issue with), there is just something that doesn't feel quite right about how this group stage ended.
On the final day, we had five group deciding matches being played. In all five of them, the group favorite was at home, only needing a draw to advance. Canada, Haiti, El Salvador, and Panama all won anyway, while only Curacao actually coasted to a 0-0 draw to advance. Now don't get me wrong, I think that ultimately the best team won every group and nobody can really feel too hard done, but I'm not sure that Pot 1 hosting Pot 2 on the final matchday is really giving a fair shot to those Pot 2 teams. Would things have gone differently if it was Suriname hosting Canada? (For what its worth, Canada was not in Canada, of course.)
The Pot 1 teams were presumably given this as an advantage for being seeded; but being seeded is itself the advantage. To also give the top seeds a big advantage in the match against their only strong competition is a little much in my opinion. Compounding with this issue is the fact that goal difference was the all-important tiebreaker. Normally it is a logical tiebreaker, but in these circumstances where the big teams are running up the score on Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands, it seems a bit silly to have it play such a critical role. Guatemala crushed their opposition, did not concede any goals, and went on the road to Curacao and did not lose, but they are out because Curacao beat up the weak teams a tad more.
I don't think it made for a particularly exciting final day from the fan perspective, either. All the top teams only had to hold serve and we all knew that was almost certainly going to happen. It just worked out that both possible outcomes were not going to be very thrilling; El Salvador comfortably beating Antigua in a relatively full Cuscatlán was nothing special nor was Curacao grinding out a 0-0 draw.
Ultimately, like I said, I think Curacao are the better team and have the much better shot at beating Panama, and it has to be said that Guatemala definitely *could* have beaten Curacao and then they wouldn't need me to make this excuse for them, but I feel it was a little bit of an anticlimactic way to go out. Is it fair? Maybe? But hey, even if it wasn't, we got the "fair" results so I can't complain. Anyway, the second round promises to be more exciting, and the octagonal promises to be even more exciting than that, so I don't want to sound too negative.
Looking Ahead
The second round takes place later this month, and has a much simpler win and you're in format. The two legged ties for a place in the octagonal will be as follows:
St. Kitts and Nevis vs El Salvador
Haiti vs Canada
Panama vs Curacao
St. Kitts did great to get this far, seizing their moment in a weaker group and defeating Guyana to clinch before the final match even started. But over two legs, it is hard to see them dealing with El Salvador, who are eager to get into the final round after having been removed from it due to the format change.
Haiti vs Canada is an exciting storyline as a rematch of the best game of the 2019 Gold Cup and one of the best games in Gold Cup history. Canada come in looking awfully good while Haiti have been just decent when compared to the 2019 version of themselves. I believe Canada will win this one, but hopefully Haiti can give us another classic.
Panama vs Curacao is an interesting series that is tough to call. Both teams have World Cup dreams and to fall out before even making the octagonal would be a miniature disaster, but only one can move on. Panama really labored through the March window, just squeaking past Barbados and Dominica but they really put the hurt on the DR in the game that mattered the most. Curacao did quite the opposite, they looked so strong throughout the round but in the decider against Guatemala just barely skated by. I'll take Panama, but not by much.
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