Saga Pinto
First of all thanks for taking some serious stick on my behalf. I want to clear up some issues raised previously:
1) I did apply for forum membership on-line in 2006 and never got a response from the moderators. I don't know what happened.
2) I hold no brief for Mr Warner. My reference to “poor Jack” was satirical. Sorry if it was too subtle for some.
Now Saga Pinto, last time, I poke a jep nest by saying that Germany 2006 was a fluke. The English language is a very complicated thing. Webster's dictionary defines a “fluke” as “a turn of exceptional good luck”. The inference was that we needed a hell of a lot of luck to qualify in 2006. Anybody who disputes that, wasn't really paying attention. Flukes do not repeat themselves often and I want to offer into evidence the following arguments to support the fluke theory.
Before I do this, I want to say something to the very emotional fans on the forum. In most sports, serious fans spend time analyzing data, statistics and track records in order to have an informed expectation of the team they support. In baseball, fans analyze and compare team and player batting averages, horse racing fans analyze win statistics to estimate betting odds and so on. Football fans by and large live from game to game. If we win, we celebrate. If we lose, we want to cuss the world and mash up de place, which is why we have plenty football hooligans and no baseball or basketball hooligans. So, if what I say causes you to cuss and carry on, QED.
Statistical anomaly:
Statistically, TNT's chances of qualifying for 2014 or any other WC are remote at best. National sport selection, like mortality experience, is a numbers game. Every experienced insurance agent knows that on average, you have to make 15 calls to get 5 interviews to sell 1 policy. Similarly, you need a large pool of players to select the best of the best of the best to compete at the WC level. TNT just doesn't have those numbers to guarantee consistency. Even with a West Indies population of some 6 million, we don't have the numbers to select a consistently strong cricket team to compete on the world stage, which is why we can’t beat crazy ants since the fluke of the Clive Lloyd era ended 30 years ago.
If you want to find 50 world class players to form a team with depth, then you need a pool of a couple hundred really good players to start with, which is why the US created the ODP for youth soccer. According to a recent publication on Canadian sport demographics, the number of young people registering to play soccer last year has reached 1 million, (about the size of our entire nation), 400,000 more than Canada's other major sport, hockey. I am predicting that the 3 powerhouses in CONCACAF in the next 20 years will be Canada, USA and Mexico. Rather than take their limited resources and waste it on a foreign coach, they have publicly admitted to sacrificing 2014 and 2018 with the hope of dominating the minnows to qualify consistently from 2022 (like the US has from 1990). Don’t just read SWF, check out the bigger picture.
The other statistic that upset forumites was the 20 year prediction. Odds are that TNT will not qualify for another WC in 20 years. Some informed rebuttals to this point from forumites included “bullshit” and “woman talk” Please consider this:
Jamaica's one and only fluke qualification was in 1998, 12 years ago, Canada's was in 1986 France, 24 years ago. Neither country has much of a statistical chance of getting pass both Honduras and Costa Rica in 2013 grab the 3rd spot. The odds of the winning the play-off game for the other half spot (as Costa Rica found out) are not all that good, especially if we pull South America again. Canada, as I have already pointed out, have recognized this and are strategically focusing on creating a large pool to own that 3rd Concacaf spot from 2022. So where does that leave TNT?
TNT's best chance prior to 2006 was 32 years ago in 1974 when we were robbed in Haiti. 1990 does not count since we were not good enough to get past the US. Close, but no cigar. While every team walking on to the field (including Barbados and Bermuda) has a mathematical chance of qualifying, the probability range varies from plus 95% confidence in Brazil (which has qualified for every WC since 1932) to less than 5% confidence in Grenada which has not, and probably will never, ever, ever qualify. Assuming that each of Canada, TNT and Jamaica had a similar theoretical chance of qualifying (each having done it once before), we need to see when this is likely to occur again. If we were to find the average wait period of the 3 Concacaf “one shot” teams to date, it would be (32+12+24) divided by 3 or 22.6 years, ergo 20 years from 2010.
Now, 20 years sounds like a very long time, but it is just another 5 tournaments. If we can qualify 1 in every 5 times, then we are actually doing exceptionally well. There are 16 teams which have qualified only once for the WC and are have not had a second run to date. They are: Dutch East Indies, Senegal, Wales, Ukraine, Cuba, Jamaica, Israel, Kuwait, TNT, Iraq, Togo, Canada, China, Haiti, Zaire, UAE. Their average wait time so far exceeds 40 years. So why get upset if I say TNT will not qualify for another 20 years? I am giving us far better statistical odds than the rest of the other One Hit Wonders of the World. Of these hopefuls, I pick China as the most likely to repeat in 2014.
If TNT does qualify for Brazil 2014 with the present crop of players (inducing the proposed EPL second division recruits), it will require a bigger fluke (or stroke of really really exceptionally good luck) than in 2006. Based on available statistics, I wouldn't bet on it though.
The truth is that while I am still a TNT supporter, I try to do so with some intelligence. If the “experts” on this forum are right, then I am nothing more than a madman talking a pile of crap. Time will most certainly tell.
