CONCACAF and the World Cup

Grant Wahl over at SI.com came out with an article a little over a week ago where he made the following statement:

"The dirty little secret of CONCACAF is that the region doesn't deserve its current 3.5 World Cup slots and probably should get no more than two. World Cup qualifying in CONCACAF is one of the most forgiving formats in world soccer, allowing you to mess up again and again and again (as Mexico has during this Hex) and still have a chance of advancing to the Big Show in Brazil."

 I don't know much about other confederations' qualification processes, but that is surely nothing to hold against CONCACAF.  CONCACAF directly benefits from sending its best teams to the World Cup so why would it have an unforgiving process that could send the BVIs?  That was a dumb comment, Grant.  Regardless, and as I'm sure you've guessed, I added the emphasis on what struck me as a particularly - nay, painfully - subjective statement.  And, quite naturally, Mr. Wahl provides nothing - not even overall win/loss records or something lame like that - in order to back up his assertion.

So I decided to help:

I know it's a little messy so let me explain.  The "FIFA coefficient" number is essentially the win-ratio average at the last 3 World Cups (since the far majority of players don't last more than 3 World Cups and it could be argued that the sport fundamentally changes sufficiently in 12 years to make anything before that more or less irrelevant).  Anyways, 1 point for a win and 0.5 for a draw in all matches against opponents outside your confederation in the World Cup (to maintain consistency throughout the rounds).  That total is divided by the total matches played for each of the 2002, 2006, and 2010 World Cups and the average is obtained.

[ (Total Points/Total Games) + (Total Points/Total Games) + (Total Points/Total Games) ] / 3

= FIFA Coefficient for the confederation for all 3 World Cups

Then, I simply divided the FIFA-allocated "WC Spots" by each Confederations' "AVG FIFA Rank" and multiplied it by the "FIFA Coefficient" number.  I think this should standardize everything and removed any of the bias that is entered due to some confederations having so many more countries than others.  I'm not really a statistics guy though.  Although I did enjoy Moneyball.

Anyways...The numbers seem to quite clearly indicate that CONCACAF, if anything, deserves one of Africa's spots.  UEFA and CONMEBOL are quite clearly a long ways ahead of everyone - and deservedly so - as South Korea in 2002 was the first team since the USofA waaay back at the beginning to make the semi's and NOT be Euro or Latino.  Those confederations are significantly better and as a result deserve commensurate representation.  If you take one of Africa's spots and give it to CONCACAF the coefficients look like this:

Much better distributed.  CONCACAF has performed better internationally (a higher FIFA Coefficient) even though it has a lower average FIFA ranking.  Asia and Africa have an identical FIFA Coefficient and if you take away one of Africa's spots and give it to CONCACAF, they now have a comparable "World Cup Slot Allocation Coefficient."  (I should really give the resultant column a title.)

Anyways...very messy...Again, I'm not a Stats guy.  I actually hated Stats...but I think these numbers show that Grant Wahl is nothing but a big, fat, lousy HATER.  U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

...JG

Side Thoughts:
1.  Is this why Luis Suarez received so much shit for the handball that prevented Ghana going through to the semis?  (because you all would have done the same thing.  Lying is a sin.)
2.  I feel like something needs to be done with the outliers.  The guys that really, really suck and will never have a chance to win.  But if you do that don't you have to remove the guys up top too?  In sports that doesn't seem to work.
3.  I had my doubts but UEFA really is the best confederation.  Thank you, Spain.
4.  Poor, Poor Oceania.