New Eborian National team shirt/badge launches

Eboria National Team | Adidas

CEFA, the Confederation of Eborian Football Associations, launched their new deal with Adidas today. The Eborian Men’s, Women’s and Junior teams will wear the new strips as of now.  The Men’s team will showcase them this summer at the CONCAFA Nations Cup in Aguador, the Women’s team in the Women’s Nations Cup in 2021.

At the same time the organisation have updated the badge for the nation team strips.

This 8 -year deal follows on from their 16 year partnership with Nike, that saw the men capture two Nation’s Cups  and qualify for the WEFA World Nations Cup in 2006, 2010 and 2018.

Eboria & Marida: Ready for the finals

WEFA | World Nations Cup

Both teams have finalised their squads, played their warm-up games. Now comes the hard part- three games that will shape their destiny!

Eboria have to play Australia, Italy and Belgium. The squad is as ready as it can be. It will be interesting to see if the injured experienced couple of Murphy and Buckhalter will be missed, being replaced by youthful Jordan Wilcox and Mark Vladic.

Marida have to face one of the favourites- Brazil, with Mexico and Nigeria completing the group. Marida have the firepower to take on two of these teams, but have looked a little weak at the back recently.

We will soon find out if either squad is strong enough to get out of their groups. If they can reach the knockout rounds, then who knows how far they can get?!

2018 World Nations Cup Finals Draw

WEFA | World Nations Cup | 2018 Finals Draw

The draw for the World Nations Cup Finals was made at the WEFA Executive meeting today. All 30 nations that had successfully completed their way through qualifying joined joint hosts Spain and Portugal in the draw. The teams were selected from four ‘pots’. The only proviso being that teams from the same confederation could not be drawn together, apart from the European teams.

Notably absent from the list were the defending champions, the Netherlands. They had such a dismal campaign and became the first team not to be able to defend the cup at the finals tournament. Russia, Panama and New Zealand will also feel they were unlucky, also losing in play-offs. In North America, the US national team failed to progress.

Hosts Portugal headed Group A, along with Uruguay, Egypt and Iran. Group B, headed by highly-fancied France, also holds super-underdogs Iceland, unpredictable Ghana and Saudi Arabia.

Argentina will play in Group C, with Switzerland, Croatia and Morocco. England will play the seeds Chile, Sweden and Senegal in Group D.

As the groups were forming, Eboria and Marida’s representatives were getting nervous, as groups with Brazil, Germany and Spain had vacancies.

Marida were drawn into Group E, with cup favourites Brazil, Mexico and Nigeria. Spain head group F, joined by Colombia, Denmark and South Korea.

Eboria’s name finally came up in Group G, headed by Belgium, former world champions Italy and Australia, who will want revenge for their beating in the IC3 last summer.

Germany were the last seed drawn into Group H. They, once again, have drawn Poland in competitive play!  Costa Rica and Japan round out the group.

Marida and Eboria both have difficult draws, both perhaps can be a little bit miffed that they weren’t seeded, especially as Eboria did so well in the IC3 last summer. Even with this ‘new’ WEFA, Euro-Latin influence is still prominent. Argentina and Spain will be quite happy with those draws.

Then again, if you want to be the best, you have to beat the rest of the best. This will be on, come the summer!

 

WNC18: Marida Qualify by thrashing NZ

WEFA World Nations Cup | Intercontinental Play-off

New Zealand 1-0 Marida
Marida 5-0 New Zealand (Marida win 5-1 on agg.)

WEFA under pressure to reconsider WNC places!

The WEFA Executives are under pressure to make more changes to the World Nations Cup Qualifying as the defending champions Netherlands, USA and other top nations missed out through the qualifying stages.

Pressure is now mounting under WEFA President Jacques Denis to add more teams to the   2022 edition in China. The preferred option seems to be a 40 team tournament. this brings back the question of how you run it: 10×4, 8×5 groups or a more radical option of a first round knock-out with 16 teams playing off before group or knock out stages.

We await further news!

The 2014 World Champions, the Netherlands failed to qualify for the 2018 edition!

WEFA Executive: ‘No’ to expanding World Nations Cup

WEFA HQ | World Nations Cup

WEFA’s Executive have confirmed today that they do not plan to expand the number of teams competing beyond the current total of 32 nations. The executives have been mulling things over, postponing the decision back in January, to have more time to consider the impact.

WEFA President Jacques Denis announced the decision to a packed-out press conference. The reasons given for not expanding further are that:

• Host Strains. Going beyond 32 nations meant that extra strain would be placed on a host nation. Joint hosting would end up being the default position, which is not the preferred option. Spain and Portugal was a special joint-bid which WEFA want as an exception and not the rule.
• Level Playing Field. The 32 team format is seen as the ideal format, for players and fans. the committee looked at options for 40 or 48 teams taking part. Three-team or five-team groups would end up giving an advantage to certain teams- with rest days or anticipation
• Prestige and Quality. Expanding the competition was seen to dilute the competition and prestige of qualifying for the finals. Studies showed that more games featuring so-say ‘lesser’ teams are not popular with networks.
• Flexibility of Federation Slots. The number of places are based on merit and are not gold-plated to Europe and South America. WEFA can award more slots and are looking into more inter-continental play-off spots for 2026 and beyond.

Following this decision, both the European and South American teams may have to face up to less automatic places in the finals from 2026 onwards. Europe has 14 slots for 2018 in Spain & Portugal.

Europe            14 (Including co-hosts Spain and Portugal)
S America       4.5
CONCACAF     2.5
CONCAFA        1.5
Asia-Oceania  4.5
Africa               5

According to FCSN’s blog- projected 2026 places… (totally unofficial)

Hosts                1
Europe            10.5 
S America       4.5
CONCACAF    3
CONCAFA       2.5
Asia-Oceania  5.5
Africa               5

WEFA considering increasing WNC 2026

WEFA HQ | World Nations Cup

The WEFA Executive Congress has extended the timetable for expanding the prestigious World Nations Cup, so that a full and proper investigation can be undertaken.

The only problem with the current format is perhaps the allocation of teams. With 32 places up for grabs, it is important for the best teams to be able to show their talents off. This is why UEFA and CONMEBOL get such a high ratio of teams competing.