Count on CAF When You Want Complicated

A few days ago, CAF released the news that they had changed the formula to determine which teams progress to the second qualifying group stage for the 2010 World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations. True to form, there’s nothing simple about it. The 12 group winners still go through automatically but determining the eight best placed runners up has undergone an overhaul.

Before they used to compare point totals and goals difference. However, this time around this will not be possible since group 11 only has three teams in it (Togo, Swaziland, and Zambia). Doesn’t take a mathematical genius to realize that the runner up in that group will surely have less of a chance to qualify when compared to teams from groups of four who would have had two extra games to gather points and goals.

So here’s the solution: Erase the points/goals gained by second placed teams against the teams that finish last. Then you determine the eight best placed runners up using the new tallies. The criteria will be points, goals difference, and goals scored. If there is a tie for the an eighth best runners up place then there will be a playoff between the teams in question come November. Got that?

So what are the implications for us? It means that should we finish second to Burkina Faso, our goals and points against Seychelles (the team most likely to finish last in our group) will not count in our favor. In the short term, it is imperative we keep winning and stop being wasteful against Burundi. No one saw the match in Bujumbura but by the sounds of it we could have won that game by a far wider margin then the final 1-0.

Of course we could make this a moot point if we manage to beat Burkina Faso in the September away fixture If we beat them handily we can skip all the worrying about being one of the best eight selected. Plus that would make us a top seed and, in theory, we wouldn’t be as likely to face the stiffest opposition in the second and final round of qualifying.

Would’ve been nice to know the conditions from the very start of the competition but I guess we can consider ourselves lucky they even bothered to tell us at all! We’re not in terrible shape right now (even with this new regulation) but if ever we needed more motivation to win our group, this is it.