How we're going to assemble our 2010 World Cup team, and how we're going to raise funds to send the team as well

[Julien Beaumier-Ethier]

Hello everyone,

I'm sorry for being late with this. I've been working hard recently and I kind of forgot the deadline.

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about the World Cup team selection, and I have talked about it with some good players from Canada, to discuss with them about having a selection process that would give us the best team possible.

First of all, I agree with you that having a qualification to select our national champions for the next ITSF World Championship would be very difficult because of Canada's superficy. However, I'm one of those who think that a qualification tournament, or a series of qualification tournaments is the only way to select the best players in Canada while keeping the selection process the most fair possible to all canadian players. Unfortunately, I did not have time to think about a specific way to earn money for the team but I guess sponsorship could help us (in Quebec, there's already compagnies who sponsor A.Q.B.B. tournament like BlackKnight, Red Bull etc.). Also, according to the 2006 world cup website http://www.tischfussball-wm-2006.de/eng_infos.html , the 10 team members get their place tickets and accomodations paid so it's going to help us.

Now, I'm gonna expose what is my idea about how we should select our team. I'm not going to go deeply in the formalities, because I wanted to start an open discussion about my idea.

Basically, there are two scenarios possible (don't forget we have to select 6 men, 2 women, and 2 extra players (1 man and 1 women):

1-
Having a 1 week-end qualification tournament in a specific place in Canada. This week-end would be separated in two different qualfication tournaments. On the first day, we would run two round-robin tournaments (one for the men, one for the women) on Canada's home table. I'm just throwing an arbitrary number, but at the end of this day, we could select the top 10 men and the top 4 women, based on the final ranking. This first draft would give us the strongest players of Canada on our home table, which is very important in a multitable tournament. Also, this first qualification would give a chance to the best players in Canada to have a so-so tournament, and probably have a chance to truly qualify the day after.

On the second day, we could run a second qualfication tournament, with the same round robin format, with only the top 10 men and the top 4 women of the last day. But this time, this second qualification would be multitable (on Tornado, Bonzini and Garlando World Championship model so we respect the multitable aspect of Canada). At this point, the top 7 men and the top 3 women would be the one who would represent our country.

2-
Instead of having only a one week-end qualfiication tournament at one specific place in Canada, we could run a pre qualification tournament in East and in West, on the Canada's home table. This way, it could dispense to too many players of having to travel to the final qualification. Then, the best players of East and West would have to finally compete in the one week-end qualification tournament as explained earlier.


I know it's gonna be expensive for some to travel to a qualification tournament, but I don't think we have another choice to make it fair to everyone and to have the best team possible. We don't really have choice to set up a battle between the players from East and West to find who are the best players to represent us. Plus, this selection process would give us a really good feel of who are the best players on Canada's home table while being the best players when we speak about quick adaptation on different kind of tables, which is definitely important in a multitable tournament.

Feel free to post your thoughts.

[Eric Dunn]

just to be clear, when you say "Also, according to the 2006 world cup website http://www.tischfussball-wm-2006.de/eng_infos.html , the 10 team members get their place tickets and accomodations paid so it's going to help us."

That the organizers for the 2010 World Cup have made it very clear that they will NOT be offering the same free trips to the 2010 World Cup. It is up to the national federations to raise the money, or the players themselves have to raise the money. They will try and get sponsors, but getting enough sponsorship to pay for every country to send 10 players would be a large sum of money - more than has ever been raised with respect to table soccer.

But that's an inventive idea of qualyfying a short list on Canada's home table (which is undetermined at this point) and then from that determining the best multi-table players out of that group to narrow it down to who makes the team. Cool idea.

But one problem is that it would find the awesome players on our home table, that are good multi-table players, but not those players that are awesome multi-table players that are good on our home table. The difference is this. for the games on our non-home table, we want our strongest non-home table player playing front - and in a best case scneario, this should be filled by the best player on that table in Canada (not the player that is awesome on our home table and just ok on the other tables) - and that player might not be able to make it through the initial qualification on our home table. But that said. the general strategy at these multi-table events is to ensure a win on your home table, and setup for your best chance to steal on their table. so that multi-table player has to not be a detrement on our home table as well.

Lots to consider... but a real good start.

[Mario Iannuzzi]

First of all, can someone please clarify how a multi-table tournament works: e.g, what does a "home table" mean?

Julien -
Idea 1)
Having a weekend tournament in a specific place is a good way to ensure that all East and West players are in the mix and playing against each other from the beginning. It allows us to see who can adapt the most quickly to new players styles, since you likely would not have played players from the West prior to this if you are from the East, and vice versa.

However, as you pointed out, this may be expensive (prohibitively so) for some players, and may discourage them from going to it. Just because you may be a good foosball player (one of the best in Canada, in fact) does not necessarily mean that you've got the budget to back it up.
Also, in this format, the players that are disqualified on the first day (which is a majority of them from what I understand) would rather lose out on the second day. They may have travelled a great distance for this tournament, and one day may not cut it for them. To supplement this, I would suggest that a second tournament or event be held, unrelated to the World Cup team, to give the rest of the players something to do on this second day.

Idea 2)
I find this idea to be stronger, as it prevents a large amount of travelling for those who may not necessarily A) be up to it or B) have the money to support it, especially if they're not going to get past the first round of qualification.
The only con I can see in this format is that, as I mentioned earlier, there wouldn't be a mix of East/West players in the initial round.

As Eric mentioned, the formats you present ensure a strong showing on our home table, but posit a weaker showing on the other tables. As I said above, I'm not entirely sure about how this multi-table format works, so I'll withhold my comments about that particular issue until I understand more about it.

Are the tournaments you mention to be singles format, doubles, or both? Surely we don't want to find 10 of the strongest singles players in Canada, just to discover that they are weaker than we thought in doubles. Does anyone have any ideas about how we can balance these? And, more importantly, how to ensure a good working team chemistry in the final batch?

- Mario I.

[Mario A.]

Mario the way the world championship works.

3 Male single matches
1 Woman single match
3 Men’s doubles matches
1 Woman’s doubles match

If there is a Tie it goes to sudden death. In sudden death you play a doubles match. The only players that can play in sudden death are players that did not play singles. All games are to 7 win by 2. You play on your table of choice than you play on there table of choice if you both win you play 3 balls on your table 3 balls on there table. If it goes to 6-6 than you must win by 2. 1 ball your table 1 ball on there table.

There is no easy way to Unite Canada Foosball. Canada is just too big. The only way I can see any of this working is if we can grow every player base in Canada. We need a minimum of 100 players in every city in order for this to work in my eyes.

We need a tour. Every City must have a minimum of 6 tournaments a year. $50 dollar buys inns. $50 dollar buy inn’s for doubles. If that was done we would have enough money to play around with. ($10000) $7000 could go to the players the rest could be put in a pot for the World Championships.

We have to find a way to grow our player bases. I know here in Toronto it’s not doing so good. Or shall I say I don’t know how its doing because we play in Olavo's basement so in truth we are killing foosball here. I think that's what’s happening everywhere. There are no good locations willing to help us help them. That’s because we have no one following behind us. I hope Warrior can change that. Just imagine if you went to a bar owner and said to him I could have 100 people jammed in your bar. They will start helping but the truth is we don’t have that. We must find a way to make it more appealing bottom line.

In closing there is no other way to assemble Canada's World Cup team if we don’t grow our player bases. That’s my opinion.

Mario A.

[Mario Iannuzzi]

Thanks for the explanation Mario!

Does anyone have an idea of how much of the rest of the world selects Tornado (which I presume would be our home table) as their home table? E.g, is there going to be a majority of Canadian matches where both of the home tables selected are Tornado? I can't find the results from the last one...

Mario, what you bring up is a discussion for another thread. A very, very large thread. That's focusing on the larger scale of things - it will take a much longer time to build a player base up to the point where the players that would be "new" right now would be competitive enough to think about qualifying for the world cup team. I'll start up a new thread after this post.

Despite the fact that you think there is "no way to assemble" the World Cup team without growing our player bases, we need to FIND a way to do it, and, IMHO, by the end of 2008. Have everything settled, organized, dates and venues set and ready to go, no matter what we end up deciding on. Let's try to avoid focusing on how difficult it will be...it's definitely good that we're starting discussion now.

[Mario Iannuzzi]

Hello all,

Alright, I've discussed this with a few people, and we've come up with what seems to be a reasonable, if unorthodox, possibility.

Goal:
Form a team with the BEST Canadian players who EXCEL on Tornado and who have experience on other types of tables.

Problems with a single qualifying tournament:
- People would have to travel halfway across the country for one tournament, which may be prohibitively expensive.
- Our best players with the most experience may unluckily get slopped out (or have a bad day) - this is not representative of their true skills or experience. It would be robbing our team of its best chance.

Points of interest:
- Points are the long-time, tried, tested and true way of proving which players (on average) attend tournaments, gain experience, and consistently win.
- Various points systems are currently in existence, varying by table type and region, with no common points base.
- We have 2 years to select a team and prepare them.

Proposition:
- Utilize a WEIGHTED POINTS RACE to assemble our team. This would use all tournaments that a player attends over the next 2 years - we would not have to organize them.
- To contend with the fact that we would be announcing this now, and to ensure the current "champions" don't get rusty, ALL PLAYERS WOULD START WITH ZERO POINTS.
- The "WEIGHTED" part of it would take into account that we would have to ensure that our players are strong on both our home table and those of others. Create a system where points gained are determined by
A) The size of the tournament. (For example, a Worlds Championship should be worth more points than a Regional)
B) The player's final ranking in the OPEN events (or WOMEN'S events, respectively)
C) The type of table the tournament was held on. (For example, in our case, a Tornado tournament would bear out more points than a Bonzini tournament)

This would ensure that the players chosen would have the skills, experience, drive, and motivation necessary to join our World Cup team.

I'm not saying that this is bulletproof or finalized; it is definitely open to criticism and suggestions.

- Mario

[Eric Dunn]

I would suggest that if we go this route, then a certain percentage of the points that are earned must be from tournaments on Tornado (or whatever our home table is). You wouldnt want someone to get on the team without proving their worth on Tornado - but then again if the wieghting is correct, and if some one is able to earn enough points only on those other tables, then they must be pretty darn good on them, and could match up nicely playing forward in games on non-home tables, and goal on tornado.

Alternatively, you wouldnt want to allow someone to get on the team without proving their worth on non-Tornado tables either - so possibly a percentage is required here as wel.

I would also suggest that these tournaments be named far in advance, and not on any tournament that a player happens to go to.

Thought should be given to the possibility of awarding more points at international level events over canadian only events (cause after all the world cup team will be playing teams from other countries - not players from canada).

I agree with the thought that points should only be earned in open events, but which ones? singles, doubles, mixed? i doubt mixed - as there is no mixed event at the world cup. But we dont want to award points only on a players ability to play singles. But then is it fair to award points on doubles - where some players might be able to play with non-canadian players - for example, i'm able to play with other pro-masters in open doubles, i'm not sure anyone else other than mario and kane have that advantage.

Also just making everyone aware that players that are ranked higher on the Tornado tour are able to get byes into the round of 32 (or is it 64?) in major events - where others would have to qualify. this gives a possible advantage to those players ranked high enough to earn byes. this applies to both open doubles and open singles. One could argue that if someone is ranked high enough to earn these byes then, they've earned the advantage - which is why they are seeded like that in the major events.

Another draw back: if we compare this idea to the single event idea, one of the draw backs to the single event idea is that not everyone can travel to that event. this is compounded even worse with a points race type of scenario - where now we're talking about a series of events players have to go to in order to earn a spot on the team.

I'm not saying i dont like the idea of a long running points race type of scenario, i'm just highlighting some of its possible drawbacks so that everyone is aware and can possibly come up with ideas to work around these 'problems'.

[Mario A.]

Mario the only reason I speak about the amount of players is because we have to find a way to raise the money and grow our player base. If we just have a points race and you are able to go to the USA to play than we are truly not doing anything for the sport in Canada. We have to make Foosball look appealing to everyone and this is the time to do it. Even though people might not get on this team they might want to try to get on the next team, especially the younger guys. This is the only time we can market foosball and make it look interesting.

Think about it if you walked into a bar (ouch) and you saw a poster on the wall that said World Championships Team Event 7 men and 2 woman Open tournament. It would catch your attention. We have to use this to grow our player base. We have to start soon, if its not done soon the people who are interested now won’t be interested later. 91% of the players in Canada will not be on the team. How scary is that. Find those 91% some competition and they might continue playing for the fun and the love of the game.


What I did in 2006 won’t be any different in 2010. Table soccer will not grow. This tournament won’t mean as much if we don’t have people to share it with. This tournament is about growth it’s about a team.

Mario Ariganello

[Laurent Paquin-Marcotte]

Nice to see that make discution. I think we are many person interest

I have 3 questions:
just for know...why is tornado the home table?
If the most part of team is better on bonzini or garlando why tornado is our table? (I dont no, maybe is descided when we affiliate with ITSF)
I understand most of canadian player play on tornado...
We can descide that after the multitable-qualification depended of the player on the team and the result of the tournement

For the tournement: superficy of canada is a problem. But if the player want to go to world cup we have to make effort. If the tournement is annonced long time before, the player can planified the trip. I think...
but we have to annonce very long time before. (more than a couple of month)

For the pay trip. why the trip is not pay by the player who going. That is most easy to descide who going. The actualy structure of TSAC not accomodate this. ( I never play a TSAC sanctionned event without ITSF tournement in quebec, and is just because is ITSF that TSAC sancionned ) They dont organise tournement on a regulary cycle and (I think) is difficult to demand to other player to pay for that. I think we lost a lot of player if they know the money is to the world cup team because some of us dont want to come and dont want to pay for the WC team. If you know who want to come and pay is trip that reduce the personne interest and that make is more easy to arrange qualification and descide who's on the team.

After the selection team complete, the player selectionned can try to have sponsor. That the responsability of each player to find some. If you dont find some you just pay your trip.

Just a suggestion and my opinion
Sorry for my very bad english :P


Laurent

[Audrey]

Tornado should really be the Canada's home table, because most of the Canadians are playing on that table and the caliber is much higher on Tornado everywhere in Canada than on Bonzini and Garlando. We need to build a team on the country's strenght, and Tornado is our strenght. I agree on the fact that players on the team must be, first of all, very good on Tornado and then, must proove themselves on other tables too. But they NEED to be a very good player on Tornado, first.

Will we select 2 players without having them qualifying, like 2 years ago (Mario A. and Moya)? Maybe we should do this, because it will guaranteed us to have at least the best 2 players on the team..

Mario Iannuzzi's idea concerning the points is a good one but I think it will be difficult to have a realistic idea of the true strenght of the players. For exemple, I won't be participing in a lot of tournaments because of school and money, but I consider that i'm a good candidate for the team. We need a kind of qualifier or series of qualifiers that would be announced a long time before so the players who wants to be on the team can compete... (I know Canada's superficy is a problem)... But I think it's the best way to find the players who will be on the team.

[Julien Beaumier-Ethier]

I don't think the home table issue should be discussed here. I'll start another thread about it.

[Mario Iannuzzi]

I absolutely agree with you - our player base definitely needs to grow. However, on the realistic side, after walking into the bar (ouch :P) , and seeing a poster like that, WE would say "WOW that is so cool...I should try to get on that team!" . On the other hand, if a NORMAL person walked into a bar and saw that poster, I would assume their reaction would be something more along the lines of amusement, or a momentary "heh...that's interesting" - before they go back to loading themselves with beers and talking to their friends.

Ideally, what we would like to do is to get more players playing the sport in Canada - and I agree that this World Cup phenomenon is a good way to do it. But it will definitely take more than posters. What motivation would a non-fooser have to enter one of these tournaments?

[Smokinpush]

wow world cup! I want to be on team Canada!