OT: World Cup '26
So the powers that be have decided on a format for the 2026 World Cup: 12 groups of 4 with the group winners, runners-up, and 8 best 3rd place teams creating a 32 team knock out bracket.
This is certainly better than the 16 groups of 3 disaster FIFA was seriously considering (82 WC), but they seem very married to that 32 team knock out bracket. FIFA used to create a second set of groups which I liked from a "best team is most likely to win it" standpoint--although that creates its own issues.
What say you?
This format (which IS the better option, given that FIFA is set on having a 48 team tournament) also results in 24 more matches being played.
Which means more $$$$.
Surely, just a coincidence. :-)
More seriously --- I'm not a big fan of 3rd place teams advancing, simply because it reduces the stakes of group play. Argentina won the World Cup a few months ago. To get there - not only did they have to win all their knockout matches, their last 2 group matches were also virtual "win-or-else" matches, given that they lost to Saudi Arabia to start. With this format, teams like that have more margin for error.
Honestly, I feel it should stay at a 32 team tournament. But we know that's not happening - again $$$.
Agree on both accounts:
That 32 was the right number and that third place teams advancing makes the group play slightly lower stakes and hence less interesting but at least you aren't guaranteed as a third place team. Have to be the top 8.
The one benefit is that makes an unlucky draw slightly less punishing.
The World Cup soccers so hard.
While it's better than the initial proposal of the three team pods what would've rendered most of the group games irrelevant, I still don't care for it. It seems like it will water down both the qualification process as well as the main event. I would leave it as-is though the cynic in me recognizes the inevitability of money grabs taking precedent over anything (historical precedent, quality of the play, experience of the players, experience of the fans, everything is about money). I guess for the North American tourney, it'll make getting tickets easier. I can't imagine a tremendously brisk secondary market for Mali v. North Macedonia.
I'm fully anticipating a 256 team NCAA basketball tournament in my lifetime. I can't wait for the excitement of making the "Sweet 64" after winning two games in the opening weekend of March/April/May Madness.
Now get off my lawn/pitch!
I can't believe FIFA hasn't already gone to 64 teams. Give half the world a chance and a dream. We could have a riveting third game in Group Q between Malawi and Fiji for the right to advance!
Especially since no one really cares about/watches qualifying matches.
Da fuq?
The entire world already has a chance. It’s called qualification.
I don't mind the 3rd place team getting in. If two talented teams, who deserve to be there, but goal differential was what kept one of those teams from advancing vis-a-vis the other, I don't have a problem with it at all.
In 2022, take Group C for example:
Poland and Mexico tied with the exact same record and points.
Also, H2H Poland and Mexico tied.
But Poland advanced on GD.
Group play, in this instance, really didn't settle anything -- so using 2026 format, Poland and Mexico would have both advanced and that should be okay.
The integrity of the knock out round is still the knockout round. Win or go home. And there are mismatches there too even in the current format... like England v Senegal.
And it's not like this new format is going to give a team like Qatar and easier path to the knockout round either.
Couldn't one argue that group play did settle things? If Mexico had defeated Saudi Arabia by 2 goals instead of 1 (similar to what Poland did), they would have advanced (goal difference equal but Mexico would have had more aggregate goals).
I know that's a pretty fine difference - one goal, but there were differences in the results between Mexico and Poland.
Eliminating group stage draws and awarding points like hockey does would go a long way to solve that problem.
Never happen, nor should it.
Sure it can and should. With the tweak (from the hockey model), or course, being that each match should be worth three points in aggregate.
Hockey needs to do something. Rewarding a point for a loss goes against any kind of competitive common sense.
You play to win the game.
If you reward losing, what happens next, youth leagues stop keeping score all together? Err, nevermind.
Couldn't one argue that group play did settle things? If Mexico had defeated Saudi Arabia by 2 goals instead of 1
For me, no.
I like victories over common opponents as a relevant measurement; but not nitpicking the score.
1, there are too many variables at play to make this an apples to apples comparison and 2, over the course of a week is a bit challenging to say Poland is a better team -- with everything else being equal, simply because Mexico let in 3 goals and Poland let in 2.
It's cool though... not trying to argue with anyone. You'll probably get the posbang and I'll get the negs the way this thread is panning out. :)
It absolutely will give Qatar (and everyone else) an easier path to qualification. Park the bus three times and scrape into the round of 32. Two-thirds of the teams are going to advance!
Flashback to horrible memories of 1990, before they were forced to put in the pass-back rule.
March 15th, 2023 at 11:04 PM ^
One flaw in your example: Mexico finished with 4 points and GD = -1.
Six of the other seven 3rd-place teams finished with 4 points and GD ≥ -1.
So, depending on how tiebreakers beyond GD went, Mexico could have been the 7th of the eight 3rd-place teams anyway.
If you argue that Mexico had earned the right to advance last year, you have to also argue that Ecuador, Tunisia, Germany, Belgium, Cameroon and Uruguay also earned the right to advance.
March 15th, 2023 at 11:49 PM ^
I was citing a specific example of where records, points, and H2H were all identical for context why a 3rd place team would be deserving to go through.
I also focused on an individual group rather than the entire tournament field like you did specifically because I wasn't going to get into whataboutism when comparing a 32 team field to a 48 team field.
you have to also argue that Ecuador, Tunisia, Germany, Belgium, Cameroon and Uruguay also earned the right to advance
In your example, Ecuador didn't finish tied with Senegal in group play.
Tunisia was 2 points back of the Aussies -- again, go look back at my MEX v POL comparison and explain how this is a cogent comparison. Actually, don't do that, it's a rhetorical question.
Germany and Spain tied but in all the facets in my previous comparison so yeah, they could have been used as an example too.
Belgium didn't finish tied with Croatia in group play.
Cameroon was 2 points back of the Swiss.
Uruguay and RSK tied across the board; even in GD. I don't even know what the next tie breaker is after GD.
So if you're going to call out someone's logic flaws, you might want to make an apples to apples comparison first.
But will it make it easier for Russia?
I predict FIFA will allow them back in by then.
There were a lot of blowouts in this years world cup. Is adding more teams to the pile really value? Only in quantity, not in quality.
We'll see this play out in college football in two years...
When there are 12 playoff teams, then we can move the media's goal line to hearing about about how the 13th team got snubbed.
It’s the best of many terrible options. A 48-team World Cup is a bad idea on many, many levels.
I'd prefer we made a cup out of the moon
What if the moon was made of ribs?
i would become and astronaut and have it my life’s mission to eat the moon
Guess you no longer have to worry about the group of death
I'm fine with it.
I see all the griping about a larger WC, and I get it; it's a pretty well-balanced format with 32 teams.
And the larger format will water it down, because all the teams that are added will be worse.
But it *will* include more countries, and widen the field of potential entrants. One of the problems the WC has is that there are a lot of countries that just have no chance to make it at all. While that will always be true, increasing the scope may motivate some "minnow" countries that are currently stuck in a federation that seems to put a real cap on their ceiling to invest and develop the sport with the hope of actually making the tournament.
The two largest countries in the world don't make it and frankly seem to have little hope. Maybe this gets one of them over the line... and maybe getting over the line germinates a culture within one of those countries to actually develop players, so that they are a proper competitor a generation later.
Anyway, given the larger field, the format makes sense. Everyone gets three guaranteed games. The better teams increase their chance of advancing, and there's an extra round of gripping knock-out matches. It adds one game to the calendars of a few good teams. It means there are more games for fans to watch and attend.
I'm fine with this. Don't know if I'll get to go to a game, but I'd love the chance, and this increases the odds of that happening. (Would have been better if they had, you know, not cut out my entire region of the country, but whatever).
(Would have been better if they had, you know, not cut out my entire region of the country, but whatever).
Yeah, I mean it sucks that KC is the only US host city that's not in a coastal state, and one of only three in the US that aren't more or less a coastal city.
Also, does anyone know if we're guaranteed to play our games in the US? I just have this bad feeling that one or more of our games are going to be in Mexico, because that's our luck...
I'm not Indian, so correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a country that seems all in on cricket--like Canada for hockey.
Risk finally ends and now this?!
don’t worry, it’s still 3.5 years away
The best way to ruin a good thing is to create MOAR of it.
March 15th, 2023 at 10:33 PM ^
Hmm, maybe a 64-nation single elimination tournament would be the answer.
March 15th, 2023 at 10:53 PM ^
I think a 16 team knock out round is just right, but who's going to argue with more world cup games? Especially because they are all here and in a close enough time zone to watch live, and a 48 team field may out one or two more games in Miami.
March 15th, 2023 at 10:55 PM ^
Akin to NCAA tourney going to 128 teams. It's lame. Zero drama in CONCACAF qualifying go forward forget other regions.
This will open the door to some potentially bad games. The 2nd team in Oceania is who? Tahiti? Who are the 6th and 7th best teams in CONCACAF?