World Cup format

[EdsonArantes]

32 teams participate...6 confederations. I say 5 teams per confederation which makes 30, one more for the host, one more for the defending champ, which makes 32. Or perhaps if people will gripe about Oceania being weak... 10 for Oceania + AFC (It could be 9 Asian and New Zealand, or something).

European nations have a stronger history, yes. Europeans invented the game, yes. But its the world cup...maybe its a pipe dream that will never happen, but would be nice to see it equally represented by region.

Mods, please move this to the appropriate thread, as I'm sure it has been discussed at length. Thanks!

[almango]

I would love to see equal representation (or at least pro rata representation based on number of teams) but not before all confederations are up to standard. Will probably never happen though. There are big differences in the standards right now and the balance is close to right. I would like to see more intercontinental playoffs to fine tune the numbers each time. Something like the following

UEFA 8 spots + 8 playoffs
Conmebol 3 spots + 3 playoffs
AFC 3 spots + 3 playoffs
CONCACAF 3 spots + 3 playoffs
CAF 3 spots + 3 playoffs
OFC 0 spots + 2 playoffs
Host 1 spot

21 confederation + host spots, 22 teams in playoffs to decide the other 11 teams. Since UEFA and Conmebol are the strongest confederations I would put their 11 teams in one pot for the playoff draw and the others in the other pot. All confederations have the opportunity to get more teams in the World Cup finals than at present, provided they are good enough.

[spoonman]

Mods, please move this to the appropriate thread, as I'm sure it has been discussed at length. Thanks!

Not really

[Khaloisha]

Why would you like to lower the level of WC?

If every continent is entitled to have the same team, i could only predict a sad World Cup, in which some team will be crushed by another more stronger.

I disagree with your statement.

[Gold is the Colour]

There is so much wrong with this proposal.

Firstly, whilst you want all confeds represented, you need to balance that with allowing the best teams to compete.

Secondly, if we do use this proposal, why do Conmebol and Oceania get half of their teams in, but Uefa and Africa get less than 1/10?

For qualifiaction purposes I'd say combine the Americas and add OFC to Asia - this gives 4 roughly even groups.

Then give 16 spots to the confeds that made it to the round of 16 last world cup - to allow the better teams/ confeds more spots.

Then split the last 16 spots to all confeds - the host just takes one of these spots.

For the next WC this would give:

UEFA: 11+4=15
Americas: 3+4=7
AFC+OFC: 1+4=5
Africa:1+4=5

Pretty similar to what we have now. I would make 2 of each groups spots into 4 playoffs, thus 2 definate spots and 4 chances at more if you are good enough.

If we go to 3/4 performance - 1/4 equal rep by using teams that finished in top 3 of their groups we get:

UEFA: 11+2=15
Americas: 5+2=7
AFC+OFC: 2+2=4
Africa:4+2=6

Close again and good as we are concerned with the bottom teams as to who should be there and this means finishing bottom of your group takes away a spot. Maybe have 1 spot and 2 playoffs for each group.

The other way to do this is to use the last 2 WCs and places in the final 16 again - but give the 02 WC 1/2 spots, which would give:

UEFA: 11+4.5+2=17.5
Americas: 3+2+2=7
AFC+OFC: 1+1+2=4
Africa:1+0.5+2=3.5

Too "top heavy" (just because the top 8-9 in Europe are very good, doesn't mean the next 8-9 are as good) and 8 years is too long a gap to determine relative strengths.

[spoonman]

And where would we find space in the calender for this tournament?

[Gold is the Colour]

And where would we find space in the calender for this tournament?

Which tournament?

[spoonman]

ah nevermind, glanced through it and thought it was about ClubWorldcup :D

[EdsonArantes]

For qualifiaction purposes I'd say combine the Americas and add OFC to Asia - this gives 4 roughly even groups.


I like this idea. Truth be told, as long as UEFA gets a few less, and Conmebol and CAF get a few more, I am happy. Strength-wise, I think Concacaf and AFC/Oceania are usually well represented.

If we are talking about strength of teams, if Europe were to get 8-10 spots (As opposed to 12-15 like they usually do), and South America and Africa each got 6-8 (As opposed to 4-6 like the do now) that would be great. When you start getting past the top 6 or 7 teams in South America and Africa, there is a drop in quality, but i think 6 or 7 from these two regions would do very well in the world cup and make for some very diverse knockout rounds!

[spoonman]

8 spots for Europe is rediculous

[roykeanes_safc]

8 Spots for Europe is laughable. How people can suggest this is stupid. I agree with what has been said earlier about combining confederations as the Oceania and Central America groups are very weak.

Israel and Turkey are classed as European nations but we all know arent so i dont see why mexico, honduras, US, and Canada etc shouldnt be bundled with the south american countries and simply increase the amount of world cup places, it would do wonders for the US game. 8 places for Europe is sill however as it would be hugely underrepresented

[EdsonArantes]

8 spots for Europe is unrealistic for 2010 or 2014, but 10 spots for Europe is not unrealistic, silly or laughable for 2010 or 2014. Hence why I said 8 to 10 for Europe (not just 8) meaning that eventually (in my lifetime - maybe in 2018, 2022, 2026, 2030, 2036) as football parity increases around the globe, having only 8 European teams would not be such a pipe dream. This thread is not about what the world cup format should be now, but about ways that it could ideally be changed (the merging of the americas and AFC and Oceania is another great idea), some of those changes could feasibly be implemented immediately (merging of confederations), some may take a while (reducing European slots). With all due respect to Serbia & Montenegro and Poland...I would have loved to see teams like Cameroon, Nigeria, Egypt, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia in their place in 2006. Not saying these teams would have fared better or worse, but it is fun to see different styles of play, different fans other than the usual, different stories, different drama.

[roykeanes_safc]

8 spots for Europe is unrealistic for 2010 or 2014, but 10 spots for Europe is not unrealistic, silly or laughable for 2010 or 2014. Hence why I said 8 to 10 for Europe (not just 8) meaning that eventually (in my lifetime - maybe in 2018, 2022, 2026, 2030, 2036) as football parity increases around the globe, having only 8 European teams would not be such a pipe dream. This thread is not about what the world cup format should be now, but about ways that it could ideally be changed (the merging of the americas and AFC and Oceania is another great idea), some of those changes could feasibly be implemented immediately (merging of confederations), some may take a while (reducing European slots). With all due respect to Serbia & Montenegro and Poland...I would have loved to see teams like Cameroon, Nigeria, Egypt, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia in their place in 2006. Not saying these teams would have fared better or worse, but it is fun to see different styles of play, different fans other than the usual, different stories, different drama.

Fair point however you cant accomodate teams just to make it a more diverse competiton. My suggestion would be to make it similar to the Champions League and introduce co efficients. Award places on past performances of different confederations as in my opinion Asian teams never do anything in the competition and get a stupid amount of places when a major nation sometimes has to go through playoffs just so a team like Japan can be there

[EdsonArantes]

Very true, I agree the coefficients would not be a bad idea at all. As I think CONMEBOL and UEFA are closer than the number of places would make it seem. UEFA has many more countries, but the strength of Brazil and Argentina alone almost make up for that. Good point.

[Gold is the Colour]

Very true, I agree the coefficients would not be a bad idea at all. As I think CONMEBOL and UEFA are closer than the number of places would make it seem. UEFA has many more countries, but the strength of Brazil and Argentina alone almost make up for that. Good point.

The strength of Brazil and Argentina doesn't really count, it is the strength of the worse team(s) sent that determines the spots that a confed should have. UEFA has more teams, but it would be a hard argument to say that Serbia/ Poland/ Croatia etc were significantly worse than Paraguay.

[Sagy]

I like this idea. Truth be told, as long as UEFA gets a few less, and Conmebol and CAF get a few more, I am happy. Strength-wise, I think Concacaf and AFC/Oceania are usually well represented.

If we are talking about strength of teams, if Europe were to get 8-10 spots (As opposed to 12-15 like they usually do), and South America and Africa each got 6-8 (As opposed to 4-6 like the do now) that would be great. When you start getting past the top 6 or 7 teams in South America and Africa, there is a drop in quality, but i think 6 or 7 from these two regions would do very well in the world cup and make for some very diverse knockout rounds!

Too bad the facts don't agree with you.

CAF has never gotten more than 1 team past the first round. For the last 3 WCs an average performance would have seen a total of 7-8 CAF teams advance, in reality only 3 of 15 did (20%). Even CONCACAF which you feel has the right allocation has done better both in absolute number 4, and percentages (40%).

CSF does have a great success rate 64.3% (9 of 14 advanced). Guess which confederation is better with 65.9%? I'll give you a hint, they got 29 of 44 teams to the second round. If you exclude Brazil & Argentina the rest of CSF is at 50% (4 of 8).

Lets look at the poor performing (last and winless) teams in the last 3 WC. CAF had 6 such teams (out of 15 = 40%), UEFA only had 5 such teams (out of 44 participants = 11.4%). CONCACAF with 4 of 10 bad performing teams has done no worse than CAF teams.

Care to tell us what objective facts you have to show that the extra CAF teams will do better than UEFA teams when the current teams have failed to do so?

[EdsonArantes]

^^ Guess you missed when I said this:

Not saying these teams would have fared better or worse, but it is fun to see different styles of play, different fans other than the usual, different stories, different drama.

Settle down sir, we're just having an informal discussion based on preferences and nothing more, on what it would be like with different representation, as the football landscape changes over time. Nobody here has a petition, a book of statistics, or has Sepp Blatter's ear, and nobody here is really THAT upset about the format. I know I'm not and I started the thread.

[Tuco]

With all due respect to Serbia & Montenegro and Poland...I would have loved to see teams like Cameroon, Nigeria, Egypt, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia in their place in 2006. Not saying these teams would have fared better or worse, but it is fun to see different styles of play, different fans other than the usual, different stories, different drama.

I agree in that UEFA countries like Ukraine and Serbia were boring to watch and played rather poorly, but the same can be said of half of Africa's entrants (Angola, Togo and Tunisia).

The 2006 WC would have been much better if Africa's qualification system had been different. If that had been the case, maybe we would have seen Nigeria or Senegal take part.


So for the short-term, I think WC spots are right just where they are.



The main problem I see with changing the current system [over time] for purposes of increasing variety is that you get diminishing returns with every change you make. In trying to make WC spots equally distributed, you'll reach a point that for every unique team you add, you'll get a handful of poor teams that aren't as fun to watch. Of course - like you said - the non-UEFA & CONMEBOL confeds are likely to continue catching up as the years go by.

[almango]

I agree in that UEFA countries like Ukraine and Serbia were boring to watch and played rather poorly, but the same can be said of half of Africa's entrants (Angola, Togo and Tunisia).

The 2006 WC would have been much better if Africa's qualification system had been different. If that had been the case, maybe we would have seen Nigeria or Senegal take part.

Considering that Nigeria and Senegal were eliminated by Togo and Angola respectively I doubt a different system would have seen either qualify. I think Nigeria and Senegal just weren't good enough in 2005. They both had relatively easy groups and blew it.

[goke313]

Africa ruined the last WC by bringing Angola, Togo and Tunisia.....i would've liked to see Nigeria,Egypt, and Senegal/Mali