idea: "6 groups with 6 teams" - World cup format. Can it work?

[Gibraldo]

Hi,

i am in big opposition to the current world cup format. Many matches are boring, as with eight groups there is too much decline in the quality of the seeded teams. I thought about a proper way to alter it.

Then the idea of six six-team strong groups popped up in my mind. At the first, i thought: Impossible!

But then an idea grew.

---

The biggest obstacles:

The amount of matches:
6-team-groups mean 15 games per group. This is 90! in the first round. + 32 = 122 matches in total. An enormous increase, but this has advantages, too (see below)

The Schedule:
I started designing a schedule. I thought, it might blew up totally, but you will learn, this isn`t the case. The whole tournament is just exceeded by 1 week!, so it is still Friday to Sunday, but 5 weaks + 2 days (38 days). I think that is handable.
Throught the group face, you have days, with 3, 4 or 5 matches. Just the opening day is relatively calm with just 2 matches. Instead of 15 tournament days, the first round will have 22 days, making the one week more of the whole tournament. The knock out phase stays like it is.
Like in 1986, 1990, 1994, the 4 best 3rd placed teams advance to the round of 16.

(i have that schedule here as an excel format, contact me, if you would like to obtain it)

The venues:
Assuming to have still around 12 venues in the hosting country, you would have a rough number of 10 matches per venue. Bigger venues thus will have about 12-15, smaller ones 8-5 maybe.
Theoretically it is possible, to have 2 matches in a row within a double event in the same stadium. As far as i know, this has been done recently at u20 wc in canada or u19 euro in Austria. the pitches should handle this, i guess.

The biggest advantages:

- 4 more teams could enhance the quality (in 2006 might have been Uruguay, Cameroon, Romania, Turkey)
- 3rd-place-teams advance was widely critizised in 86-94 (just 1/4 go home after the group phasis). But with 6 teams in each group, this argument does not count as more than the half need to go home after the groups.
- remember classic knock out matches from 86-94 and those from 98-2006? do you notice, the earlier on feature much more classics. It came from the system, believe me.
- the massive request for tickets can be satisfied more easily with roughly a doubling of the match numbers.

I have selected an attempted starter field, and drew my six groups.

how do you like them?

A: France, Sweden, Turkey, Mexico, Ivory Coast, Japan
B: England, Netherlands, Romania, Uruguay, Egypt, Guatemala
C: Italy, Sweden, Ireland, Chile, Senegal, Korea Rep.
D: Argentina, Spain, Austria, Australia, Trinidad/Tobago, China
E: Brazil, Serbia, Greece, USA, Cameroon, New Zealand
F: Germany, Croatia, Scotland, Peru, Nigeria, Honduras

So, the schedule for the first 5 days would be:

Fry, Day 1
A: France - Mexico
B: England - Egypt

Sat, Day 2
A: Ivory Coast - Japan
A: Sweden - Turkey
B: Netherlands - Uruguay
B: Guatemala - Romania
C: Italy - Senegal

Sun, Day 3
C: South Korea - Chile
C: Sweden - Ireland
D: Argenina - New Zealand
D: Triniad/Tobago - Austria
E: Brazil - Serbia

Mon, Day 4
E: Saudi-Arabia - USA
E: Greece - Cameroon
F: Germany - Nigeria
F: Scotland - Croatia

Tue, Day 5
F: Honduras - Peru
A: France - Ivory Coast
A: Mexico - Turkey
B: England - Netherlands

So, now make up your mind...

[DStyles]

I would seem better.

[russ]

I'd prefer eliminating groups and going to knockout rounds.Two legs in the round of 32 so no one complains about going home after one game.

Of course,I'm a real weirdo,so I'd also have 16-20 of the 32 spots decided by inter-continental playoffs in Dec.of the previous year.

[DLee]

Dang, Sweden is going to be tired.

[Gibraldo]

Dang, Sweden is going to be tired.

oops. that was a copy and paste error. the "sweden" of group c is not sweden but portugal.

so here it is corrected:

A: France, Sweden, Turkey, Mexico, Ivory Coast, Japan
B: England, Netherlands, Romania, Uruguay, Egypt, Guatemala
C: Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Chile, Senegal, Korea Rep.
D: Argentina, Spain, Austria, Australia, Trinidad/Tobago, China
E: Brazil, Serbia, Greece, USA, Cameroon, New Zealand
F: Germany, Croatia, Scotland, Peru, Nigeria, Honduras



Fry, Day 1
A: France - Mexico, 18:30
B: England - Egypt, 21:00

Sat, Day 2
A: Ivory Coast - Japan, 12:30
A: Sweden - Turkey, 15:00
B: Netherlands - Uruguay, 18:30
B: Guatemala - Romania, 21:00
C: Italy - Senegal, 21:00

Sun, Day 3
C: South Korea - Chile, 12:30
C: Portugal - Ireland, 15:00
D: Argenina - New Zealand, 18:30
D: Triniad/Tobago - Austria, 21:00
E: Brazil - Serbia, 21:00

Mon, Day 4
E: Saudi-Arabia - USA, 15:00
E: Greece - Cameroon, 18:30
F: Germany - Nigeria, 21:00
F: Scotland - Croatia, 21:00

Tue, Day 5
F: Honduras - Peru, 15:00
A: France - Ivory Coast, 18:30
A: Mexico - Turkey, 21:00
B: England - Netherlands, 21:00

[SJJ]

The amount of matches:
6-team-groups mean 15 games per group. This is 90! in the first round. + 32 = 122 matches in total.

How are you getting 32 matches after the first round? Two-game series?

You run the risk of having a lot of bad games in the first round. Bad in two ways: (1) a good team just pounding the poor teams, and (2) the poor teams playing each other. Fifa was criticized for having bad games in 1998 (heavily) and 2002 (some), but not in 2006. So Fifa seems to be correcting this problem, but you might put it back in.

A team could play 9 games (or 13 if you have two-game series). And in the case of Peru (which starts on matchday 5), they play their games in a span of 34 days. You're going to kill these guys.

[tomwilhelm]

9 games in 32 days is clearly untenable.

[Dead Penguin]

The group stage would last forever, and there would be an interminable number of games at the end of the group stage where one or both teams had nothing to play for.

[Sagy]

- 3rd-place-teams advance was widely critizised in 86-94 (just 1/4 go home after the group phasis). But with 6 teams in each group, this argument does not count as more than the half need to go home after the groups.
- remember classic knock out matches from 86-94 and those from 98-2006? do you notice, the earlier on feature much more classics. It came from the system, believe me.Sorry to tell you, but it was not due to this system. The reasons are:

Fewer poor teams made it to the WC. Eight less spots means that most top teams will still qualify but marginal and poorer teams have a very hard time.
The poorer teams in the WC had a lesser chance of advancing. With 16 top teams each of the 6 groups had two top teams and some had 3 making it hard for a poor team to advance.
UEFA+CSF teams made up almost 3/4 of the teams in 1990-94 WCs.

[MF37]

No way. Too much games in just a month.

[AndyMead]

I wrote this editorial four years ago:
http://www.soccertimes.com/oped/2003/jun11.htm

[Gibraldo]

I wrote this editorial four years ago:
http://www.soccertimes.com/oped/2003/jun11.htm

cool. so all my thoughts had been in your mind before.

I think it is certainly possible, and somewhat expect it to happen in world cup 2020. (i should bet on this)

Apart from your idea, i have kept with the 3 day pause before the next game, considering it is better, to have the world cup 5 weeks instead of a full packed first 2 weeks.

At the format of 6x6, the aspect i like most is that every team is guaranteed at least five games. :-)

[midknight]

Am I the only person on this forum who thinks there is such a thing as too much football? :confused:

[Gibraldo]

but people are longing for "more" football. Look at the ticket requests at worldcup 2006 and euro 2008. They could easily sell the double of the tickets available.

In 1970, you had 31 matches and everyone would have called the doubling to 64 matches in 1998 "too much football".

[frasermc]

being scottish you'd think i'd be in favour of expanding the world cup format as it gives us a little more chance of getting there again. however i don't agree with it going beyond the 32 it's at just now.

by adding 4 extra places, according to your example, it seems that europe, n america and oceania would benefit most. depending on who the host country was europe could have 3 extra teams, and oceania goes from a playoff to 2 teams (unless you would still include playoffs in qualifying). asia seem to be the big losers dropping down to only 3 teams represented.

not sure n america would warrant 5 teams as 3 out of their 4 representatives finished bottom of their groups in germany.

australia deserved to finally grace a world cup but would new zealand or another oceania country be anything more than cannon fodder...?

to be honest i think adding more teams would just be diluting the quality on offer at the world cup. bigger does not necessarily mean better after all.

by looking at your mock groups i see too many needless matches in the first stage. the top group looks promising but by allowing 5 games and the possibility of acruing more points means that half the teams could be out the running before the last 2 matches are to be played.

usually with only 3 matches played it means that most teams can still have a chance at qualifying from a 4 team group going into their final match, although admittedly this wasn't the case in germany.

nice idea but i don't think increasing the size of future world cups will necessarily increase the quality of football that we would see displayed.

[Slitty]

I hate the "best 3rd team(s)" concept in Uefa qualifying, and would absolutely loathe it in a World Cup. In my eyes, it is just too dependant on the relative strength of groups to be fair and objective. There would probably even be a trend of mediocre 3rd place teams from weak groups advancing while stronger 3rd place teams from tough groups go home. I prefer the simplicity of the current format, there is something inherently special about being drawn three opponents and then battling these three opponents to advance. As far as I am concerned, expansion would not be favourable until the World Cup is ready for 40 teams.

[midknight]

but people are longing for "more" football. Look at the ticket requests at worldcup 2006 and euro 2008. They could easily sell the double of the tickets available.

People may be longing for "more" football, but that doesn't say that they're longing to see more ukraine or france - switzerland, more matches involving austria (except the austrians themselves of course), Tunisia play 4 games etc etc.

While I like the thought of teams having to use their entire 23 (might have to augment that number) players to win a WC, having 2 more matches per group stage will simply

1) augment the chances of having boring exploratory cautious matches à la France - Switzerland

2) augment the possibility of blow outs à la Saudi Arabia - Ukraine

3) vastly augment the possibilty of meaningless 'pride' matches à la Poland - Costa Rica

In a 4 team group, one upset by an outsider is enough to turn everything on its head. In a 6 team format, the big teams have two supplementary second chances. While it may be your goal to make sure that freak results affect less who gets to qualify, I personally think that that takes away most of the fun of the group stage.

Oh yeah, and in case no one told you, the "best third place system" sucks...big time.


In 1970, you had 31 matches and everyone would have called the doubling to 64 matches in 1998 "too much football".

Maybe, except that in 1971, I seriously doubt there were 32 teams worth watching at a World Cup level.

Plus you seem to forget that there wasn't an automatic doubling from 31 to 64.
The world cup passed through a number of intermediary changes first

[Bauser]

Sorry, but this suggestion is not good at all. 32 teams and 8 groups is the perfect set-up in every sense. There is no need to fix it. The World Cup has found its perfect format, finally.

FIFA has stated a number of times how important it is to stage the tournament within 30 days. To keep the tournament on the front pages and headlines it must have some kind of momentum going for it to be interesting for the general public over four weeks. We can't have nearly 100 matches in the group stage. The World Cup is a finals tournament.

FIFA also said four matches per day should be avoided as much as possible. (It was used in Germany '06 during four days when the eight first round groups were decided and matches had to be played simultaneously). Five matches per day will be overkill. More isn't always merrier. Certainly not here.

For a World Cup to be alive you need to have as many matches as possible with much at stake. These big groups will have a number of teams towards the last third of the groupstage with nothing to play for and that is a major drawback for everybody.

[Homotachi]

Your idea is the PRIME STUPIDITY!

The players yet complain of play too MANY matches in now WC format. If a teams play 2 more matches, the players will be MORE TIRED!!!

People complain too MANY BAD TEAMS in WC like SAUDI, KOREA, and MEXICO yet. If we will put 4 more bad teams, then it's more BAD!!! Imagine watch CHINA vs. CANADA in WC!!!!

Also best to tournament team number be EXPONENT of 2, so there is the even number of PO teams and no worry of 3rd teams make the PO. 16-32-64 good, but 64 TOO MANY!!!!

The now WC format is PERFECT. Why change it?

[midknight]

People complain too MANY BAD TEAMS in WC like SAUDI, KOREA, and MEXICO yet.

While I agree with the general sentiment (if not the syntax :p) of this post, I have to put a caveat about this part. We all complain about Saudi Arabia, but then again, they seem to be consistently among the best Asia has to offer so there's not much we can do about it.

On the other hand, by no stretch of the imagination is Mexico a bad team, and South Korea is Asia's number 3, if not number 2 team.

I don't suppose that being both a US and Japan supporter has anything to do with your appreciation of these two teams is it? :rolleyes: