News: Club World Cup to Expand; Confederations Cup to End

Some of you guys are overreacting: it’ll happen every four years, not every single time there is a brief break. The players aren’t going to die from playing a couple extra matches each decade, if that.

Plus, It’s not like the top clubs (who will be the ones participting) don’t already play exhibition tournaments during pre-season. This is much better than an international friendly cup that is truly irrelevant, and once this new CWC begins developing history and iconic match-ups (i.e. a Barcelona-Real final, memorable comebacks, “WC moments”, etc.) it’ll increasingly become more recognized as an important tournament.

No matter FIFAs decision, you guys wouldn’t have been happy. The current CWC title is much worse imo, and lets not even get started with the pointless Confederations Cup. This is definitely a step forward.

 

Dress rehearsal value overrated IMO. Things work out. It's not rocket science. The Olympics have no dress rehearsal.

 

Floor falling in German stadium ? Or was it the roof leaking ? Either way, those are engineering failures that shouldn't happen regardless. You could argue in terms of security / organization / transportation ... but I think it's overrated. FIFA never meant that as the primary objective. Like with everything, they wanted to make some more money. It's so overrated that they are canning it.

 

Not really hating on it. But as a dressed rehearsal I thought it was unnecessary. I enjoyed them except for the last one. Portugal, Chile, and then Germany B team made it uninteresting.

 

FIFA doesn't owe anybody anything, least of all a motion that puts them in more control over the game with a league concept that would essentially kill the World Cup as we know it. Seriously - What would be the point of that tournament if there is already a global nation's league?

A global nation's league will merely be a way for FIFA to capitalize financially on the bigger matches while feigning interest and support of smaller nations. Anyone thinking FIFA's interests will benefit smaller nations is delusional.

 

That's all well and good if you're in UEFA or CONMEBOL. For the rest of us, how are we supposed to get competitive experience against the world's best outside of World Cup finals? I mean Concacaf has a shot at cheating the system by collaborating with Conmebol (once we get over our current d--- measuring contest), but even so...

The UEFA Nations League has been an unqualified success - without killing anyone's appetite for the Euro (unless @Nico Limmat has renounced that tournament, in which case I stand corrected ). A Global Nations League would be a completely different tournament, with only an 8-team final round played over three games, compared to the WC finals.

And I have to take particular umbrage with the bold: you've heard of the theory based on World Cup winners neighboring each other (i.e. they've improved through competing with each other), right? So what about those that don't have that luxury? Until the GNL comes into existence, FIFA's basically telling the likes of Mexico, Nigeria and Japan, "We don't give a damn whether you improve or not. You want more games against the elite, you'll have to go beg for them."

 

It’s not like anyone took that cup seriously.. and then there’s the case of Germany, who sent a completely alternative squad. It’ll honestly be no different if you schedule friendlies against the “world’s best” than if you play them in a confederations cup. Hell, you might even be able to get them to field a better lineup in a friendly match because of “contractual reasons”

The loss of “competitive experience” is simply a poor excuse. Besides, only one team from each confederation participated every four years, so how exactly are entire confederations being disserviced by the cup’s abolishment?

 

I was fine with the competition ... but like I said, I never thought the "dressed rehearsal" thing was all that necessary.

 

No one equated it with the WC finals and no coach had his job on the line over it, to be sure...but based on lineups and performance, teams definitely took it seriously. Chile and Portugal took their best squads (the latter including CR7) last time; Spain took their best team in 2009 and 2013; and Brazil took their best squad on each occasion since it went to a quadrennial tournament. Germany are the exception, not the rule: and that 2017 squad ended up being arguably better than the A-team that crashed and burned the following year

Because 1 > 0.

I didn't pick Mexico, Nigeria and Japan at random; all three have been to the Confed Cup on multiple occasions, gaining competitive experience against the likes of Brazil and Italy that they would not have had otherwise.