Group winners straight to the Final But hey maybe in Canada a team can accomplish what Paraguay failed to do in Copa America, win the tournament with out winning a single game.
Well, I think four out of six for all groups is better than three out of four for four of six groups. One thing you could do with four groups of six, though, is continue to skip the round of sixteen. Top two out of six from each group to the quarterfinals.
How about this? One group of 24 teams. It would be called the "Group of Boot Camp" Every team plays each other once, only two days rest in between each match. That means each team plays 23 matches (as you don't play yourselves, unless they're feeling a little excited I guess for a 24th match of a different means, but that should stay completely in their uniform in practice, and should not be televised, unless Josefine Öqvist needs a humid 24th match). Anyways, 24 teams, 23 matches for each team. Total of 276 matches in group round. They could all be jointly televised by ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNU, Fox Soccer Channel, with the overflow of additional matches on Fox Sports regional channels, and so on. Then, the top 14 of the 24 teams make the knockout round. Top 2 teams get a "BYE" into the round of 8 (Quarterfinals), while teams ranked #3 - #14 play each other in a wild-card round, and the 6 winners of those matches join the 2 teams who already had a "BYE" into the Quarterfinal Round. Quarterfinal Round would be "Best out of 7" (up to 7 matches for each match-up, if necessary). Semifinal Round would be "Best out of 5" (up to 5 matches for each match-up, if necessary). The Final would be "Best out of 9" (up to 9 matches in the Final, if necessary). The entire tournament would take up the entire summer (June through September), and would be held once per year (instead of once per 4 years). This would not be diluting the WWC all that much.
Why is there even a need for knock out rounds if they already played each other? The winners of that 24 teams group are obviously the best team and worthy of the title "world champions".
But then you wouldn't have an official World Cup Final, or a best of nine game series for it (first team to win 5 games in the World Cup Final series).
OK - While USA 1994 is a good defense for using the current set-up for 24-team tournaments using a 3-1-0 system, the just-completed group play for Colombia 2011 U-20 most definitely is not. England advanced one of the four best 3rd-place teams on the 'strength' of three scoreless draws. Correct that - they advanced as the BEST 3rd-place team. Further down the ladder, Costa Rica 'stormed' into the Round of 16 with a win and two losses - and a -5 goal differential. Yet this record looks positive gaudy compared to their CONCACAF brothers from Guatemala, who almost certainly must be the first team ever to progress out of group play with a -10 (yes that's minus ten) goal differential. Two lopsided losses followed by an 81st minute goal to win 1-0. Guatemala's place in the last 16 came at the expense of New Zealand, who must be devastated to not advance after such a deserving one loss and two draw performance... So while all the 3rd place teams who advanced in 1994 had 4 points or better (and none with a negative goal differential, even one of the 3rd place side who didn't make it had a positive GD), NONE of the 3rd place teams who advanced in Colombia had better than 3 points or a positive goal differential. So what will Canada 2015 bring? (and how on earth did the USA fail to qualify for Colombia ahead of any of the pitiful CONCACAF teams who made it besides Mexico? Does our future look that bleak?)
If you allow 16 teams advance from a group of 24, of course chances are very good that some teams might advance with a losing record. That's the statistics, there is no way around it.
any word on when FIFA will announce how many qualification spots each confederation gets?? I would assume that UEFA, then AFC would be the first to start their qualifiers.
North Korea have been banned from the 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada after five players tested positive for banned substances at the 2011 tournament. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/08/25/soccer-world-doping-idUKB41487820110825 http://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/organisation/media/newsid=1498727/index.html Colombian player Yineth Varon also facing a 2-year ban for violating doping rules.
If the AFC is given 5 births, we could see a country like Thailand, Vietnam or Uzbekistan in the WWC(assuming Australia, China, Japan & South Korea qualify also).