Conmebol Proposes 36 teams for 2006!!!!!

Link?

 

Franz Becken Bauer said a World Cup with 36 teams would great
i so hope this happens

 

I love this idea. I, for one, think 40 teams would be a perfect number. First, the group stage could be maintained as is with one team added to each group. Second, 40 represents a significant amount of FIFA members, but still below even 25% so the quality of play and the importance of qualifiers would not be reduced IMO. Third, and clearly most important, we would be rid of any "Grand Theft" threads for at least a week.

 

The main problem I can see is that the moment you move away from groups that allow the correct number of teams to form the latter rounds to qualify then you are going back to what FIFA wanted to get away from.

That is to say with 8 groups you get 16 qualifiers (and 5 teams per group would not work as you need all the final games to be played at the same time).
I would assume that 36 teams would mean 6 groups of 6, but then the qualifiers would be the top two per group (12 teams) and the 4 best runnes up. The problme then would be that you would be comparing teams who had played completely different teams (quite possibly of differring strengths), and using this as the basis for qualification.
Introducing play-offs and extra rounds would simply result in less time for players to recover, and a subsequent reduction in quality.

 

There aren't going to be many pretty ways to reduce 36 teams to 16. I personally prefer 32 teams just fine.

couple of ideas:

A) 9 groups--top 2 in each group qualify (18)

Put the worst four qualifiers (15th vs 18th, 16th vs 17th) into one-off matches to bring the field to 16.

Disadvantage will be an extra game played a few teams and not others, but if there is enough of a rest period between group and playoff phase, it might not be so bad.


B) 9 groups--top 2 qualify (18)

Playoffs will be second phase of 6 groups of 3 teams. Winners and two wild cards selected.

then single elimination from 8 teams to the final.

This would only amount to one extra game per participant, but might be too many games in all for the organizing country to put on, 80 games in all (compared to current format with 64 games (then again, more games equals more profits).

The positives would be more potential world-class match ups, less fluke advancements.

 

UEFA 16 plazas
ASIA 5 plazas
AFRICA 5 plazas
CONCAFAF 4 plazas
CONMEBOL 5 plazas
OCEANIA 1 plaza

Take the last team to qualify from each confederation - including Oceania - and send them to the WC site a month early. Put them in one group of six or two groups of three and play. Top two advance to the final. Host country will have a dress rehearsal of the tournament and the small matter of who deserves the final two spots will be settled on the pitch.

 

I believe 36 teams is too large. But I also read what Beckenbauer said, and if FIFA says so let´s give it a try.
BTW Beckenbauer usually changes his mind all 2 hours! ;-)

domingo

 

how to use 36 teams

this is by far the best way to handle inviting 36 teams to the World Cup finals. but this idea still has shortcomings, since some regions don't have a good method for determining who qualified last.

 

This is similar to Spain '82, which featured a second group phase of 3-teams each. It worked; '82 was one of the more exciting Cup finals, too.

 

Bad idea. A groupstage with only 3 teams is a big gamble and there was a reason to why FIFA cut it from the schedule after Spain '82. The chances that lottery will separate teams increases rapidly when only three games are played in a mini-league.

 

Especially as the two teams playing the last game will know exactly what it takes to reach the next round, whilst the team that has already played both of their games is helpless to affect a potential fix.

 

This is such a terrible idea.

According to Conmebol president, Beckenbauer has reacted favorably.

South America's proposal clearly states that it wouldn't interfere with the dates scheduled for 2006, only requiring Germany to add an extra host city. Therefore, it's proposal is tailor-made for those stipulations, sending the nine 1st-place teams and the 7 best 2nd-place teams into the final rounds.

It should be obvious how this would adversely affect the competition. The draw becomes so much more important. Being drawn into a group of death would suck a lot more than in 2002. Having Saudi Arabia, China, or some yet-to-be-named whipping-boy in your group, exponentially increases your team's chances of advancing.

I hope FIFA looks more at the betterment of the competition rather than that of their coffers. I don't expect that to happen however.

 

The betterment of the competition would have been achieved
by awarding South America 5 places. Or letting the champion
in without having to qualify. Or taking away a place or two
from Asia. (Speaking of "whipping boys"). Or making
Australia earn its place. Or ............

 

Franz is on crack. 32 countries is plenty. UEFA is just getting antsy because they realize as team play improves in other regions they may loose out on more spots.

 

There is no "only" about this. Adding another venue isn't a small issue. The stadium need improvements to meet World Cup standards or it may need to be flat out enlarged. Most countries don't have a billion huge stadiums like the US does just sitting around to be used. There are also issue with security arragements (more security needed to cover a new venue, the players when staying in that newly added city, etc, etc, etc). And there are other behind the scenes things to be addressed.

And having 36 teams will make hosting even more expensive in the future. Not only in terms of coming up with yet another additional stadium big enough, nice enough (i.e. not just a bunch of poured cement and some grass hills to sit on) but also deailing with this additional stadium or stadiums once the world cup is over. A move to 36 teams would make it all the more likely that only countries big enough like England, Germany, and the US could host the competition in the future UNLESS they were willing to do a joint big and co-host the tournament. But co-hosting isn't easy and makes it that much harder to pull off a winning bid.

 

Not gonna happen:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/headlinenews?id=260580&cc=5901

Is anyone surprised that Blatter made another asinine decision?

I think 32 would be a fine number if CONMEBOL had its 4.5 (well, 5 b/c they always got the half spot) and AFC and Oceania didn't have unjustified spots. As it is, however, increasing the WC to 36 would be the only way to make the distribution fairer. So of course Sepp negged the plan, lest we forget he's a fockin idiot.

 

The best decision he made; keep it at 32 teams

 

I'm in agreement to all of the above, but you don't fix those problems by further deteriorating the competition by adding 4 more teams. The fact that Asia gets 4.5 slots when two of its representatives this time were Saudi Arabia and China, is g-d disgraceful. However, CONMEBOL can cry foul all it wants, but their solution stinks more than the problem.

 

36 teams is an awful proposition. Imagine the possible repercussions of leaving out two second place finishers that might be better than two other second place finishers that had an easier group.

36 is a total dilution of quality in the WC (I can't even think of 24 teams that I enjoy seeing every WC, let alone 32)