One thing that hasn't been discussed much (that I've seen) is the advantages and disadvantages that come with allowing 8 of the 12 teams that finish in 3rd place in their groups to advance. I'm sure we all hope that this does not become a major concern for the USMNT (i.e. that we're in 1st or at worst 2nd place in our group), but it's interesting nonetheless. Historically, to avoid the possibility of two teams knowing what result they needed while other two teams did not, both of the final two games in the group started at the same time. That leveled the playing field, since every group had 2 teams out of 4 advance. However, this year the teams from any given group will, in effect, be competing against teams from other groups as well to determine who will advance. This means that teams who play their final group stage matches later on will have a distinct advantage over the groups who played their final group stage matches earlier in the week. The US is in Group D; that group's final matches will be 6th of the 12th groups overall. So we'll know the results of 5 other groups, but there will be 6 groups whose final matches are unknown. Of course you hope that the US is playing Turkey for the right to win the group...but what if both teams are sitting on 4 points coming into it, with Australia and Paraguay sitting on 1 point? There's a world where Turkey beats us and Paraguay beats Australia and (on goal differential) we end up in 3rd place...which is *probably* enough, but we won't actually know for a few days. Anyway, I just found it interesting when I realized that there was this sort of scheduling advantage that hadn't existed in prior years. Hoping it does not come to impact our own advancement.
Probably too niche of a situation to get worked up about, but it is an interesting angle I haven't thought of Cape Verde/Saudi Arabia, Senegal/Iraq and DR Congo/Uzbekistan are all potential 3rd/4th place matchups where the winner might have a score target in mind beyond just winning.
One thing that offsets this some is that the tiebreakers within the group have changed, so that head to head trumps GD. Yes, teams may know what they needed inside the group, but in some cases the draw may not be enough if they lost to a pitential rival already in group. And back in the 1994 days, you had 3rd place teams going through. Though not as many.
But head to head is totally meaningless for the third place teams as there is no way they play each other so that tiebreaker can be totally ignored for determining which third place teams advance. The only way head to head matters is it coluld determine the difference between second and third. But every team should be playing for the win 90% of the time as playing for a draw so often results in a loss.
1994 had the same number of 3rd place teams go through relative to the size of the tournament (8 of 12 3rd place teams advance now vs 4 of 6 the). The current format is the exact same as 1994, just double the number of 1st round groups and an extra knockout round.
I am aware it has been done before, but I think it’s a big change from the previous 7 editions. Perhaps someone with more time than me could determine if in these 3rd-place-advancing tourneys there was any correlation between advancing and being later in the tourney…probably would look at who advanced as compared to the expected team to advance. (This is the kind of nerd exercise I’d normally do if I had the bandwidth.)
I've always said if they're going to do 48 teams, stick with top 2 advancing and give the top 8 group winners a bye. Gives almost everyone in the tournament something to play for on matchday 3.
There is nothing I have hated more in this sport than tournaments where you advance or don’t based on results from a group of teams you don’t even get to play. It is so so so stupid.
Sure. But it impacts who is the 3rd place team in the first place. The advantage you speak of is for the potential 3rd place teams vs potential other thirds playing earlier. Sometimes the teams playing later may be locked out of 3rd by earlier results, only 2nd/4th being in play with a W + loss or draw by the other froup teams and GD not a factor. Obviously, not for all teams. But for some, yes. A bigger win vs a minnow in the last game for superior GD won't save you if you lost to the other team earlier in Group.