So which are the most common complaints about the World Cup? Too many ties? Last games of each round might be meaningless if teams are already qualified or that some teams might lose on purpose so that certain team will not qualify? Well, what do you think about this? I oppose the 36 team world cup.. I found strange that the top 7 second teams advance. How about groups of death in which some very deserving second place teams will not go thru. Before a 36 team world cup I propose this. Since 2,4,8,16,32 and 64 are the perfect numbers to make up a tournament and in honor to the NCAA men basketball tournament why should we not make the same thing? a 64 team tournament. Rank teams from 1st to 64th and have them play against each other .. winner goes thru. Say goodbye to ties, teams saving star players for other games and no more meaningless games. Say hello to excitement in each game and upsets! Cinderalla stories! Yeah baby yeah (read with Dick Vitale's voice) Before someone says "no, too many games". Well.. this tournametn will consist of 64 games. The current world cup consists of 64 games and the 36 team world cup will consist of 70 games. What do you think? I will only help the sport world wide to provide the opportunity to other countries to take part of the tournament. And this will also mean less qualification games and more team for clubs to have their players with em and not with the national teams. I favour the current 32 team tournament. I believe is the best.. but i rather see the 64 team tournamet rather than the 36 one.
So with this format 32 teams would go through two years of qualifying to get to a tournament, and lose, and be out. Two years for one game? I don't think that would work.
32 college basketball teams play 30 games before the national championship tournament only to get knocked out in one game.
But, basketball teams don't travel half way around to the world for the tournament. They also don't have to wait another 4 years for a chance to qualify again. The top teams seldom get upset in their opening game because the tournament is seeded to give them teams they can crush. The biggest reason it's better for the NCAA tournament is that basketball is higher scoring. The team that plays better almost always wins. In soccer you can dominate a game and lose a lot more often. With luck playing such a big factor is soccer, they should start dismissing teams for one bad performance until they've at least narrowed the pool to the top few teams.
If 64 teams where to qualify the qualification time would be greatly reduce. We will get 7-8 spots.. not even a hex need would be needed. The top 16 teams in the area will just need to play 3 or so games to qualify just like in Europe Well yes 32 teams will go there for just one game.. thats the empty glass. BUT 32 teams which would probably had watched from home will be there for THAT one game. More money, more excitment, truly global, thats the positive side
Thats why I mentioned that teams should be seeded from 1 - 64. Think about this. Currently Brazil had to play 4 do or die games to win the World Cup. In the new system they would have to play 6.. one of them being against the 64th ranked team!! so I dont see so much of a differece. An whats wrong with upsets?? Thats whats makes the march tournament so enjoyable... !! and also that so many teams are involved and all games are meaningful. How about Cameroons magical 1990 run and Nigeria 1994 run? How about the USA run in 2002?? Now you will not say the USA was a top eight team in the world! But it make things definitely interesting.. Upsets will just spice things up! Could you imagine March madness across the world? In that case it would probably be July madness.. people wouldnt want to miss a sinlge game! a single upset! The more I think about it, the more I rather see this instead of a 36 team tourney
Good that you mention that. Do you truly believe that the world's top 32 teams are currently qualifying to the world cup? How could you explain Holland not qualifying and China qualifying? Saudi Arabia? With teams ranked 1 - 64 and playing head to head matches the remaining 32 will most probably end up representing a more accurate listing of the world top 32 teams. And someone mentioned 32 teams playing only 1 game. Well those are the 32 teams which would have probably not even played 1 single game and would have had to watch the game on tv! Whats better??
here's mine,,, 4 nations at once, but two more goals on either side of the halffield line and one country can score on only one assigned goal: that'll get the empty headed MLB fans in it
I think someone has some march Maddness fever! Course I do to, with all this braket tweaking I been doing.
How about an open tournament where every nation in the world gets to participate - then once every 4 years the top 32 square off.
Until the powers-that-be decide to eliminate draws, the group system will always be the most ideal. If a 64-team bracket-style tournament is still considered, then a double-elimination format would be better.
one thing you might want to consider is that it would be tough to host 64 teams in one country. even 32 is hard enough. the other fear is that games might become truly defensive and boring.
Worst World Cup idea I've ever heard. First, this isn't basketball. This is soccer. The world's game. The biggest event in the entire world. Why change something that isn't broken to make it more acceptable to the American market? Yes, in the current format that might be a few games every so often that are "meaningless", but the excitement is still there far more often then not. Second, the World Cup being the biggest event, it should actually mean something to be there. To just toss every Tom, Dick, And Harry nation in here in the hopes of making it more "exciting" is a horrid idea. 32 countries (out of over 200) struggle and fight for over two years for the honor of simply being there. Once there, they have to fight and scrape their way out of group play (which is far more exciting, in any variation I can imagine, then this so-called March Madness tournament-in my opinion). Look back at the excitement felt in Costa Rica or any other nation (outside of the US) when its team has finally qualified. The national pride, the joy, the sheer tear-enducing excitement. It means so much to them. Look at the incredible heartbreak of those who do not make it. If you allow 64 in, you take that away. There is no way that every great to good to even decent soccer country won't make the thing. The awesome highs and unimaginable lows of qualifying are now meaningless. Holland (and any other quality nation) can now book passage to wherever hosts the event in the next four years (be it Germany, Africa, South America, or host 2018). When it means nothing to get there, it means less to win it. and seeing how this is for the championship of the world, it should mean something. As for attendance, that would probably fall. How many Europeans are going to take the time to make all the arrangements to go to Asia or South America (and vice versa for those other continents) for possibly one game. With a guarantee of three, it becomes a lot more practical to go. 64 team World Cup is a horrible, horrible idea. I could go on and on why, but I've said enough already. It works for basketball, but not for the beautiful game. 32 teams is perfect. No more, no less. Hopefully FIFA will realize this too and change nothing.
Hey JCU, thanks for the constructive criticism and for taking your time to make a worthy reading post. I couldnt care less about the american market regarding to soccer. I don't live there and I'm not american. I came up with this idea thinking about the world market of which the USA is obviously part of. I believe that in a sport crazed nation such as the USA the most exciting tournament held every year is argubly the NCAA Men tourney and it would be fool to not even consider this successful story and perhaps improve soccer with it. And what would be more "international" having 64 teams instead of 32. You make a great point there about this excitment of the world cup qualifiers. The games previously to the the final hex (which Mexico and USA didnt need to play) were not as exciting as you might think. I will have to agree the 5 home games of the final hex were awesome, although no where near the level felt while playing in the WC. Ask anyone and they will probably take playing that one world cup game than all the hex games (although beating Mexico in Mexico was pretty sweet If you ask FIFA which might be their biggest problem right now, after steroid use, perhaps it will be the problems which arise due to the excessive Nat teams' games which clash with clubs' interests. The new 64 team tourney will reduce, not eliminate as you want to make look like these games. Look at South America, they have to play around 18 games to qualify, and other Central American teams, also too many games. Reducing these number of games will only help improve the clubs level, national level (top player always available) . Thats a great point you make. Although I have seen that most Europeas love to travel and the World Cup is more of an excuse rather than the reason to travel that country. Host countries will benefit a lot more to host double the number of countries even if only 2/3 of the people from each country who would go to the normal 32 team tournanment assist. Look at it this way. In a 32 team WC - 10 English go. In a 64 teasm WC - 7 English go plus 7 Dutch. The main reason why a country hosts a WC is not to fill stadiums and give a nice show, but to bring as many people as possible and $$$. THe main reason to visit a WC is obviously to see the games but there are also many things to do in a new country. I am sure that if I have gone to Korean and see how Costa Rica bowed out in the first round I would have found a "couple other things to do" while i was there. I also agree the 32 team WC is perfect. I hope it will remain like this but if it was to change ..a 64 team WC will be my first choice because it will make it more international, bring more money and be more exciting and no best top 7 second teams.
This could be suggested as somewhat of a mini-tournament to be played in non-WC years. (Most people were on the order of "I'd rather have this than a Confederations Cup, or a World Club Cup, or whatever.") This has some intriguing features if you expand on the idea: (1) Seed top-64, second-64 [65 to 128], and the rest. (2) Top seeds play first round, 32 winners move on. Losers play again, 16 double-losers dropped to second seed next year. (3) Second-seed teams play (either two direct rounds, or a round-robin format) to send 16 teams to top group, and drop 16 to the third group. (4) Third-grouping teams play three rounds to send 16 teams to the second tier next year. [Note that this is basically the tennis Davis Cup format multiplied by four: instead of 16 teams in the final group with 4 being relegated, you have 64 teams with 16 relegated.] This might add some real weighting to a country's place in the soccer realm (i.e. you are a top-32 team, or a top-16 team, etc.), instead of the mostly-abstract Fifa World Rankings. [Note that this is a yearly checkpoint, not every four years.] And some like the idea of adding a promotion-relegation format to international ball. Every year, each country plays, in one grouping or another. You can host the first rounds in 16 countries. The round-of-16 and -8 would be similar to the four "regionals" in the NCAA. Thus, the four regionals and the Final Four would be held in the five populas continents (you could rotate in Oceania as a regional site every once in a while).
A second play on this idea (which I'll post as this seperate message) is to seed the top 32 teams, and have all other 172 teams play-out to get 32 more teams, to start the round of 64. The play-ins could either be a straight three rounds (172 to 128, 128 to 64, 64 to 32), but that could result in some lopsided games early. Another method would be to bracket teams in 7 groups of 32. So round 1 would have group 7 [seeds 193-on] play group 6 [seeds 161-192] (this round would have some byes). Thirty-two winners (or byes) would play group 5 [seeds 129-160], and so on. This is a so-called "stepladder" bracket until you get to the final 64. Yes, any kind of single-elimination format would be fun. It would be a nice break from these endless 6-team groups that Europe or North America uses. Finally, if such an annual tournament is too much to do worldwide, I had sketched out similar plans using the 45 countries of the Western Hemisphere.
Dear CONCACAF, Whereas the NCAA might be the most exciting tournament in the USA, the World Cup is the most exciting in the world. So why change what the world already loves to make it fit into what one country loves (especially when you consider the rest of the world knows about the format and, from what we read here in the States, doesn't care at all). Second, you have brought forth exactly zero suggestions that won't dilute the prestige of the WC. 64 teams is just too much, by far. It means more because the entire world is represented in a very fair manner yet FIFA hasn't crammed far too many teams into it. As has been pointed out, to fight for over two years to make it to the World Cup and be gone in 90 minutes is a bad thing. By surviving the (very exciting) group rounds, you have proven that you belong among the elite 16 in the world. In an NCAA style tournament, you could easily luck out twice and be amongst the best 16. It should mean something to be considered among the 16 best nations in the entire world, much more then getting a fluke goal against a piss poor nation. With the group format, it is impossible to be drawn into a group with three subpar teams (quality might vary from nation to nation, but to get one great team in with three bad teams won't ever happen). If you toss in 32 more nations, once you get past #40 (if that far) you are into some poor soccer nations. They don't belong there (as qualifying in a longer format as currently used proves) and only hurt the image of the cup. NCAA bracket works for college basketball in one nation. It will never, ever work for world soccer.
i think the world cup should change the rules to incorporate dirtbikes and knives... but only during the round of 16.
The Idea of 36 teams is a farce! It is just to make South America happy and to get more places for them which is not fair. The new 2006 model is perfect with EVERY confederation getting at least 1 qualification spot and then there are also the playoff spots. 32 is a perfect number for a competition but the next number is 64 which is TOO MUCH!! The world cup is meant to be the showpiece of football and the prestige of the world cup would be dulled if 64 teams competed. 36 won't work although it would expand the spots and football to developing nations. 32 is perfect so why change it? The only problem is trying to get the balance of qualifications. The Oceania spot is well deserved as the region has been suffering from being a 'hobby' sport and not being seen as a serious competitive sport rather than a 'peculiar and strange sport' so 32 teams are just right and the qualification allocations are just right. Now the final test is 2006 in Germany. I CAN'T WAIT THAT LONG!!!
You could say that the next number is 40 (eight 5-team groups), but that would create a much longer competition, as a group would have to be played over five matchdates instead of the current 3. Even 48 (eight 6-team groups) would start getting a bit too much. And then there would be a push to get either 24 or even 32 teams into the knockout stages. Not only from the dilute-the-talent-pool argument, but, remember, we are talking a massive movement of people for each game. Having 48 teams and their fans criss-crossing a country is a huge undertaking. The 36-team idea then becomes the only alternative for those who want to expand the tournament. But nine groups is a bit weird. Maybe you would then need 18 teams in the knockout phases, to eliminate the disparity of playing in a tough group, only to finish second but be squeezed out on points or goals.
I love March Madness but it wouldn't work in the World Cup, these countries and players work their asses off to get in the World Cup, they should at least be able to play 3 games. I think the World Cup should expand, with Oceania getting one team (which they deserve), and the 3 extra spots would go to three different regions: CONCACAF, COMNEBOL, and UEFA. I think North America deserves a fourth team, while Europe and South America have the most talent and a few really good teams always miss out because of their location. A good example from the 2002 WC would be Holland, they were way better than a few WC teams.
if they were so good.... WHY DIDN'T THEY QUALIFY?!?!?! i don't want to see crap teams playing each other. do you remember how BORING uruguay was?? now remember... Australia LOST to them!! keep it the same size.
Did you see eith USA/Guatemala games or the US/Costa Rica games in the round before the hex they were exciting has hell. Also remember that Costa Rica had to beat Guatemala in a playoff to get to the Hex, and dont forget that Barbados actually beat Costa Rica. I would say that tehy were pretty damn exciting.
There would be too much controversy in the rankings, just like with the NCAAs. Upsets would rarely happen. I.E. (#1) Brazil vs (#64) Zimbabwe That would never even be a contest.Ronaldo would probably score 5 goals. Just like NCAA (#1 seed) Syracuse vs (#16) Saint Peter's of Jersey City,NJ The 'Cuse would run all over Keydren Clark and the Peacocks.