It's a terrible idea, but it's certainly doable, if you went to a Davis Cup format you could hold it every year.
Yes, all this and the Olympics. The reason they went to a 4 year plan was to offset the Olympics and for approx 160 national teams to go through qualifying. I can understand wanting a great tourmament more often, I just think it would cheapen it if it was every 2 years as well as being entirely unpractical
That was a rare exception. For every England-Argentina there are 5 Paraguay-Slovenia’s. Under my proposal England-Liechtenstein wouldn’t happen. And under the current system everyone gets to see the biggest games!? Hey, I realize there are maybe 3-4 people in the world who agree with me on this. I’m in a contrarian mood.
Your proposal is exactfly like a WCQ process, except it’s not all group play. You would still have loads of dead rubbers and you would still get the five equivalents of Paraguay-Slovenia for every one equivalent of England-Argentina. This whole concept seems abysmally delusional on your part. The format does not make the experience better, the event at which the football takes place makes the experience better. And a World Cup as it is now pisses all over your dreary idea. Um … yes? Should they choose to. Because the finals are the big jamborree everyone takes an interest in. That’s kind of the raison d’etre right there. As far as I can recall, only about 15 nations on earth did not negotiate some form of TV rights for the most recent World Cup and all of them would have featured the biggest games. Under your proposal, you would have the reverse – instead of one host broadcaster and FIFA dishing out universal, identical rights packages to all comers you would have dozens of host broadcasters selling dozens of packages to dozens of participant broadcasters … we would have to have the World Cup every EIGHT years just to accommodate this process. Seriously, if you’re going to persist with this thread, at least do a bit of thinking, eh? Yeah … well, see above.
It has been discussed countless times. Even Sepp 'corrupt idiot' Blatter had to come to terms with the fact that it's a bad idea. Once every 4 years is enough, plus most continents have a continental competion in between WCs.
It’s like WCQ only that at the top level it starts with the top 4 teams from the continent. The next say, six best teams play on the second level for the right to replace the bottom team from the top level in next year’s competition. Promotion/relegation. So the danger of dead rubbers would be minimal. Most teams would have something to play for till the end.
Yeah … as the current four-team group phase model of the Champions League proves conclusively. Aaaah … I remember the good old days, Arsenal Reserves v Juventus Reserves at the Stadio del Alpi in 2001, 8000 lost sould rattling around in the cold of night watching the “pinnacle of football”. Oh – and Depor v Bayern, two more top teams in the premier league-format compeition in the world … wow! The excitement! The passion, the fervour! As these two teams fought it out to avoid coming dead last in a group that had already been decided two match days previously. Need I go on? Seriously … think. Then post.
Eh? The comparison is between your concept of a four-team group phase in which “no dead rubbers occur” and an actual four-team group phase in which dead rubbers DO occur – and freuquently. The one example from reality thereby bitchslapping the other example from fantasy. Adding relegation (or not) is irrelevant. Please. At least try.
In my fantasy 4 team group finishing 4. means being relegated to a lower division and losing the chance to became world champion next year. Finishing 3. in a CL group has a lot less value. And yes, dead rubbers would still happen but only if all positions were determined before the last game. But those are all technicalities. Let me ask you, is the Davis cup such a terrible competition? That’s the closest to my proposal but with one big flaw. They spread the ties over the season. If they were to play their four rounds in four weeks it would be a perfect competition IMO.
Still irrelevant. The point is that you would still get really boring games with no point or value. Now, as I have acknowledged, you can get these at the World Cup in it’s present format too, but your proposal doesn’t make that better. It remains every bit as likely in either proposal, but with yours, we have destroyed the World Cup as an event in the process. What’s the point in that? Where’s the value? Huh? They’re not technicalities, they’re the centre-point of the argument against your silly idea. The only improvement you have offered as benefit for your idea is that you would get less meaningless or passionless games. That’s been blown out of the water, so what else have you got? Of course it is. It’s fucking awful. And not just because it’s tennis, either. England v Morrocco in Nottingham and Marakech whilst elsewhere some other bunch of punters play each other, etc, etc. It’s utter gash. You’re wrong.
The centre points are: 1.Do we have to bring 32 teams to one place 2. Do we have to wait 4 years to see worlds best NT’s compete against each other We obviously disagree on these basic questions so everything else is a technicality. On a somewhat different subject … Under the current system would you be in favor of playing all qualifiers at once, after the end of the club season ? The current system means that non-Europeans have to make 10 or so intercontinental trips. That makes them completely unusable for their clubs in the first couple of matches after returning from NT games.
Fair enough. The international game needs to boxed into a corner convenient for the club game. It’s farcial that, as happens here every year as an example, the league should start and after one game there is a week-long break for an international. We need to create some form of little ghetto where all the internationals are forced to exist so that they don’t get in the way. But it needs to be done sensibly – not in the middle of the summer when players need to be resting after hard club seasons. Maybe international qualifiers could be the pre-season for clubs? Cut down on marketing tours to the Far East and give your players to their national teams to play for whatever tournament qualification cycle is underway.
We finally agree on something. I say play them after the end of the club season. It wouldn’t be in the middle of the summer. By using the dates reserved for the NT club season could be finished earlier( or started later). Breaking up the club season by playing one international a month is just pointless .
YES! DEFINATELY, this is the end product of three plus years qualifying. THIS is the football spectacle we’ve all waited for. THIS is what the hell it’s all about. 32 of the worlds best ‘qualifiers’ (Favourites, underdogs and Overachievers.) together at one venue for the biggest prize and most anticipated tournament for the world’s most popular sport. FANS from every country gather to see their team or just football fans who want to witness this “Gathering” and want to part of football history. Are you seriously suggesting we abandon this because you want to watch a watered down scattered version every two years…? This is not just an argument between you and Matt, read some of the replies to this thread and you’ll see that “other than kids who can’t wait for Xmas to come” you’re definitely on your own.
IMpossible! No soccer competition set up by non americans would ever not have relegation. This is surely a lie! **smirk** Thank god for leagues sans relegation!