I'm inclined to agree with your point of view. With more games and teams there will be more chance of a blowout result, This even happens amongst leading teams at times. Who can forget the 2014 semi final. Within the last few weeks an out of form Liverpool put 7 past Man Utd so I don't think the odd blowout match is a sign of weakening the tournament. We may be asking why this team or another one is even here, but we do that now with 32. Sometimes the long gap between qualifying and the actual tournament can see a team drop off.
at least not much more than before. perfectly summarized doesn't change the fact though that 48 teams world cup is just another awful decission from greedy FIFA cannibals
I don't think Qatar is a great example to use for assessing how low the bar drops in a 48-team WC because they had home advantage and also because they are ranked 51st by FIFA (there will be several teams lower than that and without home advantage in 2026). Qatar obviously belongs in that second group you mentioned ("2 or 3 more will show more competence, and probably also walk away without a win but exit with respectable defeats") To be clear, the way I arrive at the crisis of competitiveness is a combination of the drop in quality and the format where most third-place teams advance from the group. Also, I am not saying there are only negatives to the expanded WC. I think the pros and cons list are about equal in length. But let's be honest: the group stage as we knew it is toast. Gone! If you sandblast one of these 7 poor sides, you are basically through to the KO stage regardless of the other two games (3 points and a good goal difference is usually enough, as we know). That's a pretty big departure from the 32-team group stage where there is massive pressure for everyone in all three matches unless you win the first two.
These statements are just repetitive hate at this point. Everything FIFA does that benefits the world outside of Europe or South America is automatically labeled "FIFA Greedy". Expansion will immensely benefit the game globally and be a huge help to 80% of the world's federations. It's a good decision, and clearly more than just "FIFA Greedy". The world is bigger than Europe and South America.
You know what, you're right. Qatar isn't the floor. UAE and Iraq are. FIFA rankings are a useful proxy for ability, but not perfect - teams outperform them or underperform them all the time. So let's look at some games. We've seen Qatar play a bunch of games against CONCACAF since 2020, including matches against the two CONCACAF teams that I said in my previous post would've gone to Qatar 2022 had it been a 48 team tournament - Jamaica and Panama. In 3 games against these two, they were undefeated, but managed to win just once (2-1 over Panama in a friendly). There's also a draw against Costa Rica in there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_national_football_team_results_(2020–present) Against CONCACAF's other two teams that managed to make it to the CONCACAF final round last time around (El Salvador and Honduras - both prime candidates for CONCACAF berths in any 48 team tournament), Qatar is undefeated in 4 games since 2020, but not by much - all of their victories came by a single goal, save for a 2-0 Gold Cup win over Honduras. We never saw the Qataris play New Zealand, and we have limited results to compare them. But they do have credible showings against Peru and Costa Rica (each 1-0 losses) that bolster the case that they're not out of league here. That leaves the UAE and Iraq and...there's no sugar coating this one, theres a big gap between them and Qatar. The matches in the Arabian Gulf Cup (outside of FIFA windows with weaker teams) are closer, but in the two more meaningful FIFA tournament games Qatar played against these two since 2020 (FIFA Arab Cup), Qatar walked away with 3-0 and 5-0 wins. For perspective, Qatar couldn't even do that to Nicaragua and Guatemala, both in that third tier of CONCACAF (just outside the top 6, generally a touch below the likes of 2nd tier sides like Honduras, Jamaica, and Panama) - Nicaragua managed a 2-1 loss, Guatamala went down 2-0. You have to go down to Qatar's matchup with a 4th tier CONCACAF side in Grenada (4-0 win for Qatar) to find a similar result. So long story short, you're right to note Qatar wasn't the floor. NZ and the CONCACAF additions can mostly hang with Qatar, based on on-field results. UAE and Iraq probably bring up the rear. It works out similarly to what I said before - 2 teams on the floor (UAE, Iraq), the others showing more competence. the world goes on. I hear what you're saying. The dynamics of the group stage are definitely different, although there will still be plenty of intrigue in the dog fight for one of the best 3rd place spots and the automatic top 2 places. It would be easier if you sandblast another team but it's a different story if you don't. And, as we've already established above, we have reason to believe that most of these added teams can avoid getting dog-walked 4-0 every game.
How many teams were "sandblasted" in Qatar ? Switzerland and Costa Rica. Getting sandblasted isn't something that routinely happens to even the bottom teams. Often it's higher ranked teams like Brazil in 2014 or Switzerland this time around. I maintain there isn't much difference between Costa Rica and Panama, Jamaica, Honduras, Curacao, Haiti. It's very minute tbh. If CR can be competitive in 2 of their 3 matches, so could these teams very likely.
Just want to add that New Zealand is not as bad as their FIFA ranking implies. Realistically, I would say they should be around 60s-70s, they just have a bad ranking due to the lack of real competitive games for them. Here we have their last 5 matches outside of OFC (all of them in 2022): Peru 1-0 New Zealand Oman 0-0 New Zealand Costa Rica 1-0 New Zealand Australia 1-0 New Zealand New Zealand 0-2 Australia They're not world beaters, of course, but with a ranking of #105, you’d think they would get annihilated (or at least lose by a bigger margin) by any of the teams above. @Athlone Off-topic but I love your pfp, I have a beagle and your picture reminds me of my dog every time I see it.
I still wish they would resurrect some version of the old Confeds Cup so teams like USA, Mexico, New Zealand, etc. would have something to do in the four years between WCs apart from participating in mediocre regional competition.
FIFA also has a strategy to improve global competitiveness through its Talent Development Scheme and the expanded 48-team U17WC for boys (next year will be the last one without an U17WC).
They also gave a credible account of themselves the last time they appeared at a World Cup. If they weren't stuck in the OFC with minnows, we'd view them as the OK-but-not-great mid-tier football nation that they really are (as we view Jamaica, Qatar, Panama, etc), rather than pushovers. Thanks, it's actually a corgi who played the Red Lobster character from the Dogfort comics (one of my favorite memes from back in the day). https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dog-fort I've already written enough about what I think this means for smaller countries, but I want to add that schemes like this are exactly the pathway we need to be taking in the absence of more frequent world cups. I was pretty supportive of the biennial/triennial World Cup ideas because of the development potential they could offer middling nations, but they're not the only pathway to that. Enhancing continental championships, increasing inter-confederation competition in between World Cups, and boosting youth football can do just as much, if not more. Still hopeful we eventually get U20 WC expansion and an annual Under-18 WC.
Im already dreading how hard it is going to be to get tickets for this World Cup. As a veteran of 5 WCs I've had a lot of family and friends ask how hard it is to get tickets. Each has obviously had its own issues but I am interested to see what curveballs FIFA throws at us here. If they stick with the no CC for application strategy I will just do the make 100 accounts and keep track in a spreadsheet and have at it. There is going to be such high demand for tickets that everything will be easy to resell if needed. Qatar was the first time I wasn't successful for tickets in the pre-draw phase. And while I still got everything I wanted, I don't want to do that again.
Something I haven't seen talked about. With a 24-team tournament, there's a table that defines who the 3rd place teams play in the knockout round, based on which groups they come from. Here's what it was in Euro 2020: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_...ge#Combinations_of_matches_in_the_round_of_16) As you can see, there are 15 combinations, depending on which 3rd place teams qualify. Well, with 12 groups, and 8 third-place teams qualifying, the number of combinations is...495. So FIFA will have to build a table like that one, only it's going to have 495 entries. The round of 32 matchups will be dynamically changing during the final group games, as teams either qualify in 3rd or fail to qualify. It's going to be interesting. I suppose they could simplify things by dividing the tournament into 2 24-team tournaments, each half on its own. And the winners of each half meet in the final. That way the 3rd-place combination tables would still be just 15 entries. But in that case, a 3rd place team on one side of the bracket might have more points than a 3rd place team on the other side, but miss out because their bracket had better 3rd place teams. Messy.
all they need is to make the online table that dinamically changes as the games happen and everyone will be happy are they going to do it? probably not
A possible benefit of doing something like this would be that the Group A-F second round matchups will be finalised a few days early, while the other half still have games to play. So the day after the group stage finishes, the second round can begin - there's no need for empty days in the schedule.
hmm... I think you still need one off day after the group stage. Otherwise, what happens 2 days later when the R32 matches for groups A-F are completed? Let's say, matchday 3 for groups A to F are played Tuesday-Thursday. And for groups G-L they are played Friday to Sunday. The first 8 R32 matches can be played Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday probably too early to begin the other 8 R32 matches since teams won't know their destination or opponent until late Sunday night. Edit: On second thought, I guess they would try to play 6 matches/3 groups per day. But then you hit the same issue. matchday 3: A-F: Tues & Wed / G-L: Thurs & Fri Saturday would be too soon to begin the knockout stage.
I saw that Sofi could be out of the running for the final due to field dimensions. So it’s between New Jersey and dallas. I’d have to guess dallas gets it for being climate controlled
That’s what I thought too but apparently they want even more width for a final to accommodate more seating. So it barely made it work to be in the tournament but now it would need more changes to host final
They may need more space outside the playing field for extra photographers, security etc. I hadn't thought of that. There may even be other reasons I can't think of.
There was a recent article in the Sunday Times about this. The issue is that the modifications to meet the field dimensions requirements for all games will be done by removing seats and reducing the capacity below 80,000, which is the requirement for the final match. The normal capacity there is 70,000, but it can expand to 80,000 with temporary seating added, but will be a little below that with the field modifications.
I have thought for a while the final will be in New York because of the time zone which is more conducive to the global audience.
They could schedule the 1st v 2nd and 2nd v 2nd games for the Saturday, and the 1st v 3rds for the Sunday. (By the way - are you saying Saturday based on some hypothetical schedule or just using it as an example?)
Just using as an example. I think even if they schedule al the 1st v 3rd for the second day, there will still be teams that have to play their KO match just 3 days after their last group game, no? For e.g. the second-place teams in groups D, E, F. Also, there is no real benefit in avoiding days where no games are played.