IMHO pointless to talk about it, the best format has been in place for last 20 years. it limits the tournament to perfect length and number of participating teams guarantees certain level and quality of qualification games and tournament as well. group and knockout system fit perfectly into the whole story. but as with everything else in football in recent years, don’t worry …..FIFA is here to destroy it!
@jesta, the mastermind of that format will be back in June 2028. Blatter will have enough time to congratulate his Conmebol buddies for CHUPAR 2030. https://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-wo...tter-with-second-ban-for-financial-wrongdoing
Blatter was elected in 1998. It was Joao Havelange who pushed the expansion to 32. That decision was made in 1994.
@Every Four Years , very true. That took me on a trip down memory lane. Refreshing to see both vote rigging and cronyism are rather old within FIFA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepp_Blatter#1998_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/João_Havelange#Associates_Lacoste_and_de_Andrade
Just move to eight 6-team groups with a full five group stage games and make the World Cup a week longer. If the clubs whine, tell them to stuff it..... 99% of the world cares a lot more about the World Cup that the European club season.....
But it's not either/or. They both exist already and they're not shortening Champions League to fit in 2 more rounds of WC games. I dunno, I feel with a 48 team tournament where 32 advance to the KO stage it becomes all about the KO stage. So better to keep group stage to 3 matchdays IMO. Another week of watching Lebanon v Panama fighting for 4th place while England reserves play Poland for seeding doesn't add much.
In my proposal, only 16 would advance (i.e. the top two from each group). And the Champion's League has nothing to do with it.....it's the domestic league seasons and cups which are so long. All it would take to make a league season a week shorter would be to reduce the pre-season by a week and/or to move one weekend fixture to a midweek slot.
There will be loads of dead-rubber games in matchdays 4 and 5, so I like your proposal even less now (no offense ). I'm not a fan of the 48-team World Cup, but the round of 32 is the one aspect of it that is appealing IMO. Four do-or-die games per day for 4 straight days! So I'd rather have a format that sends the #6, 7 and 8 teams from CAF, CONCACAF and AFC home with their participation trophies fairly quickly so we can get down to business. Well, I believe Ligue 1 is reducing its size from 20 teams to 18. Maybe the start of a new trend?
You have no idea if there will be any dead rubber games on matchdays 4 & 5.....that would all depend on the sequence of matches. For example, what if: Matchday 4 is: pot 1 - pot 3, pot 2 - pot 4, pot 5 - pot 6 and Matchday 5 is: pot 1 - pot 2, pot 3 - pot 5, pot 4 - pot 6 That would likely minimize the number of dead rubber matches..... Another option would be to have the top three teams from each group advance, but with the eight group winners getting a bye while the 2nd/3rd place teams play a knockout round. That would place a LOT more importance on winning the group, since you'd get four days of extra rest.
My proposal for an extra wild card regulation match to determine the 4 best runner up teams to join the group winners in the R16 would work fine. But I would take it even one step further: since I strongly believe in the benefits of more intercontinental games, and given the many days during the knock out stages where there are no games schedule as teams are resting, I would fill that part of the calendar with placement matches (16-32). Those placement matches won't draw much interest from neutrals; that is true. But they would carry enough interest from the fans of the teams involved, fill the calendar on the days when there are no games being played during the World Cup, and give the teams involved additional competitive match experience against teams from other confederations. Maybe there is a drawback to my idea besides the "who wants to watch X play Y to see which finishes 17th" etc, but I'm not aware of it right now.
NUMBER OF TEAMS IN FINALS 16 FIRST ROUND 4 groups of 4 qf knockout sf knockout f knockout europe 9 places s.america 3 place Africa 1 place Asia 1 PLACE N AMERICA 1 place hosts 1 place -----------------------------
as i posted in the united 2026 thread it is possible to have 12 x 4 teams in the group phase. the 8 winmers move to the round-of-16 while 4 weaker winners + 12 runners-up playout their oppponents in a wild card round of 8 matches. have a look, i made a nice same with interesting matches. the scheduling was a bit tough but with some special rules (clustering the 12 groups into 4 clusters of 3 groups) it can be achieved that no team has a longer break that 6 days and no shorter break than 2 days thoughout the whole tournament. that is pretty much the same as in the 32 team world cups from 1998 to 2018. still, if you ask me, i keep being more a fan of "twin pool 48", (8x6 groups with 3 matchdays only) especially because of the dramatic last matchdays in 8 groups where 3 matches are held simultaneously.
Yes, twin pool 48 is clearly the way to go, however I do no think FIFA will revisit this issue until Q1 2023 after the event in Qatar has finished.