World Cup Expansion to 48 Teams (Update: FIFA Council Agrees 2026 Slot Allocation)

That's what I mean. It essentially makes the PK winner the first tiebreaker. Above goal difference.

 

All they really need to do is focus on the fair play issue

Yup.
I don't hear much about Senegal from people around here and how much of a travesty it was for them to not advance due to yellows.

FIFA might just stick with that as a tie breaker. Maybe in the spirit of fair play add fouls committed in the rare event all teams have the same scores and cards.

Teams and fans may be ticked off for a while but they learn to live with it.
Teams have no one to blame but themselves for playing a rough style.

 

I agree. Let's say all three games went to shootouts and this happened:

A 3/4, B 2/5 (missed their fifth kick before A's fifth attempt)
B 5/5, C 4/5
C 4/5, A 3/5

C: 8/10
B: 7/10
A: 6/9

A has the worst percentage, and their percentage is hurt by not needing 5 kicks to beat B. If you take A leading B 3-2 after 4 kicks, swap the order, and have A win by making their fifth rather than by B missing, A would have had a higher percentage.

As an alternate situation, if X and Y were in the last game after the first two games had shootouts, and X led 4-2 with Y having 1 miss and attempting their fourth kick after X made their fourth, you don't want X to let Y score to go down 4-3 so X can attempt and make a fifth kick to increase their percentage compared to Z.

I like JLSA's post. It would be bad to have a shootout meaningless for one of the teams. It would also be complicated for teams, fans, and media to know the scenarios for the team not playing in the last game if the amount of makes and attempts in the last game mattered to the team that was off rather than just the winner mattering. Last year the BBC got the tiebreakers wrong. They showed a fan of Japan and said his phone was "biased." You also don't want a player or coach to react incorrectly because he was wrong about if his team advanced after the game was over. In last year's MLS playoffs, some of Portland incorrectly thought they advanced after both clubs scored 1 goal in extra time in the second leg in Seattle because they thought away goals counted in extra time when they didn't. It didn't matter because Portland won the shootout.

 

But its possible in matchday 3 the 2 teams playing have already qualified.

 

Which is different from now, how?

J

 

Who is saying that its different from now? Just saying you can have dead rubbers. The Belgium v England-type dead rubbers are actually the worst kind of dead rubbers IMO. Two small countries already eliminated but trying for a rare WC victory, far more appealing.

 

It wouldn't be dead as teams would be playing for first place and a potentially easier game in the second round.

 

Meh. Pretty dead then... who is gonna watch a game just to find out who plays Poland and who plays Ghana at a later date? Its like watching a draw. A two hour long draw.

The WC will essentially begin with the KO stage. As is usually the case when the # of teams in a tournament is not a power of 2. Anything before that will feel like a WC qualifying match.

 

It could just as easily be deciding who plays Germany and who plays Jamaica.

I think we agree on this point for general fans, however from my nationalistic viewpoint since my nation is one of those who will likely qualify for the 48 but not be a lock for the round of 32 the group stage will be of great interest to me.

 

And once a big upset occurs like El Salvador over Sweden in a shootout in Los Angeles or something like that people are going to be like man I missed that crazy result? I should have tuned in!
You just never know when a surprise result is going to occur .

 

Depends. If it was 0-0 where nothing happened I think I can live with missing it. Shootouts are always do-or-die situations, which is why we associate them with drama, tension and excitement. Without that must win element, they won’t be so dramatic. Especially when we have one every day.

And what if:
Argentina 1, Sweden 1 (Arg win in pk)
Argentina 3, El Salvador 0
El Salvador 0, Sweden 0 (ES in pk)

So El Salvador would advance?

What if they lost 1-nil to Argentina- would they advance then?

What if SWE and ARG tied 0-0? Does winning a pk trump getting an actual result during the match or is the PK just for shits and giggles?

 

You are creating some weird circumstance instead of analyzing the simple point.
Going into a tournament most people would expect Sweden to beat a team like El Salvador. Especially since it has been decades since El Salvador has even been close to making it to the World Cup.
If they got a surprise positive result against Sweden (or whoever) then many people will be sorry that they missed the match because they just relied on preconceived notions on how they thought the match would go.

We just never know how these things are going to turn out and there will be excitement in the first round when a team defeats the odds.

 

And by the way the scenes in that hypothetical would be epic in Los Angeles. People in Blue Jerseys would be going crazy in the stadium and in the streets for hours on end. It would make top story news all over the world.

 

To respond to you're scenario, I think it requires context. People watch WC games because the games tend to be very important, so knowing context is essential (atmosphere in WC games tends to be quite lame compared to a big club football match so generally people aren't watching for the vibe in the stadium - of course you can always pick out a perfect scenario where the atmosphere wouldn't be lame.)

People in ES and Sweden of course will watch - you already got them. Question is, will Andres van der Chang care if he misses it? I'm not so sure. Especially if the game is pretty much anywhere but L.A. (which will be pretty much always) and/or the outcome of the shootout doesn't have any significance (which is quite possible).

 

I can see many people feeling remorse if they check their twitter feeds and facebook posts and what have you---
everyone is talking about the big upset of the tournament and they have no idea what they are talking about because they grasped to this notion that the first round is going to be more boring than any other first round format.
I think that is a bunch of malarkey to feel that way.

 

Maybe some people watch because they want to see something important within the standings of a Group. But there's also some other people who watch because they know it is a big event and something new and interesting could occur.

Context of advancement is thrown out the window at times.

Take for instance Sweden- T&T 2006. I remember many different media outlets and various fans talking about that 0-0 "upset", It really did not have much influence on the advancement of the teams in the group. Nor did it really have any influence on T&T's trajectory in the tournament.
It was just a fun quirky result many people still look back upon to this day and reminisce about..

 

Maybe. I can't say I know anyone that reminisces about the 0-0 between TT and SWE. I do hear people talk about T&T fighting hard in the WC and being tougher than expected. And the SWE game is part of that (but not the only reason). Though I think you actually have to be Trinidadian to regret not watching it.

Maybe a shootout at the end would have made it more appealing. Then again, T&T could've lost the shootout and that would've taken a little luster away from their tournament.

 

The Sweden game was THE major part of that not just a part of that.But anyway.

And come on, we all know with Social media and the instantaneous news being at your finger tips as the years progress there's going to be even more hype and crazy reactions for every little upset that occurs with teams that would have had no business making the World Cup in a 32 team format. Just human nature to over- analyze and overreact and go bonkers for every little thing that happens in a news cycle these days.

Back in 2006 the world was a different place. But there was still a lot of hype for that result.

 

Not so sure. Took England until late in the game to score against T&T. I would guess that's the match Trinidadians and the world remembers more.

But in any case, I don't think its in fans' nature to regret missing a football match on TV so much. Especially games like the ones we are talking about, but maybe that's just me.
Of course, actually being at the stadium for games we are talking about - that's a different story. I would regret if I had sold my ticket to such a game!

If they introduce PK shootouts in the group-stage, I just really hope they keep goal difference before head-to-head as the first tiebreaker; To avoid scenarios I listed above, all of which will inevitably occur.

 

Depends on the fan of course. You are different.
I regret missing any World Cup game. It only happens every 4 years and I appreciate every single minute of it.
Takes all kinds.

 

Very true.