Can't be too early to talk about the 2026 World Cup

InstaFace

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So that it doesn't get buried in the daily gamethreads, and because we'll be talking about it long after the 2022 tournament finishes...

Only FIFA could look at this [run of exciting final group matches] and decide they need to get rid of the simultaneous group stage conclusion matches .
It's terrible. And it's not just that the games won't conclude simultaneously, it's that you are going to have teams sitting around for four or five days waiting for a game they're not playing in.

Assume A1, A2, A3. I assume that it's going to go something like this:

Monday: A1 v. A2
Friday: A1 v. A3
Wednesday: A2 v. A3.

Not going to judge it in the abstract, but in the abstract it seems horrible.
I think they need to work out the system and do some tweaks to it.

It's a done deal that there will be 48 teams so now let's see how to work it out.

However, this is FIFA. They will find a way to screw this up
In fairness to FIFA (...what did I just write?!), they have consistently tweaked the tournament format over the decades, and the current format has only existed since 1998. They went from 24 teams in 1994 (13 of them from UEFA, an outright majority), to 32 teams in 1998 (15 of them from UEFA), to roughly the current berth allocations starting in 2006. If they go ahead with the 3-team groups, which is no sure thing, then once they see what a disaster it is in 2026 I think they'll fix it for 2030.

Those in favor of a better format, at least within FIFA, probably want it because it means more games, and thus more money. Those opposed, want to avoid raising the maximum games that the finalists might play. And when FIFA decides between money and player safety / accommodating the clubs, we know which outcome you'd bet on.

...and lo, what is this I see coming over the waves today?

https://www.eurosport.com/football/world-cup/2022/world-cup-2026-fifa-in-talks-about-abandoning-three-team-group-format-for-north-american-tournament_sto9253470/story.shtml

FIFA’s argument for the new format was the teams that reached the final would still play seven matches over the 32-day period, with a date for the 2026 World Cup yet to be confirmed. However, according to multiple reports, “informal talks” have been held about the potential to have 12 groups of four instead.

This would mean an increase in the number of matches, as each team would play an extra match. The top two teams, plus the eight best third placed teams would qualify for the knockout stages.

Any decision will not be announced until 2023 at the earliest.
Yeah, that wouldn't be my ideal tournament format, but it'd be a hell of a lot better than 3-team groups.
 
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DennyDoyle'sBoil

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So that it doesn't get buried in the daily gamethreads, and because we'll be talking about it long after the 2022 tournament finishes...





In fairness to FIFA (...what did I just write?!), they have consistently tweaked the tournament format over the decades, and the current format has only existed since 1998. They went from 24 teams in 1994 (13 of them from UEFA, an outright majority), to 32 teams in 1998 (15 of them from UEFA), to roughly the current berth allocations starting in 2006. If they go ahead with the 3-team groups, which is no sure thing, then once they see what a disaster it is in 2026 I think they'll fix it for 2030.

Those in favor of a better format, at least within FIFA, probably want it because it means more games, and thus more money. Those opposed, want to avoid raising the maximum games that the finalists might play. And when FIFA decides between money and player safety / accommodating the clubs, we know which outcome you'd bet on.

...and lo, what is this I see coming over the waves today?

https://www.eurosport.com/football/world-cup/2022/world-cup-2026-fifa-in-talks-about-abandoning-three-team-group-format-for-north-american-tournament_sto9253470/story.shtml



Yeah, that wouldn't be my ideal tournament format, but it'd be a hell of a lot better than 3-team groups.
It seems like a potential compromise would be to have 24 advance but give the top 8 group winners a bye in the knockouts. Maybe that's the worst option -- you're still extending the tournament and increasing the number of games for some teams. But the problem with groups of 3 is not only the unbalance but also that you're essentially taking away what for me is the best part of the tournament -- the group games mean something. Putting 32 through no matter how you do it is going to make the group games less exciting. It will be almost meaningless.

Just looking at the current FIFA rankings and imagining they will have a pot system for the groups, you could see a group like: Brazil, Switzerland, Mali. England, Korea, Turkey. I mean, ok, I'm still going to watch, but . . . I don't know. Complaining about shit that hasn't even happened yet, I guess.

I don't know why people the love the world cup -- but I know why I do. It's the groups. I get less excited for the knockouts. To the extent I'm excited about the knockouts a lot of it has to do with the fact that I lived with these teams for two weeks.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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Any scenario with 3-team groups patently fails any kind of basic appeal to logic, reason, historical precedent, and any other metric you like aside from "finalists play the same number of matches" which is really quite arbitrary when you consider that metric only impacts two teams and not the rest of the world—most of which will have a decent chance to qualify for this tournament.

Hell, even when the tournament had a planned 15 entrants in 1950 they used groups of 4 instead of 3.

It would really ruin a lot of the joy of the tournament as DDB says above. Would be a travesty to rob future viewers of the opportunity to Scott Hansen-style double box it like I did today while all 4 teams in the group jockeyed for advancement at the same time.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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So now that I'm thinking about it more, another problem with three groups is how much variety there is going to be in the pots. Assuming you do it by world ranking, luck of the draw is going to be massive. Reserving a spot for the hosts (or in this case 3) you easily could have had (using June 2022 rankings when they did the draw) Germany and Nigeria in the same pot. If you assume they are going to use principles to keep federations out of the same groups and stuff too then it's going to get even weirder.
 

JOBU

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So group play would only be 2 games? Seems like that would bring a lot of parity into the fold. Would be very hard to recover from a bad performance. 12 groups of 4 is the way to go and I don’t understand why they are even considering groups of 3.
 

swiftaw

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Since 2 of the 3 qualify, it also means you can qualify with two 0-0 draws as long as the match between the other two teams has a winner.

They should just go to 64, 16 groups of 4, with exactly the same qualification rules of now, but just adding a round of 32.
 

Saints Rest

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It seems like a potential compromise would be to have 24 advance but give the top 8 group winners a bye in the knockouts. Maybe that's the worst option -- you're still extending the tournament and increasing the number of games for some teams. But the problem with groups of 3 is not only the unbalance but also that you're essentially taking away what for me is the best part of the tournament -- the group games mean something. Putting 32 through no matter how you do it is going to make the group games less exciting. It will be almost meaningless.

Just looking at the current FIFA rankings and imagining they will have a pot system for the groups, you could see a group like: Brazil, Switzerland, Mali. England, Korea, Turkey. I mean, ok, I'm still going to watch, but . . . I don't know. Complaining about shit that hasn't even happened yet, I guess.

I don't know why people the love the world cup -- but I know why I do. It's the groups. I get less excited for the knockouts. To the extent I'm excited about the knockouts a lot of it has to do with the fact that I lived with these teams for two weeks.
Here's what I would do if I were King of FIFA:
  • Twelve groups of four.
  • Traditional group play round-robin.
  • Top 2 from each group advance, with the top 8 group winners getting byes, as you note. This top 8 would be decided across groups in the same tie-breaker formats as within groups.
  • The other 4 group winners get top seeds for the knockout round of 24. The 12 second-place teams would also get seeded across groups in the same tie-breaker formats as within groups.
I'm sure there are some issues here, but the idea being that there becomes incentive for teams who've won their first 2 games (like France this year) to strive to win their next match. Similarly, it incentivizes the teams who can advance with either a win or a draw to play for the win. And for all the teams, there is incentive to score goals to drive positive GD.
The idea
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Here's what I would do if I were King of FIFA:
  • Twelve groups of four.
  • Traditional group play round-robin.
  • Top 2 from each group advance, with the top 8 group winners getting byes, as you note. This top 8 would be decided across groups in the same tie-breaker formats as within groups.
  • The other 4 group winners get top seeds for the knockout round of 24. The 12 second-place teams would also get seeded across groups in the same tie-breaker formats as within groups.
I'm sure there are some issues here, but the idea being that there becomes incentive for teams who've won their first 2 games (like France this year) to strive to win their next match. Similarly, it incentivizes the teams who can advance with either a win or a draw to play for the win. And for all the teams, there is incentive to score goals to drive positive GD.
The idea
I like it but you can't seed the knockouts based on performance in the groups unless you want to add some days to the schedule. You have to basically slot teams. There just isn't enough time in the schedule. You have to schedule the games in order to make sure that teams are able to play on sufficient rest.

Since 2 of the 3 qualify, it also means you can qualify with two 0-0 draws as long as the match between the other two teams has a winner.
And also A2 and A3 both knowing four days before they play their game that they can boot you and both go through with a 1-1 (or higher) draw.
 
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swiftaw

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And also A2 and A3 both knowing four days before they play their game that they can boot you and both go through with a 1-1 (or higher) draw.
Yeah, if the first two matches both end in draws, then the two teams in the final match can always both advance by playing a high enough score draw. That seems somewhat unfair. I thought I read somewhere that if a match was drawn they would do penalties to determine a winner, which is just stupid. Basically, the group round will be unwatchable, so I may just start paying attention once the knock out round starts. Given how dramatic these simultaneous matches have been this week, I hope FIFA reconsiders. (Narrator: The won't).
 

SocrManiac

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I’d combine the men’s and women’s events to create the most epic spectacle in the history of sports. You could then leave the men’s side at 32 teams, not water down the significance of qualifying, and still expand the tournament.
 

Jed Zeppelin

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Yeah, if the first two matches both end in draws, then the two teams in the final match can always both advance by playing a high enough score draw. That seems somewhat unfair. I thought I read somewhere that if a match was drawn they would do penalties to determine a winner, which is just stupid. Basically, the group round will be unwatchable, so I may just start paying attention once the knock out round starts. Given how dramatic these simultaneous matches have been this week, I hope FIFA reconsiders. (Narrator: The won't).
FIFA, ever living by the principle that you don’t learn from 100% of the obvious colossal mistakes you don’t make.

Or something.

(I actually do think there is a real chance they change the planned format but I know I am just setting myself up to be hurt)
 

swiftaw

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Even if they switch to 12 groups of 4 it won’t be as exciting as now because some third place teams will qualify. Unless you keep it to the top 2 advancing (24 teams) with the top 8 getting a bye and the other 14 playing a play-off round.
 

InstaFace

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For 12x groups-of-4, I'm not sure which is better:

(A) Advance top-2, and the best 8 out of 12 group winners get a bye to R16, all others play an R32
(B) Advance top-2 plus the best 8 3rd-place finishers; everyone plays an R32

I see a couple problems with (B):
- If 3 advance from a group, the group is less exciting. All you have to do is not finish last. We saw it in the 2015 and 2019 WWC, we saw it in Euro 2016 and Euro 2020(1).
- Feels a bit unfair for your odds of going through in 3rd to depend on the points and goal differential of teams playing an entirely different set of opponents than you
- 8 group winners get to play a 3rd-place team and the other 4 have to play a 2nd-place team in the R32

And a couple problems with (A):
- The bye is SUCH an overwhelming asset to the team, getting not just an extra round farther automatically but also getting 6 or 7 straight days to rest and recover, that to be awarded that over another group winner just based on points and goal differential seems disproportionately chaotic and unfair
- Teams getting the bye also earn more $ for advancing to a further round than teams eliminated in their bye round, despite (1) not having had to contest it on the field, and (2) not having played a match that brought in money and thus "earned it" in a fee-for-service sense

My maybe-half-serious idea to solve for (A): During the bye, when the 8 bye teams would've had a game, have them each stage an exhibition. Have them play the best teams who didn't make the World Cup. Have them play some club team that won the right in a tournament. Have two of them bring their women's sides and stage a mixed match against each other. Have them play each other for the right to a draft order of which R16 matchup they wanted. Something fun!
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Even if they switch to 12 groups of 4 it won’t be as exciting as now because some third place teams will qualify. Unless you keep it to the top 2 advancing (24 teams) with the top 8 getting a bye and the other 14 playing a play-off round.
I think the most recent few Euros were that format -- six groups and then you had the top 2 advance plus 4. It does diminish the groups. Euro 2020* was interesting though -- while there was an impact on the group stage the first round of the knockouts was fantastic. And if I recall correctly I believe that all four of the teams that were the third place teams in the groups won their first round of 16 game.

The problem here really isn't limited to soccer. Every sport kind of faces this challenge of what to do when you want to have a number of teams that is not 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64? You want a number that doesn't dilute things but also a number that includes teams you think should be included. And if that number is not exactly one of the numbers you end up with less than optimal scenarios. Baseball has this issue. The NFL has navigated it fairly well. The NBA is kind of absurd but they make it work. Even the NCAA had the issue -- you'd think 64 would be enough but they found that in order to preserve automatic bids and still reward teams that should be rewarded they had to do something silly. College football has been asking questions.

I view the world cup as kind of like the NCAA. One of the beautiful things about the NCAA tournament is automatic bids. Same is true about the world cup -- having it truly be a world cup should be a priority. So you have this dilemma where on the one hand you don't want to make it even more a tournament that looks like a glorified UEFA CONMEBOL tournament. But at the same time it is hard to have a tournament where the champions of Europe don't even have a spot. I know, I know, fuck Italy. And fuck FIFA. But I do think this is more than FIFA just doing a money grab to get more games.

I think we are probably truly at a place where 32 is not quite enough any more and where the next natural rungs -- 48 or 64 -- are too many. That's the fundamental nature of the problem. In that situation, every solution is going to have some downsides.
 

Titans Bastard

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Can we please, please have a global Nations League style competition?! It would be so much fun to see inter-continental competitive games on a more frequent basis. I don't necessarily hate the expansion of the WC over the medium term (I think more competitive programs will emerge from Africa and Asia) even if the format of a 48-team WC will never be elegant.

However, the expanded field means that the stakes of qualification will become pretty low for a lot of NT programs. CONCACAF has it particularly bad because the region does not have depth and never will have depth. The top CONCACAF nations now are locks to succeed in every qualification cycle. Furthermore, UEFA nations league, the frequency of AFCON+qualifiers, etc., severely limit options for interesting friendly opponents.

The future of a four-year cycle for the USMNT as it current stands is a stultifying stretch of Gold Cups, CONCACAF Nations League games against Suriname and Honduras, and more friendlies against Jamaica and Panama. It's bleak.

A global nations league would be fun as hell. I'd love to see national teams in places they don't usually go. How often do non-African teams play in Africa? How hilarious would it be to watch a big Euro team play in San Pedro Sula?
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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I wouldn't be against moving to a 64 team WC as long as part of the deal involved automatic qualification for some countries and a shorter schedule of qualifiers overall.

Football overall is going to be best served by having fewer international matches outside the major tournaments and having those matches more concentrated in fewer time periods.
 

Hoya81

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Since ‘26 is technically a joint bid between Canada, Mexico and the US, do all 3 get an automatic bid?
 

DJnVa

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I'm telling you. if they want 48 teams:

Top 24 get byes into 8 groups of 3. Bottom 24 play knockout games--12 winners slot into those groups. The bottom 24 teams play 1 extra game.
 

swiftaw

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I'm telling you. if they want 48 teams:

Top 24 get byes into 8 groups of 3. Bottom 24 play knockout games--12 winners slot into those groups. The bottom 24 teams play 1 extra game.
So 12 teams will only play a single game at the world cup? Hardly worth them going, they may as well hold those playoff games months earlier, and keep 32 team World Cup.
 

DJnVa

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So 12 teams will only play a single game at the world cup? Hardly worth them going, they may as well hold those playoff games months earlier, and keep 32 team World Cup.
Now we're cooking...
 

Titans Bastard

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I think groups of three should be avoided at all costs. They just aren't fun.
 

trekfan55

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I am happy this was broken out.

Like I said, I do not think anything is set in stone except the number of teams (and who knows? They may yet change tehir minds as nothing has started yet but it's not happening).

I was always a proponent that instead of going to knockouts after the group stage, why not group the 16 teams into 4 rgoups of 4, and have the top 2 advance to the quarterfinal? It would mean 2 extra games for the eventual winner but it would also be amazing.

In that same vein, would it be possible to do something similar? The math is harder to work out but it would be better than straight knockouts. And it would require the winners to play more than 7 games.

Groups in the 2nd stage has been done before.
In 1974 and 1978 there were 16 teams, the top two teams from each groups went to 2 groups of 4 and the winner of each group went to the finals. What I disliked about that system is that a team like Brazil in 78 was eliminated (played for 3rd place) without losing a single match. (Long story short, without simoltaneous matches Argentina needed to win by 4 goals and beat Peru 6-0).
Then in 1982 when they first made it 24 teams they had the 12 teams that made it out of group stage go into 4 groups of 3 with only 1 team per group emerging to the semis.
I won't mention 1950, where it was a 4 team group and the winner of the group won the Cup. The infamous Maracanazo was not actually a final but worked out that way because of the way the group was played.
 

Zososoxfan

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Here's what I would do if I were King of FIFA:
  • Twelve groups of four.
  • Traditional group play round-robin.
  • Top 2 from each group advance, with the top 8 group winners getting byes, as you note. This top 8 would be decided across groups in the same tie-breaker formats as within groups.
  • The other 4 group winners get top seeds for the knockout round of 24. The 12 second-place teams would also get seeded across groups in the same tie-breaker formats as within groups.
I'm sure there are some issues here, but the idea being that there becomes incentive for teams who've won their first 2 games (like France this year) to strive to win their next match. Similarly, it incentivizes the teams who can advance with either a win or a draw to play for the win. And for all the teams, there is incentive to score goals to drive positive GD.
The idea
For 12x groups-of-4, I'm not sure which is better:

(A) Advance top-2, and the best 8 out of 12 group winners get a bye to R16, all others play an R32
(B) Advance top-2 plus the best 8 3rd-place finishers; everyone plays an R32

I see a couple problems with (B):
- If 3 advance from a group, the group is less exciting. All you have to do is not finish last. We saw it in the 2015 and 2019 WWC, we saw it in Euro 2016 and Euro 2020(1).
- Feels a bit unfair for your odds of going through in 3rd to depend on the points and goal differential of teams playing an entirely different set of opponents than you
- 8 group winners get to play a 3rd-place team and the other 4 have to play a 2nd-place team in the R32

And a couple problems with (A):
- The bye is SUCH an overwhelming asset to the team, getting not just an extra round farther automatically but also getting 6 or 7 straight days to rest and recover, that to be awarded that over another group winner just based on points and goal differential seems disproportionately chaotic and unfair
- Teams getting the bye also earn more $ for advancing to a further round than teams eliminated in their bye round, despite (1) not having had to contest it on the field, and (2) not having played a match that brought in money and thus "earned it" in a fee-for-service sense

My maybe-half-serious idea to solve for (A): During the bye, when the 8 bye teams would've had a game, have them each stage an exhibition. Have them play the best teams who didn't make the World Cup. Have them play some club team that won the right in a tournament. Have two of them bring their women's sides and stage a mixed match against each other. Have them play each other for the right to a draft order of which R16 matchup they wanted. Something fun!
I'm with @Saints Rest on this. Re @InstaFace 's criticism of Option A, I disagree. How is it "chaotic and unfair" to base the bye on points and GD? It incentivizes teams to attack, which is what most spectators want. I also disagree about the $ issue. Incentivizing teams to win their group AND score tons of goals is something we want.

I think the problems with 3-team groups are just too many, and that's why I'm subscribing to Saints' WC!

One other thing to consider about 12 vs. 16 groups is interesting group stage matches. While 12 groups sounds like it will spread out the highest quality teams, the 3-nation hosts getting Pot 1 seeds should help. Just for kicks, let's consider the top 2 teams in the 12-group format assuming that NAFTA nations all get Pot 1 (using FIFA world rankings):

Pot 1
1. USA
2. Mexico
3. Canada
4. Brazil
5. Belgium
6. Argentina
7. France
8. England
9. Italy
10. Spain
11. Netherlands
12. Portugal

Pot 2
1. Denmark
2. Germany
3. Croatia
4. Uruguay
5. Switzerland
6. Colombia
7. Senegal
8. Wales
9. Iran
10. Serbia
11. Morocco
12. Peru

Caveats apply, such as the facts that it doesn't take confederations or bids into account, but my point is that you'd still get at least 2 quality teams per group. Also note that Japan, Poland, Morocco, and Australia aren't even on the list yet, and that's 1/4 of this year's R16!
 

dirtynine

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So we see now that there are some fun things about a global competition happening at this time of year. So how about a bi-cameral World Cup? 48 teams. 16 directly qualify to the traditional summer tournament. Winter before, teams 17-48 play a 32 team, 8 group tourney (what we just did, but no knockouts) to qualify the additional 16 teams that will join the first 16 in the summer. Then you double the fun group stage action (which I agree is the best) and extra soccer without tiring anybody out. Could even be an infrastructure test for the host countries.
 

speedracer

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gun to my head, if I have to run the WC with 16 groups of 3, I put the groups in pairs and do a cross-round robin. Ie each team in group A plays each team in group B and vice versa, so 3 group games.
 

Ale Xander

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I think groups of three should be avoided at all costs. They just aren't fun.
This is where I am. Don't care if only group winner moves on, top 2, top 3, top 4, or if there are byes, just no 3 team groups please. Would rather just do knockout right off the bat (with 16 byes)
 

DJnVa

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Am I missing something?
8*3 = 24.
24/2 = 12
12 + 24 = 36. Not a good number.
I was told there'd be no math.

Sorry, I was thinking about this before I knew 48 teams and just that they wanted to expand. At that point I was thinking it should expand to 40--24 in groups, the other 16 have a knockout match, eliminating 8, giving us 32.
 

AB in DC

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My vote would be:

12 groups of 4
Top two per group advance
Top four third-place finishers advance (28 total)
Top four group winners get a first-round bye
--> that way teams sitting on six points after two games still have something to play for. As I said in the other thread, one thing I'd be happy to lose after 2022 are clinched teams half-assing their way through their last game (France, Brazil, Portugal all lost games they would have won if they put in full effort.)
 

BaseballJones

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gun to my head, if I have to run the WC with 16 groups of 3, I put the groups in pairs and do a cross-round robin. Ie each team in group A plays each team in group B and vice versa, so 3 group games.
So the teams in group A don't actually play any teams in group A? I mean, they get common opponents (all those teams in group B), but it seems ultra weird to not play any teams in your actual group. You can't directly impact your group's standings by playing an opponent head to head.

Groups of 3 are hugely problematic, no matter how you do it.
 

DJnVa

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So the teams in group A don't actually play any teams in group A? I mean, they get common opponents (all those teams in group B), but it seems ultra weird to not play any teams in your actual group. You can't directly impact your group's standings by playing an opponent head to head.
Depends on how you look at it. lol It's a group of 4 for scheduling, but groups of 3 for advancement.
 

swiftaw

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Depends on how you look at it. lol It's a group of 4 for scheduling, but groups of 3 for advancement.
So that would means in the last round of group games, there would be 3 simultaneous matches.
 

ragnarok725

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What is the issue with 8 groups of 6, each group advancing top 2 for a round of 16 knockouts?

After this year's group stage I kind of like the idea of more group stage.
 

coremiller

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What is the issue with 8 groups of 6, each group advancing top 2 for a round of 16 knockouts?

After this year's group stage I kind of like the idea of more group stage.
Each team would have to play five group stage games. This is a problem for two reasons: it's too many games to fit in the schedule, and you'd have a lot more games later in the group involving sides already clinched/eliminated, which is relatively rare under the current format.
 

ragnarok725

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Each team would have to play five group stage games. This is a problem for two reasons: it's too many games to fit in the schedule, and you'd have a lot more games later in the group involving sides already clinched/eliminated, which is relatively rare under the current format.
If we are taking about a round of 32 instead of a round of 16, then that's an extra game window in those proposals, this would be adding one further game. Not sure where the schedule crunch becomes too bad but it's an incremental change from other proposals.

I think the meaningless match thing is less of a big deal. That's what FIFA is signing up for with an expanded field. And teams play hard for pride as we have seen this week. Most squads, even after being eliminated early, would still be excited to show out in remaining games.
 

InstaFace

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Pittsburgh, PA
Can we please, please have a global Nations League style competition?! It would be so much fun to see inter-continental competitive games on a more frequent basis. I don't necessarily hate the expansion of the WC over the medium term (I think more competitive programs will emerge from Africa and Asia) even if the format of a 48-team WC will never be elegant.

However, the expanded field means that the stakes of qualification will become pretty low for a lot of NT programs. CONCACAF has it particularly bad because the region does not have depth and never will have depth. The top CONCACAF nations now are locks to succeed in every qualification cycle. Furthermore, UEFA nations league, the frequency of AFCON+qualifiers, etc., severely limit options for interesting friendly opponents.

The future of a four-year cycle for the USMNT as it current stands is a stultifying stretch of Gold Cups, CONCACAF Nations League games against Suriname and Honduras, and more friendlies against Jamaica and Panama. It's bleak.

A global nations league would be fun as hell. I'd love to see national teams in places they don't usually go. How often do non-African teams play in Africa? How hilarious would it be to watch a big Euro team play in San Pedro Sula?
I'll save my proposal for "a CONCACAF WC Qualifying format which still manages to preserve USA-vs-Mexico" for another time and another thread.

And while global nations league would kick ass, we all know the travel for it would be absolutely absurd, unless most of the games are going to happen in neutral venues in western Europe. Oh hey, international break coming up, looks like we're flying to... Australia, and then Houston to play Chile, and then back up to our Big 5 jobs. NBD.

No but what I'll contest here is the idea that CONCACAF will never have depth. Just two things in response:

(1) Aside from the big 3 of USA / MEX / CAN, there are 5 other countries with population >10M (bigger than Greece or Sweden), another 4 with pop > 4M (bigger than Croatia) including perennial WC contender Costa Rica (pop: 5.2M), and another 3 with meaningful population that could lead to credible teams (PUR 3.3M, JAM 2.8M, T&T 1.5M). And two of the latter have been hex-worthy recently, hell Trinidad made the 2006 WC. So that's 15 countries that at least can dream, build their soccer infrastructure, and use MLS as a regional superleague for each of them to showcase and develop national-team level talent. And no small number of them can work on dual-nationals who grew up in Big 5 nations, most notably Jamaica. So if CONCACAF ends up with somewhere like 10-12 truly competitive teams that a USA / MEX can't just roll, I think that's plenty to be a decent proving ground for us.

(2) I still think a Caribbean or West Indies meta-team should be formed from a bunch of countries, a la the West Indies in cricket, and compete as a unit in FIFA and continental competition. If they want to subdivide to have their own islands play separately sometimes, like the Basque and Catalan national teams do, go for it, but for Gold Cup + World Cup, let them join forces and become a 16th potential legit CONCACAF team. And I would let in some countries which have cultural ties to the Caribbean (and are in CONCACAF already) and are ranked really low in population: Belize, Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana, and Bermuda too. The team would be dominated by Eredivisie players from Suriname and Curaçao. But it would give people from the Caribbean a chance to root for a competitive team that can actually run with the bigger boys, and showcase some high-potential talents who might get a chance to play in the bigger leagues and get away from the local semipro leagues that litter the Caribbean's smaller countries. You'd also have fun dual-national battles the way we do, with players like Ian Maatsen of Burnley. Jack Warner rejected the idea in 1993, as it would've diluted his political power, so that should be a strong mark in its favor.

Notable players who are eligible and aren't from Suriname (like Sheraldo Becker or Ian Maatsen) or Curacao (like Eloy Room or Quinten Timber)...

GK Donovan Leon (French Guiana, 291k, #173) - Auxerre, FRA Ligue 1
DF-LB Nesta Guinness-Walker (Barbados, 282k, #174) - Reading FC, ENG Championship
DF-CB Jamaal Lascelles (Barbados, 282k, #174) - Newcastle United, ENG Premier League
DF-CB Jeremiah St. Juste (St Kitts & Nevis, 53k, #188) - Sporting CP, POR Primeira Liga / Champions League
DF-RB Dimitri Foulquier (Guadeloupe, 396k, #170) - Valencia, SPA La Liga
MF-DM Warren Zaire-Emery (Martinique, 376k, #171) - Paris Saint-Germain, FRA Ligue 1
MF-CM Shandon Baptiste (Grenada, 113k, #179) - Brentford, ENG Premier League
MF-AM Junior Stanislas (Saint Lucia, 179k, #177) - AFC Bournemouth, ENG Premier League
FW-RW Jamie Bynoe-Gittens (Barbados, 282k, #174) - Borussia Dortmund, GER Bundesliga / Champions League
FW-CF Georginio Rutter (Martinique, 376k, #171) - TSG Hoffenheim, GER Bundesliga
FW-CF Odsonne Edouard (French Guiana, 291k, #173) - Crystal Palace, ENG Premier Lg

Like, that's a squad. They might be 4th in CONCACAF, if somehow you got all of them to play for the team. And that's without even adding in all the still-eligible Curacao and Suriname ringers!

...and did you know Ruben Loftus-Cheek holds Guyanese citizenship? Sure, he has 10 caps for England, but if cap-ties were no obstacle, a Caribbean-heritage meta-team would crush. VVD and Raphael Varane at the back! Bergwijn and Dumfries in the middle! Mike Maignan in goal! Loftus-Cheek out wide! Marcus Rashford up front!

(and if you want to see what a predatory cap-tie looks like, this guy was eligible for Saint Lucia.)
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
SoSH Member
Jan 10, 2004
24,483
The 718
I’ve been stumping for the West Indies-type idea for a long time.

a consolidated Oceania team wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

Of course these tiny nations exert disproportionate influence, which they sell to create things like Qatar WCs. So they wouldn’t go for it.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
SoSH Member
Jan 10, 2004
24,483
The 718
Oceania would play in Asia but it could conceivably be in CONMEBOL or CONCACAF. I don’t think NZ - Brazil is any worse than Tahiti- Lebanon.
 

Zososoxfan

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 30, 2009
9,208
South of North
I’ve been stumping for the West Indies-type idea for a long time.

a consolidated Oceania team wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

Of course these tiny nations exert disproportionate influence, which they sell to create things like Qatar WCs. So they wouldn’t go for it.
+1 for pan-Caribbean team! You also correctly point out the influence issue, but it shouldn't be too difficult to let them compete together but let them keep their votes. Of course, they only keep their votes as long as FIFA can and does keep running their charades.
 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
SoSH Member
Sep 27, 2016
21,753
Pittsburgh, PA
Oceania and West Indies could definitely still maintain their separate FIFA votes and money-funnel fiefdoms and still be allowed to field a meta-team, I think. Why? Because it's in everyone's interests to say yes to that.

If you make a Oceania team, though, you'd have them and New Zealand either merge into AFC or, as you said, an Americas confederation. They can still have their own little OFC Invitational for the separate countries every so often, but field the meta-team when it's time for real international football.

The mock roster for Oceania is not nearly as impressive as it is for West Indies / Caribbean though. It's pretty much the New Zealand national team plus a few polynesian dudes who've made it to the Aussie A-League - which isn't total shit, but is ranked comparable to English League One and USL-C. Most current Oceania national-teamers are playing semi-pro, mostly domestically but sometimes in New Zealand's league, and occasionally someone in the Championnat National (French 3rd division, mostly-professional), or the Croatian or Caucasus leagues. Here's who I found:

DF-CB Daniel Hall (Fiji) - Central Coast Mariners, AUS A-League
DF-CB Brian Kaltak (Vanuatu) - Central Coast Mariners, AUS A-League
MF-CM Josh Laqeretabua (Fiji) - Charlton Athletic U18, ENG League One
MF-AM David Browne (Papua New Guinea) - HJK Helsinki, FIN league / Europa League
FW-CF Jaushua Sotirio (New Caledonia) - Newcastle Jets, AUS A-League
FW-CF Vadaine Oliver (New Caledonia) - Bradford Town, ENG League Two

Former France international (from, like, the 80s and 90s) Pascal Vahirua had Tahitian citizenship, but also, he, like, played for France. Point is, there aren't, like, hidden gems you can unearth with the "second citizenship" search on TransferMarkt. You can fill a very nice roster out of players who play in the New Zealand league, but that roster would still get blown off the field by New Zealand's actual national team. NZ does have a credible squad on their own already: a few MLS (and USL) guys, a bunch of A-Leaguers on Wellington Phoenix, and two guys in Serie A. Being (at least semi-) sickos, a bunch of us on the Scuffed Discord watched some of the OFC qualifying tournament back in March, it was streamed for free. There was one guy, a youing attacker named Raphael Lea'i on Solomon Islands, who looked like an actual pro at age 18 and had moves that could threaten New Zealand's actual-pro lineup. Apparently European teams like Antalyaspor were looking at him, and from what I saw they should. But that's, like, it.

Honestly, upon consideration, that makes the case for a Oceania team even better - there might be more Lea'is out there, and you want them to have some sort of all-star showcase where it's low-effort for Europe to take a look.

The other meta-teams that deserve consideration would be:

(1) European Micro-States team. The Roaring Mice! San Marino, Gibraltar, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Andorra (80k), maybe Malta (521k) too. Montenegro (618k) and Iceland (385k) are clearly able to field non-embarrassing international teams, and Luxembourg (645k) is full of Bundesligers, but maybe you also consider letting Cyprus (918k) join in. I dunno if that combined team qualifies for the Euros, but it at least looks better than the individual countries do and means fewer lopsided international matches.

(2) African Micro-States team. Seychelles, Sao Tome and Principe, Cape Verde, Comoros, Eswatini, Djibouti, Mauritius - all of them are small countries fielding mostly-domestic squads, and could use a showcase for their best talent. Equatorial Guinea (1.518M, #148 in the world) is on the big side for this sort of project, but their team sucks, as does Lesotho (2.18M), whereas Guinea-Bissau (2.1M) has a team full of credible UEFA pros. I will say that Cape Verde (570k) has a damn impressive squad given the constraints they're developing talent under there, though most of their national team (but not all) were born and raised in Europe. Either way, most of the constituent countries will be small island nations without a history of antagonism with each other, and could better contend in AFCON and WCQ if together as a unit.