48 Team World Cup

[Mark Connolly]

27 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

Cheers.

I doubt any of the half places will remain. If I was gonna guess:

Host: 1
Europe: 15
Africa: 10
Asia: 9
North America: 6
South America: 6
Oceania: 1

Reduce Africa to 9 if it's co-hosted.

I'd hope they bring back the place for the holders rather than wasting a qualification place on a team who will always qualify anyway.

[Bully Wee Villa]

Maybe. What's the point in them just twiddling their thumbs playing friendlies though?

[Mr. Brightside]

Jordan, Uzbekistan, Oman, Qatar, Iraq, Panama and Jamaica. [emoji23]

[Bully Wee Villa]

They'd all be excellent additions, IMO.

[djchapsticks]

47 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

Cheers.

I doubt any of the half places will remain. If I was gonna guess:

Host: 1
Europe: 15
Africa: 10
Asia: 9
North America: 6
South America: 6
Oceania: 1

Reduce Africa to 9 if it's co-hosted.

Farcical if that's the case, IMO. If anything, Europe, given it's footballing infrastructure, number of nations in it's co-efficient and those who actually play football as it's primary sport should be given at least another 6-8 of the additional slots. And I don't say this in hope of Scotland making it.

Asia and North America having 9 and 6 places respectively, would be farcical.

I'd break it into:

Host:1

Europe: 22

Africa: 9

Asia: 5.5 (p/o vs Oceania)

North America: 4.5 (p/o vs S. America)

South America: 5.5 (p/o vs N. America)

Oceania: 0.5 (p/o vs Asia)

[sparky88]

2 hours ago, Latino Lover said:

I don't have a problem with the expansion but it's going to be 1982 all over again with the final group game played with those teams at an advantage.  Will miss the straightforward group stage, probably end up with a load of shit fests in the ko stages now with so many worse teams at that point.  Makes it trickier to host as well.

i think shared hosting will become the norm now. For example Scotland Ireland and wales hosting the initial stage, then England hosting the 32

[Bully Wee Villa]

I like seeing a few unusual teams in it, and the standard of African and Asian football will only go up and up (North America, probably not so much given the lack of populous nations).

I'd maybe boost Europe up to 16 or 17 places but no more than that.

I'd rather see what Uzbekistan or Panama were like than watch a team like Slovenia or Ukraine who I'm likely to see at the Euros fairly often anyway.

[BFTD]

Not sure why anyone's complaining about the quality of sides being diluted. Just don't watch the group stage and you'll be set like normal, only with even fewer games involving "shite" teams. Result!

You can see even more shitfesting in the groups, though. Everyone will be terrified about losing their opening game, especially the big nations. I'd imagine FIFA will have put as much thought into the hosting arrangements as they did when they gave the tournament to Qatar in the summer, so that's probably where the biggest clusterfuck will occur, as usual.

[Bully Wee Villa]

I think 2026 is likely to be in America. There has been speculation about co-hosting with Canada so no lack of stadia there.

Future years might need two or three countries, although worth noting that only sixteen games have actually been added.

You wouldn't necessarily need twice as many grounds or anything too dramatic like that.

ETA: you'd need about sixteen stadia if they hosted five games each. Quite a few European/Asian/North American countries could manage that. Africa and South America might need to co-host.

[Latino Lover]

Theoretically you could be all but out after one game if you got a hiding then the team that beat you lost., the group stage most bothers me. I'd even sooner see the same as euro 16 format but double in size with a 32 team ko which would also be shit. Or 12 group winners and 4 best runners up to make the groups ultra competitive.

[10menwent2mow]

This is going to be a shambles. How many groups are going to have 3 draws or finish with team a on 6 and teams b and c on 1. Also how many groups are going to see the 3rd and final group game leaving both teams needing a draw to progress and a 0-0 shitfest commencing.

[7-2]

48 out of 211 FIFA countries qualifying, pretty much a quarter, doesn't exactly make the Finals the exclusive tournament for the absolute creme de la creme of world football that it should be. More doesn't mean better. Still, think of the money and the guaranteed votes.

[Bully Wee Villa]

I'm not sure if it has been agreed, but there was talk the other day that all drawn group games would have penalty shootouts to try to prevent the scenario you gave.

Presumably 3 points for an outright win, 2 for a penalties win, 1 for a penalties loss and 0 for an outright loss.

[Oleksandr]

3 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

I'm not sure if it has been agreed, but there was talk the other day that all drawn group games would have penalty shootouts to try to prevent the scenario you gave.

Presumably 3 points for an outright win, 2 for a penalties win, 1 for a penalties loss and 0 for an outright loss.

Bonus point you say? Just copying our cup

[Salvo Montalbano]

Sounds familiar!

The numbers I'd seen was 16 for Europe which would make sense I suppose with 8 qualifying groups and the top 2 going through rather than 9 groups, the winners going through and the 8 best runners up playing off. It doesn't make it much easier for us to qualify (still having to finish in the top two which we've struggled with) albeit there wouldn't be an England or Holland style "playoff heartache" ( (c) all tabloid newspapers) if we did manage to finish second.

[10menwent2mow]

I'm not sure if it has been agreed, but there was talk the other day that all drawn group games would have penalty shootouts to try to prevent the scenario you gave.

Presumably 3 points for an outright win, 2 for a penalties win, 1 for a penalties loss and 0 for an outright loss.

Doesn't make any difference really. Team a beats team b on pens
Team c beats team a on pens
Team b beats team c on pens.

Still got the same issue.

[Bully Wee Villa]

Then it would come down to goal difference, I guess. It would still be unlikely (though I confess, not impossible) that two teams could contrive a mutually-beneficial outcome in the last game.

There is always the possibility of such a contrivance in any group structure which allows more than one team to progress.

[10menwent2mow]

Then it would come down to goal difference, I guess. It would still be unlikely (though I confess, not impossible) that two teams could contrive a mutually-beneficial outcome in the last game.

There is always the possibility of such a contrivance in any group structure which allows more than one team to progress.

This is true. Although I think it's very much more likely under a 3 team format. As has already been mentioned there is a fair chance that you are all but out after your first game if you take a pumping and the team that pumps you gets beat 1-0 in game 2. Gives that team with the +1 gd that you play in game 3 the ability to total shitfest and send you home.

There are always the chances of this happening in a 4 team group but with two games going on at the same time there are far more variables than this format.

[thisal]

2 hours ago, lonewolfie said:

Utter shambles. FIFA at its best. Rubbish. End of the World Cup - look how shite the last Euros were.

I thought the best part of the Euros was the performance of the diddies who wouldn't normally make it. In particular Wales Iceland and N. Ireland.

[Salvo Montalbano]

1 minute ago, thisal said:

I thought the best part of the Euros was the performance of the diddies who wouldn't normally make it. In particular Wales Iceland and N. Ireland.

Wouldn't Wales and Northern Ireland have qualified even if it was still 16 teams?