This tournament has been great so far. But 48 teams create an awkward bracket. A 64-team World Cup is the inevitable outcome — and maybe the better one.
Strong piece, and in the group stage jeopardy, I would go further. You call the group stage "more of an exhibition" with two-thirds advancing, and propose fixes. The problem isn't just the ratio; it's that you now grind through 104 matches to eliminate sixteen teams. In 1994 and at Italia 90, teams needed half as many group games to knock out eight teams. So this tournament is actually two USA '94 boltted together! The drama of two-through, two-out in a tight group, the thing that made the final round in 2022 so good, and convinced FIFA to move from 16 groups of 3 this time around, can't exist when the gap between seed and minnow is this wide and survival is this easy. It almost takes more work not to qualify than to do it.
The bigger thing missing here is the fan experience, both on TV and actually travelling. I went to South Africa in 2010. Flew from the UK to Johannesburg, booked before the draw, ended up with tickets at Ellis Park and Soccer City for the seeds, then chased England down to Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein to watch them play badly several times. But the point is we went to the World Cup, followed England, and still saw Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Argentina and Italy along the way, against the likes of Ivory Coast, Slovakia and Denmark. Decent secondary teams. You could base yourself somewhere and see real quality. Try doing that in North America now for the group stages? Base yourself in Boston and tell me how many high-quality games you get. I'd been thinking about going for years and didn't even consider it once the schedule and prices were finalised. Selling out Austria-Jordan or a $1,500 ticket to see DR Congo-Uzbekistan is great for FIFA. It's not great for anyone who actually wants to watch the football. It's also not sustainable in other countries; a 64-team tournament is likely to kill the single-host World Cup or reduce the pool of potential hosts unless countries are happy to be thrown a bone of half a dozen matches.
On the global TV audience, I average 40-plus live games a tournament, every tournament, and I'm finding this one a stretch. I stayed up for Ivory Coast-Japan at 2 am in 2014 quite happily, because there was a guaranteed floor of quality. Asking people across Europe to stay up past midnight on a weekday for the post-midnight North American kick-offs is a big ask at the best of times. Asking them to do it for the weaker end of a 48-team field is another thing entirely. If someone like me can measure out the course of my own life in these tournaments, is looking at a 64-team competition and thinking of checking out, the marginal viewer is already gone at 48 and will quite possibly not engage in the tournament until we get to the business end. On goals per game as a metric of quality, I don't think that captures any of that: 3.1 gpg flatters precisely the mismatches the format is hardest to defend. Germany 7-1 Curacao wasn't a better watch than 3-1 would have been, and audiences will be aware of that.
Qualifying drama should count as part of the story too, not something we bin to fit more teams in. 17th November 1993 produced one of the great days in international football, and it happened because slots for European teams were scarce and the jeopardy was real. England, France, Denmark, Poland, and the legacy Czechoslovakia RCS team all went out that night. England qualified this time without conceding a goal or dropping a point; there are no "Do I Not Like That" and "Hit Les" cultural touchstones from whipping Kosovo and Albania at Wembley. You don't put twenty runners in an Olympic 100m final; you run heats, and the heats matter precisely because not everyone gets through.
Sixty-four out of 211 at the finals doesn't work for me, as inclusion feels like scrapping the heats. I don't even think FIFA would go down the route of 16 groups of 4 (I'm wincing at the prospect of the last Panini sticker book having over 1,000 stickers!). I would guess they would more likely go for two UCL-style Swiss leagues and play 96 group games to achieve a clear 16 v 16 split between the two sides for the knock-outs. They could even consider cutting the last 32 and giving each team a guaranteed four games at a World Cup for the first time.
And let's be honest about why FIFA expanded. It wasn't for Cape Verde and Curacao. It was to get China, Indonesia, Nigeria and the big broadcast markets through the door. Italy's absence for a third straight time is proof: if FIFA actually wanted Europe's best, they'd have handed UEFA the slots. A story like Spain - Cape Verde is incredible and, fair enough, but they have built a real side since the mid-2010s and would eventually have reached a 32-team World Cup. I wouldn't say the same for Curacao, and the question is how many sides is it worth letting in to get a Cape Verde fairytale?
I think the trickiest thing about a 64 team tournament is given the number of requirements that FIFA has of host countries, it very much limits the number of countries that could host it even in concert with others. Its the US, Europe, and Saudi mostly. China if they ever want to spend the money but pretty much anywhere else in the world would require significant spending on infrastructure even if you split it up amongst 3-4 countries.
I think a double elimination structure would be ideal for 64 teams. All competitors get two games minimum but the stakes are high for every game - no dead rubbers.
In the winners side, the second round would have matches between the (theoretical) top 32 countries, the third round would have the top 16 countries, so high quality games early in the tournament.
Win your first 3 games and you are in the last 16.
At the last 16, it converts to standard single-elimination.
Tournament could be won in 7 games. Could take 9 if there is an upset and the ultimate winner loses their first game.
"England would probably lose on penalties anyway." -- Ice cold, but I confess to laughing out loud.
Due to the success of "Welcome to Wrexham", USA vs. Wales in Group [D]olphin would undoubtedly be a very hot ticket.
And you seem destined to give many Italians and Italian-Americans nightmares by hypothetically drawing both Italy and Norway into Group [O]ctopus, where Italy could be dealt a third loss by Haaland and Company during this WC cycle.
I disagree that the current format renders the group stage noncompetitive. Look for example Group C. The modal round of 16th adversary for each place is:
1st - Japan
2nd - Netherlands
3rd - Germany or France
So you bet that Morocco, Scotland and hell even Brazil will be going fiercely at each other not to finish in third. Also, since Morocco and Brazil drew, they can't have the luxury to relax playing against Haiti, and must score as much goals as possible. Thus we will have no dead rubbers in this group.
This may be one example out of many but I think this is not a problem. The confusing bracket algorithm is though. I also agree that it can create very unfair advantages (iirc in my own model, Portugal was particularly affected, while Brazil got an easier bracket for example)
I strongly agree that 48 teams doesn’t really work, in the same way that 24 teams didn’t. You really need a power of two number of teams for the simple, elegant “two qualify from groups of four”, which creates jeopardy with minimal dead fixtures.
However the reason 48 doesn’t work from a fan’s perspective is that it’s too damn many teams to keep a handle on. I am old enough to remember the 24 teams doesn’t tournaments, and you knew what was going on in each group. I don’t remember the 16 team tournaments, but I do remember the European Championship 16 team tournaments, and they were a joy to follow. You knew who each team was scheduled to play if they won the group or came second. Once the World Cup went up to 32 teams, that became difficult to follow. With 48 teams it’s simply impossible. Who knows if Austria is playing, or Ireland? You can’t keep track of everyone. And with 64 teams that would make a terrible situation even worse. And that just diminishes the whole tournament, especially in the group stages - it makes it more a load of random matches, rather than a coherent tournament.
It will never happen for financial reasons but I’d cut it back to 32 teams. It’s a much better format, you still get a few minnows competing (which as Nate says, is fun, and a big part of the event), and it’s not like any of the teams you lose were ever going to win it.
I think the problem about 64 team tournament is that this will greatly dilute the qualifiers in each confederation before the world cup. Those are incredibly intense games in Europe and Southamerica, that last for a year or more. They have been slightly diluted with this, but it will be heavily impact with a larger expansion.
My solution: Expand to 72 teams with a double group stage. Top 24 get to wait for the first group stage of the next 48. Rest for serious teams like France and Germany, while the small countries get their fun in the sun, no need for 7-1 blow outs.
And the first group stage could condense the schedule to have a somewhat first March Madness weekend effect, before playing out the steady stream of games in the main group stage.
Then keep the format the same going into a 32 team bracket. It’s a perfect bracket size imo.
Just have the 3rd place teams have the tiebreakers throw out games against the 4th place team. My only main gripe with the current rules.
"We burned a lot of Claude tokens trying to crack FIFA’s algorithm for placing 3rd-place teams into the playoff bracket, and it concluded that it was literally a few guys messing around with an Excel spreadsheet."
It's FIFA. Brown paper envelopes stuffed full of tenners cannot be ruled out, though it's probably more along the lines of "well if we match A with B, A will win by a landslide and nobody will turn up to watch that/there's an outside chance B would pull off a shock result and knock out A, so the best result for us is having A go through, after playing C who are not quite such pushovers/capable of upsetting the applecart, and that maximises ticket/TV revenue".
I thought anti-expansionist was a core part of my sports worldview, yet here I am wishing that we had that exact 64 team tournament happening right now.
Re: 2030: 6 co-host nations is insane, as is the credible theorizing that FIFA did that stupid stunt so that the 2034 Cup could be in *Saudi Arabia*. Stop putting a soccer tournament in sweltering desert nations that don’t care about human rights (OR about soccer!)!
Strong piece, and in the group stage jeopardy, I would go further. You call the group stage "more of an exhibition" with two-thirds advancing, and propose fixes. The problem isn't just the ratio; it's that you now grind through 104 matches to eliminate sixteen teams. In 1994 and at Italia 90, teams needed half as many group games to knock out eight teams. So this tournament is actually two USA '94 boltted together! The drama of two-through, two-out in a tight group, the thing that made the final round in 2022 so good, and convinced FIFA to move from 16 groups of 3 this time around, can't exist when the gap between seed and minnow is this wide and survival is this easy. It almost takes more work not to qualify than to do it.
The bigger thing missing here is the fan experience, both on TV and actually travelling. I went to South Africa in 2010. Flew from the UK to Johannesburg, booked before the draw, ended up with tickets at Ellis Park and Soccer City for the seeds, then chased England down to Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein to watch them play badly several times. But the point is we went to the World Cup, followed England, and still saw Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Argentina and Italy along the way, against the likes of Ivory Coast, Slovakia and Denmark. Decent secondary teams. You could base yourself somewhere and see real quality. Try doing that in North America now for the group stages? Base yourself in Boston and tell me how many high-quality games you get. I'd been thinking about going for years and didn't even consider it once the schedule and prices were finalised. Selling out Austria-Jordan or a $1,500 ticket to see DR Congo-Uzbekistan is great for FIFA. It's not great for anyone who actually wants to watch the football. It's also not sustainable in other countries; a 64-team tournament is likely to kill the single-host World Cup or reduce the pool of potential hosts unless countries are happy to be thrown a bone of half a dozen matches.
On the global TV audience, I average 40-plus live games a tournament, every tournament, and I'm finding this one a stretch. I stayed up for Ivory Coast-Japan at 2 am in 2014 quite happily, because there was a guaranteed floor of quality. Asking people across Europe to stay up past midnight on a weekday for the post-midnight North American kick-offs is a big ask at the best of times. Asking them to do it for the weaker end of a 48-team field is another thing entirely. If someone like me can measure out the course of my own life in these tournaments, is looking at a 64-team competition and thinking of checking out, the marginal viewer is already gone at 48 and will quite possibly not engage in the tournament until we get to the business end. On goals per game as a metric of quality, I don't think that captures any of that: 3.1 gpg flatters precisely the mismatches the format is hardest to defend. Germany 7-1 Curacao wasn't a better watch than 3-1 would have been, and audiences will be aware of that.
Qualifying drama should count as part of the story too, not something we bin to fit more teams in. 17th November 1993 produced one of the great days in international football, and it happened because slots for European teams were scarce and the jeopardy was real. England, France, Denmark, Poland, and the legacy Czechoslovakia RCS team all went out that night. England qualified this time without conceding a goal or dropping a point; there are no "Do I Not Like That" and "Hit Les" cultural touchstones from whipping Kosovo and Albania at Wembley. You don't put twenty runners in an Olympic 100m final; you run heats, and the heats matter precisely because not everyone gets through.
Sixty-four out of 211 at the finals doesn't work for me, as inclusion feels like scrapping the heats. I don't even think FIFA would go down the route of 16 groups of 4 (I'm wincing at the prospect of the last Panini sticker book having over 1,000 stickers!). I would guess they would more likely go for two UCL-style Swiss leagues and play 96 group games to achieve a clear 16 v 16 split between the two sides for the knock-outs. They could even consider cutting the last 32 and giving each team a guaranteed four games at a World Cup for the first time.
And let's be honest about why FIFA expanded. It wasn't for Cape Verde and Curacao. It was to get China, Indonesia, Nigeria and the big broadcast markets through the door. Italy's absence for a third straight time is proof: if FIFA actually wanted Europe's best, they'd have handed UEFA the slots. A story like Spain - Cape Verde is incredible and, fair enough, but they have built a real side since the mid-2010s and would eventually have reached a 32-team World Cup. I wouldn't say the same for Curacao, and the question is how many sides is it worth letting in to get a Cape Verde fairytale?
I think the trickiest thing about a 64 team tournament is given the number of requirements that FIFA has of host countries, it very much limits the number of countries that could host it even in concert with others. Its the US, Europe, and Saudi mostly. China if they ever want to spend the money but pretty much anywhere else in the world would require significant spending on infrastructure even if you split it up amongst 3-4 countries.
I think a double elimination structure would be ideal for 64 teams. All competitors get two games minimum but the stakes are high for every game - no dead rubbers.
In the winners side, the second round would have matches between the (theoretical) top 32 countries, the third round would have the top 16 countries, so high quality games early in the tournament.
Win your first 3 games and you are in the last 16.
At the last 16, it converts to standard single-elimination.
Tournament could be won in 7 games. Could take 9 if there is an upset and the ultimate winner loses their first game.
"England would probably lose on penalties anyway." -- Ice cold, but I confess to laughing out loud.
Due to the success of "Welcome to Wrexham", USA vs. Wales in Group [D]olphin would undoubtedly be a very hot ticket.
And you seem destined to give many Italians and Italian-Americans nightmares by hypothetically drawing both Italy and Norway into Group [O]ctopus, where Italy could be dealt a third loss by Haaland and Company during this WC cycle.
I disagree that the current format renders the group stage noncompetitive. Look for example Group C. The modal round of 16th adversary for each place is:
1st - Japan
2nd - Netherlands
3rd - Germany or France
So you bet that Morocco, Scotland and hell even Brazil will be going fiercely at each other not to finish in third. Also, since Morocco and Brazil drew, they can't have the luxury to relax playing against Haiti, and must score as much goals as possible. Thus we will have no dead rubbers in this group.
This may be one example out of many but I think this is not a problem. The confusing bracket algorithm is though. I also agree that it can create very unfair advantages (iirc in my own model, Portugal was particularly affected, while Brazil got an easier bracket for example)
No issue with these sports stacks. I crave, yearn for the years of 538.
We have been blessed with an amazing streak of sports, please focus on this before you will get bogged down by the midterms.
I strongly agree that 48 teams doesn’t really work, in the same way that 24 teams didn’t. You really need a power of two number of teams for the simple, elegant “two qualify from groups of four”, which creates jeopardy with minimal dead fixtures.
However the reason 48 doesn’t work from a fan’s perspective is that it’s too damn many teams to keep a handle on. I am old enough to remember the 24 teams doesn’t tournaments, and you knew what was going on in each group. I don’t remember the 16 team tournaments, but I do remember the European Championship 16 team tournaments, and they were a joy to follow. You knew who each team was scheduled to play if they won the group or came second. Once the World Cup went up to 32 teams, that became difficult to follow. With 48 teams it’s simply impossible. Who knows if Austria is playing, or Ireland? You can’t keep track of everyone. And with 64 teams that would make a terrible situation even worse. And that just diminishes the whole tournament, especially in the group stages - it makes it more a load of random matches, rather than a coherent tournament.
It will never happen for financial reasons but I’d cut it back to 32 teams. It’s a much better format, you still get a few minnows competing (which as Nate says, is fun, and a big part of the event), and it’s not like any of the teams you lose were ever going to win it.
I think the problem about 64 team tournament is that this will greatly dilute the qualifiers in each confederation before the world cup. Those are incredibly intense games in Europe and Southamerica, that last for a year or more. They have been slightly diluted with this, but it will be heavily impact with a larger expansion.
My solution: Expand to 72 teams with a double group stage. Top 24 get to wait for the first group stage of the next 48. Rest for serious teams like France and Germany, while the small countries get their fun in the sun, no need for 7-1 blow outs.
And the first group stage could condense the schedule to have a somewhat first March Madness weekend effect, before playing out the steady stream of games in the main group stage.
Then keep the format the same going into a 32 team bracket. It’s a perfect bracket size imo.
Just have the 3rd place teams have the tiebreakers throw out games against the 4th place team. My only main gripe with the current rules.
I agree!!! Will read now
"Three of the four favorites advanced, but Ireland got unlucky and lost out to Honduras"
Sigh. I believe you. Which is why you should always have a second team in reserve!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNe-MkExcEI
Though this time it *does* look like Cape Verde/Cabo Verde should be our second team due to the Irish connection:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMglO36segA
"We burned a lot of Claude tokens trying to crack FIFA’s algorithm for placing 3rd-place teams into the playoff bracket, and it concluded that it was literally a few guys messing around with an Excel spreadsheet."
It's FIFA. Brown paper envelopes stuffed full of tenners cannot be ruled out, though it's probably more along the lines of "well if we match A with B, A will win by a landslide and nobody will turn up to watch that/there's an outside chance B would pull off a shock result and knock out A, so the best result for us is having A go through, after playing C who are not quite such pushovers/capable of upsetting the applecart, and that maximises ticket/TV revenue".
I thought anti-expansionist was a core part of my sports worldview, yet here I am wishing that we had that exact 64 team tournament happening right now.
Re: 2030: 6 co-host nations is insane, as is the credible theorizing that FIFA did that stupid stunt so that the 2034 Cup could be in *Saudi Arabia*. Stop putting a soccer tournament in sweltering desert nations that don’t care about human rights (OR about soccer!)!
I have competed in events I had no chance of winning. But it was still lots of fun - and exciting to play the best.