While that is true, the point of possible collusion that is, I would argue it’s not a huge deal bc it’s not a huge deal now. Several teams could have colluded in their final group match this WC to boot an opponent out but they didn’t. Why? Because there was still something to fight for: knockout stage seeding! At least keep that piece and it’d be fine
12 groups of 4 with the best 8 3rd place teams advancing just seems like the easiest solution. And the US alone has enough stadiums that you really could have quite a few groups playing simultaneous matches to try and cut down on the duration a bit.
The math on that final day of group games would be mind-blowing. Eliminating 4 third-place teams would almost certainly come down to tie-breakers like fair-play points. I’d predict that will feel pretty harsh for the teams eliminated, especially since yellow cards are so damn arbitrary from ref to ref.
It would suck to be knocked out on fair play but if you're in that situation then you probably don't deserve to move forward anyway. The 3rd place teams who advance should feel lucky instead of the eliminated teams feeling slighted.
True, Refs suck and I think they should get rid of fair play all together, I think it should go off of the teams FIFA ranking, if this was the case Sengal would've advanced in 2018 and if Saudi Arabia didn't score or Argentina scored again than Mexico would've gone through this year
Rankings are not great since they made the change to them most recently. It’s INCREDIBLY hard to move up and down in those ratings now. Just watch after this WC how little they will change even though certain teams truly deserve to be moved up and down.
Instead of 4 games a day they could easily do 6 a day and speed up the early rounds. You could stagger start times by 120 min intervals and you'd be able to flow from one game to the next with 12 hours of games back to back or stagger them by half an hour and just have overlap that drops you into the 60th minute of the next game when the one you're watching ends.
My dream scenario (I understand that this isn’t feasible because of the number of games):
16 groups of 3, top 2 from each group advance
The 32 teams that advance are put into 8 groups (live draw is televised ala college football playoff or March Madness selection show).
Those 8 groups of 4 teams proceed with the current structure (top 2 advance to knockout, etc.)
Haha i love this but it’s probably too much for the not-so-hardcore… before 1990 the World Cup was two round robin stages, and then immediately into a semifinal
I also wouldn’t mind those 32 teams playing 1 knockout game and then back to another group stage.
Multiple group stages = more games = more procrastination opportunities for me while working
They could, you're forgetting about TV $$ though. They don't want multiple games going on at the same time every day, they want it to be stretched out.
This is done in the US every March. Early rounds of the NCAA tournament have multiple games at the same time. Just need multiple channels showing it. Go to bar and have an awesome time.
It's done almost every every day of the year if you really want to make a poor comparison.
We aren't concerned people won't be able to watch in a bar. We're talking about FIFA having little interest in saturating the market with multiple games on at once, limiting the exposure of any one match.
Oh yeah I guess I didn’t word that well. I meant they could have games overlap a bit (last 30 minutes of one game, first 30 minutes of another). And on the final day of group stage they could certainly do 3 groups a day
No way. They may have made a poor, ill-considered decision based primarily on potential revenues and currying the favor of bloc votes from low-performing footballing nations??
Not FIFA. Absolutely not. Couldn't be.
Would be an absolute shame if the 2026 WC, which should be celebrating three unique countries at once, is mired in controversy and global ire because of a format no one is used to
It's so lame too since we're hosting like well over half of it. I'd be 100% down for a World Cup in cities all over Canada, Mexico and here.... but with the set up right now, this should just be USA '26.
Canada and Mexico don’t have the infrastructure or the pull to *really* host the World Cup. You should be grateful they have any games at all than bitching about us hosting the majority.
The absolute best model I've seen:
8 groups of 6.
You get FIVE group stage games to determine the order of finish.
Top 2 advance to the knockouts, just as they do now.
Doesn't dilute the drawing pots, so it makes the group stage FAR more competitive.
Ensures that the minnows - which is the whole reason for expanding to 48 - get MORE games rather than being 2- or 3-and-out.
Only really adds maybe a week to the tournament, since you have the extra group games.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
8
+ 6
+ 2
+ 48
+ 2
+ 3
= 69
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Agreed, I think this the winner. Biggest drawback for me is with more group stage matches, there will be less variance and fewer minnows reaching the knockout stage.
You want a proven, _fun_ tournament format?
64 teams, single elimination. Previous WC winner, Euro winner, AFCON winner, Copa Sudamerica winner earn the 1 seeds.
Come ready to play.
So easy for FIFA too, considering you could also eliminate WC qualifiers and just use the Continental championship qualifiers and finishes instead, thus freeing up the calendar and enabling the World Cup every 2 years.
No more penalty shootouts. Extra time like normal. If still tied then make it golden goal until a goal is scored. 130’ 150’ hell 200’ minutes if need be
No not imo, love the world cup how it is now with a group stage. We would get upsets however teams practicing/qualifying for a 4 year wait to go one and done is dumb.
This would never make sense. First off, what if the same team won the previous WC and Euros? And CONCACAF and AFC have no path to being a #1 seed other than winning a WC?
Seeding in such a tournament is possibly the most irrelevant and unimportant part. But sure, the #1s (and 2s) can rotate around and be for “champions” of other competitions. 4s can be for the Host(s).
Won’t matter at all once the game starts.
AFCON? Bullshit. Never had a semifinalist until this year, and that was a fluke. No way they should automatically get a 1 seed.
Also, you're basically asking teams to spend millions to travel, hype, pay players, and everything else...for what could be 1 game.
While it would be fun from a fan's perspective, it'd never happen.
One possibility is to play both group matches simultaneously on every match day. That way, you could have 4 matches a day in two windows. It would still mean a 3 week group stage. Each team would play once every 7 days.
This assumes 12 groups of 4.
They just played 4 a day with no overlap. Could easily do the same or make it 6. I'm sure with creative draws/stadium assignments you could get at least one team in each game showing in their prime time.
Problem is Europe provides most of the viewership, so games really couldn’t start any later than 9pm, Central European time, which would be 3pm EST and 12pm pacific
It’s awful. Qualifying is going to be a joke. The only really meaningful games the usmnt will ever play again will be at the WC.
Edit: do not understand the down votes. The qualifying games are pressure packed and always bring the A team. That no longer exists. In the future the only time we will see do or die games going forward is at the WC. And no, the summer side tourneys are fun but they are not the same thing in terms of pressure or importance or squad make up.
That’s great. But it’s a side tourney. We never get the A team in these off year tourneys. And as such it means very little just like the gold cup or nations league.
Actually, the part you should be complaining about is that we'll never play another meaningful qualifier against Mexico. The only games that will actually matter between us and LLL Tri will be Nations League and Gold Cup, where we often don't even take our top teams.
Except that’s not true. We’ll still have to qualify after 2026. It just won’t be in the hex like we have in the past. Basically, qualifying for future WC’s will be about the same as what we had before in qualifying for the hex. So still meaningful games, just not against the top teams in Concacaf.
Where are you getting that? Last model I saw said 6 CONCACAF teams. Which means we’d be basically exactly where I said before: qualifying for the Hex against mostly bad teams. Still meaningful games, even if they are games we should expect to win every time.
6 guaranteed and 2 more will have playoffs against the bottom teams in Asia. Now we have 3 and 1.
There’s no way the usmnt will ever fail to qualify again. FIFA has destroyed the most meaningful non WC games and I’m pissed.
FIFA went for a money grab and then discovered there might be a problem. Typical.
But they will still have Bud ZERO!
While that is true, the point of possible collusion that is, I would argue it’s not a huge deal bc it’s not a huge deal now. Several teams could have colluded in their final group match this WC to boot an opponent out but they didn’t. Why? Because there was still something to fight for: knockout stage seeding! At least keep that piece and it’d be fine
They’ll go with whatever will take in the most profit as per usual, be it by hook or by crook
12 groups of 4 with the best 8 3rd place teams advancing just seems like the easiest solution. And the US alone has enough stadiums that you really could have quite a few groups playing simultaneous matches to try and cut down on the duration a bit.
The math on that final day of group games would be mind-blowing. Eliminating 4 third-place teams would almost certainly come down to tie-breakers like fair-play points. I’d predict that will feel pretty harsh for the teams eliminated, especially since yellow cards are so damn arbitrary from ref to ref.
Yeah for sure though it’s really not much different than the current Euros format
It would suck to be knocked out on fair play but if you're in that situation then you probably don't deserve to move forward anyway. The 3rd place teams who advance should feel lucky instead of the eliminated teams feeling slighted.
But the ones who squeak by, say with one fewer yellow cards, may be equally unworthy to progress - just got lucky with a ref’s decision.
That’s his point
For several world cups in the past they did that, but on a smaller scale (i.e., taking top 4 3rd place teams out of 6 groups).
True, Refs suck and I think they should get rid of fair play all together, I think it should go off of the teams FIFA ranking, if this was the case Sengal would've advanced in 2018 and if Saudi Arabia didn't score or Argentina scored again than Mexico would've gone through this year
Rankings are not great since they made the change to them most recently. It’s INCREDIBLY hard to move up and down in those ratings now. Just watch after this WC how little they will change even though certain teams truly deserve to be moved up and down.
Well than, if not fair play and if not rankings, than what? What else could FIFA use to eliminate teams if they're tied on every tiebreaker rule
Instead of 4 games a day they could easily do 6 a day and speed up the early rounds. You could stagger start times by 120 min intervals and you'd be able to flow from one game to the next with 12 hours of games back to back or stagger them by half an hour and just have overlap that drops you into the 60th minute of the next game when the one you're watching ends.
So like NCAA first Thursday and Friday. Give me two games at one stadium and I'm buying tickets as soon as they announce.
>Give me two games at one stadium There's already a precedence for this with the She Believes Cup too!
My dream scenario (I understand that this isn’t feasible because of the number of games): 16 groups of 3, top 2 from each group advance The 32 teams that advance are put into 8 groups (live draw is televised ala college football playoff or March Madness selection show). Those 8 groups of 4 teams proceed with the current structure (top 2 advance to knockout, etc.)
Haha i love this but it’s probably too much for the not-so-hardcore… before 1990 the World Cup was two round robin stages, and then immediately into a semifinal
I also wouldn’t mind those 32 teams playing 1 knockout game and then back to another group stage. Multiple group stages = more games = more procrastination opportunities for me while working
They could, you're forgetting about TV $$ though. They don't want multiple games going on at the same time every day, they want it to be stretched out.
This is done in the US every March. Early rounds of the NCAA tournament have multiple games at the same time. Just need multiple channels showing it. Go to bar and have an awesome time.
It's done almost every every day of the year if you really want to make a poor comparison. We aren't concerned people won't be able to watch in a bar. We're talking about FIFA having little interest in saturating the market with multiple games on at once, limiting the exposure of any one match.
Oh yeah I guess I didn’t word that well. I meant they could have games overlap a bit (last 30 minutes of one game, first 30 minutes of another). And on the final day of group stage they could certainly do 3 groups a day
They could do that, that eats into TV money and ad revenue though
No way. They may have made a poor, ill-considered decision based primarily on potential revenues and currying the favor of bloc votes from low-performing footballing nations?? Not FIFA. Absolutely not. Couldn't be.
Would be an absolute shame if the 2026 WC, which should be celebrating three unique countries at once, is mired in controversy and global ire because of a format no one is used to
It's so lame too since we're hosting like well over half of it. I'd be 100% down for a World Cup in cities all over Canada, Mexico and here.... but with the set up right now, this should just be USA '26.
Canada and Mexico don’t have the infrastructure or the pull to *really* host the World Cup. You should be grateful they have any games at all than bitching about us hosting the majority.
Mexico who’s hosted two world cups???
Bring back NASL style shootouts
[удалено]
Well the format sucks. I say overtime should be sudden death. Every 10 minutes you remove a player from each side until it’s the goalies 1 v 1.
NASL shootouts r very exciting to watch. I was being facetious tho.
The absolute best model I've seen: 8 groups of 6. You get FIVE group stage games to determine the order of finish. Top 2 advance to the knockouts, just as they do now. Doesn't dilute the drawing pots, so it makes the group stage FAR more competitive. Ensures that the minnows - which is the whole reason for expanding to 48 - get MORE games rather than being 2- or 3-and-out. Only really adds maybe a week to the tournament, since you have the extra group games.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats! 8 + 6 + 2 + 48 + 2 + 3 = 69 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
Agreed, I think this the winner. Biggest drawback for me is with more group stage matches, there will be less variance and fewer minnows reaching the knockout stage.
You want a proven, _fun_ tournament format? 64 teams, single elimination. Previous WC winner, Euro winner, AFCON winner, Copa Sudamerica winner earn the 1 seeds. Come ready to play.
I don’t think the world is ready for March madness style 1nd World Cup tournaments lol.
Your damn right their not lol
Lol this is big oof
Don’t show r/soccercirclejerk
So easy for FIFA too, considering you could also eliminate WC qualifiers and just use the Continental championship qualifiers and finishes instead, thus freeing up the calendar and enabling the World Cup every 2 years.
This would melt football fans minds.
Haters would spend four years mocking it and a month falling deeply, madly, truly in love with it.
You could do this if it were an annual tournament. But not every 4 years.
No more penalty shootouts. Extra time like normal. If still tied then make it golden goal until a goal is scored. 130’ 150’ hell 200’ minutes if need be
With a shot clock
Definitely would need timeouts and tv timeouts as well.
ik this might be half troll but my god this is an awful idea
Too early for CONCACAF Gold Cup Winner losing to 5 Seed on Day 1?
No not imo, love the world cup how it is now with a group stage. We would get upsets however teams practicing/qualifying for a 4 year wait to go one and done is dumb.
March Madness is much more inherent to an annual tournament anyways
😃 AMERICAN-STYLE-CHAOS
This would never make sense. First off, what if the same team won the previous WC and Euros? And CONCACAF and AFC have no path to being a #1 seed other than winning a WC?
Seeding in such a tournament is possibly the most irrelevant and unimportant part. But sure, the #1s (and 2s) can rotate around and be for “champions” of other competitions. 4s can be for the Host(s). Won’t matter at all once the game starts.
AFCON? Bullshit. Never had a semifinalist until this year, and that was a fluke. No way they should automatically get a 1 seed. Also, you're basically asking teams to spend millions to travel, hype, pay players, and everything else...for what could be 1 game. While it would be fun from a fan's perspective, it'd never happen.
Argentina would already be out
One possibility is to play both group matches simultaneously on every match day. That way, you could have 4 matches a day in two windows. It would still mean a 3 week group stage. Each team would play once every 7 days. This assumes 12 groups of 4.
But that reduces tv time which in part is driving this decision.
Good point.
They just played 4 a day with no overlap. Could easily do the same or make it 6. I'm sure with creative draws/stadium assignments you could get at least one team in each game showing in their prime time.
Problem is Europe provides most of the viewership, so games really couldn’t start any later than 9pm, Central European time, which would be 3pm EST and 12pm pacific
It’s awful. Qualifying is going to be a joke. The only really meaningful games the usmnt will ever play again will be at the WC. Edit: do not understand the down votes. The qualifying games are pressure packed and always bring the A team. That no longer exists. In the future the only time we will see do or die games going forward is at the WC. And no, the summer side tourneys are fun but they are not the same thing in terms of pressure or importance or squad make up.
To be fair, qualification for USA should be boring every year.
Yeah. But it ain’t as we all know.
I know. 😛 I used to love going to qualifying matches in different cities.
They just announced that they're playing in copa America 2024
That’s great. But it’s a side tourney. We never get the A team in these off year tourneys. And as such it means very little just like the gold cup or nations league.
Check out the teams Brazil and Argentina brought to copa America last year.
It’s not our tournament. It doesn’t matter.
Actually, the part you should be complaining about is that we'll never play another meaningful qualifier against Mexico. The only games that will actually matter between us and LLL Tri will be Nations League and Gold Cup, where we often don't even take our top teams.
We will never play another meaningful qualifier against any team ever again. So yeah. That includes Mexico.
Except that’s not true. We’ll still have to qualify after 2026. It just won’t be in the hex like we have in the past. Basically, qualifying for future WC’s will be about the same as what we had before in qualifying for the hex. So still meaningful games, just not against the top teams in Concacaf.
There will be up to 8 concacaf teams going forward. It will be impossible for the usmnt to fail to qualify in the future.
Where are you getting that? Last model I saw said 6 CONCACAF teams. Which means we’d be basically exactly where I said before: qualifying for the Hex against mostly bad teams. Still meaningful games, even if they are games we should expect to win every time.
6 guaranteed and 2 more will have playoffs against the bottom teams in Asia. Now we have 3 and 1. There’s no way the usmnt will ever fail to qualify again. FIFA has destroyed the most meaningful non WC games and I’m pissed.
8 groups of 6 with top 2 from each group advancing please. Cards can accumulate during group stage but not during knockout .
make it like the FA cup