2026 FIFA World Cup - General Chat

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Drico said:
Ah, you're being very selective. Take Curacao. The major opposition in CONCACAF was cleared out of their way through automatic qualification. If the USA, Canada, and Mexico had to qualify, there is a very strong possibility - likelihood, in reality - that Curacao wouldn't have. Good luck to them for taking their chance, but the system has helped them enormously. And this is the point: the system is bloated and flawed.

And it's a facetious, if seductive, argument to say teams would have qualified "regardless" under a different system. We can't say that for sure. How do we know that the knowledge of having a guaranteed play-off berth didn't impact Sweden's approach and the results in their group? We don't.

You don't need 48 teams for "diversity". We had diversity with 16 - and certainly with 32 - and we didn't have to hugely compromise the quality and engage in gigantism to get it. As for the kids getting to see their sides on the big stage, absolutely. But you need to be worth your place on that stage. If Germany break scoring records against Curacao, I'm not sure that's doing those kids much good.

The logical conclusion of your argument is to do away with qualifying and give a ticket to everyone in the name of diversity. Infantino's eyes would light up at the prospect.

But, you're right: who cares. Nobody is forced to watch. I'll start at the knockout stage.
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Not sure how you got to the logical conclusion of my argument - my argument is that if we take DR Congo for example: they beat Cameroon and Nigeria on their way to the play-offs, both of those countries are African giants and mainstays of the World Cup.

Curacao is another thing - but it's not like CONCACAF didn't send at least one weak team to the World Cup when it was 32 teams - Panama in 2018, Trinidad in 2006 etc.
 
Drico said:
Ah, you're being very selective. Take Curacao. The major opposition in CONCACAF was cleared out of their way through automatic qualification. If the USA, Canada, and Mexico had to qualify, there is a very strong possibility - likelihood, in reality - that Curacao wouldn't have. Good luck to them for taking their chance, but the system has helped them enormously. And this is the point: the system is bloated and flawed.

And it's a facetious, if seductive, argument to say teams would have qualified "regardless" under a different system. We can't say that for sure. How do we know that the knowledge of having a guaranteed play-off berth didn't impact Sweden's approach and the results in their group? We don't.

You don't need 48 teams for "diversity". We had diversity with 16 - and certainly with 32 - and we didn't have to hugely compromise the quality and engage in gigantism to get it. As for the kids getting to see their sides on the big stage, absolutely. But you need to be worth your place on that stage. If Germany break scoring records against Curacao, I'm not sure that's doing those kids much good.

The logical conclusion of your argument is to do away with qualifying and give a ticket to everyone in the name of diversity. Infantino's eyes would light up at the prospect.

But, you're right: who cares. Nobody is forced to watch. I'll start at the knockout stage.
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I love the irony of your first two sentences, very well played 👏

I agree with the premise that a 48 team world cup is too bloated, 32 seems the ideal number for me.

But I think the points you make are typical of looking solely through the lens of the "big-ish nations" and ignoring the needs of the smaller nations.

Yes - Curucao will likely benefit from participating, even if they do get thrashed by Germany. The same as countries like Saudi Arabia benefited from participating, when they went from losing 8-0 to Germany in 2002, to beating the eventual champions Argentina 2-1 in 2022. Those results don't happen if we block their participation.

The logical conclusion of your argument is to only let the 4 teams that have a chance of winning it qualify. Or are you happy for the also-rans to participate as long as they come from Europe?
 
WA Toffee said:
I love the irony of your first two sentences, very well played 👏

I agree with the premise that a 48 team world cup is too bloated, 32 seems the ideal number for me.

But I think the points you make are typical of looking solely through the lens of the "big-ish nations" and ignoring the needs of the smaller nations.

Yes - Curucao will likely benefit from participating, even if they do get thrashed by Germany. The same as countries like Saudi Arabia benefited from participating, when they went from losing 8-0 to Germany in 2002, to beating the eventual champions Argentina 2-1 in 2022. Those results don't happen if we block their participation.

The logical conclusion of your argument is to only let the 4 teams that have a chance of winning it qualify. Or are you happy for the also-rans to participate as long as they come from Europe?
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The logical conclusion of my argument is to keep the World Cup at 32 nations - enough room for small nations to qualify on merit. Nobody is blocking small countries from competing. I'm Irish. We block ourselves by not being good enough.
 
ftk43 said:
Not sure how you got to the logical conclusion of my argument - my argument is that if we take DR Congo for example: they beat Cameroon and Nigeria on their way to the play-offs, both of those countries are African giants and mainstays of the World Cup.

Curacao is another thing - but it's not like CONCACAF didn't send at least one weak team to the World Cup when it was 32 teams - Panama in 2018, Trinidad in 2006 etc.
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Indeed - and now CONCACAF is sending three extra weak teams because of the particular peculiarities of this format.

I agree with you that there must be a path for small countries - but FIFA have created a superhighway for small countries not because they want to "grow the game" but because it means more votes for Infantino from the beneficiaries - national FA kleptocrats. So we end up with bloat and, as we will likely see, a largely unwatchable group phase with almost zero jeopardy and lots of colourful head-patting.

I suppose, I grew up when making World Cups was a huge achievement and the group stages were full of jeopardy because the standard was so high. You had the odd "developing country" being outclassed, of course, but generally 16 teams ensured stiff competition. Infantino was all set to have 16 groups of 3 for this World Cup until he saw the last round of group matches in Qatar. The drama then, with two teams qualifying from each group, led to a change of heart. We would go back to four-team groups. Sadly, he seems to have forgotten that the bloat to 48 now means 8 third-placed sides will also progress. We're going to see the consequences of that this summer. My point is, if you are going to bloat, the format needs to maintain as much jeopardy as it can. This one won't do that. Funnily enough, an expansion to 64 is now inevitably the "solution" to this - but it means two from each group would qualify and, thus, increases jeopardy to some extent. What's another 16 teams, after all.

I suppose I'll just have to get used to a defunt group stage and watch at the new knockout stage, the last 32. Jeopardy aplenty from there - and still plenty of diversity.
 
arch stanton said:
one of my mates from work goes to watch England home and away, he's got tickets and is going. He has an interesting past, included getting banged up for lobbing plastic furniture across various town centres around the world so I wouldnt be surprised if he ends up doing some time at His Donalds Pleasure
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I may be wrong but I'd bet money that he's a Coventry City supporter. It's the ones you least expect it from.
 
LinekersLegs said:
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Got no idea why people would want to pay anything like that to go to these games.

Hopefully we see half empty stadiums at plenty of games.

After Russia and then Qatar, I didn't think we would witness such a farce but US is going to be even worse. I mean one team still might not go because the host country are bombing them a few months after the president winning the first ever FIFA peace prize!!
 
Rita_Poon said:
club wembley expanded at a corporate level.

"I was there and didn't see a kick!"
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