Men's Football FIFA World Cup 2022

[LDOG 2,470]

Personally I would do it this way:  

  

-12 groups of 4 teams each.  

-1st, 2nd and the best 8 3rd placed teams advance to a round of 32.  

-after the group phase all 32 teams that advance are ranked by their performance in group stage (like in the recent men's volleyball WCh) this creates an incentive for every team to do their best every match. 

-but you don't make the KO brackets just from that: you separate the teams into 4 pots and conduct another draw before the knockout stage. This is important in order to make sure you won't see teams trying to "pick" opponents by getting a specific result in their last group game. 

 

Knockout stage draw format:

 

Pot 1: Top 8 performing group winners. 

 

Pot 2: 4 remaining group winners + top 4 performing group runners up.  

 

Pot 3: 8 remaining runner up teams.

 

Pot 4: the 8 3rd placed teams. 

 

Teams from pot 1 can only draw teams from pot 4 in this draw. Teams from pot 2 only draw teams from pot 3. 

 

You also make sure all pot 1 teams are drawn into different Quarterfinal brackets (which is basically what we're doing in the current world cup format with the top 8 seeded teams before the tournament).

 

 

Convoluted? Yes. But this is the fairest thing they can do I think.

[heywoodu 16,010]

But how are you going to compare the performances in different groups? Netherlands getting 7 points against Ecuador, Senegal and Qatar would mean the Netherlands is ranked better - basically due to an extremely lucky draw - than say Japan getting 6 points but against Germany and Spain, even though for all intents and purposes Japan's performance is significantly better?

Edited December 5, 2022 by heywoodu

[LDOG 2,470]

1 minute ago, heywoodu said:

But how are you going to compare the performances in different groups? Netherlands getting 7 points against Ecuador, Senegal and Qatar would mean the Netherlands is ranked better - basically due to an extremely lucky draw - than say Japan getting 6 points but against Germany and Spain, even though for all intents and purposes Japan's performance is significantly better?

-with 48 teams and 12 groups the quality teams would be much more evenly distributed in different groups.  

  

-Japan should have improved their world ranking during the previous 4 years in order to get an easier draw.   

-we should avoid seeding weak teams like Qatar in the highest pots. Everyone, even host teams, should be seeded according to their world ranking.

[rafalgorka 1,808]

@LDOG this is very interesting but that’s just too many matches in the group stage

[rafalgorka 1,808]

There is no good solution for 48 teams tournament. 32 is ok. 64 would be much too many…

[rafalgorka 1,808]

 

 

LAGA BONITO 💪

 

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by rafalgorka

[thepharoah 2,413]

 

 

Summary of WC so far 

[Dunadan 1,103]

At this point, 12 groups of 4 and then go straight for a world ranking based draw for the 32 qualified teams (with at least 4 pots. 8 if you want to make it extreme). An incentive to take every match in the 4-year cycle seriously.

[hckošice 15,535]

and this is why I believe (the extra point rule with the head-2-head result being the main ond only tie-breaker) used in Hockey will solve this and I can guarantee you that all matches even in 3 teams groups will count and be played for the win from all teams

[heywoodu 16,010]

The only real solution is either 32 or 64 teams, and the latter is way too many. Or 16, of course, as long as it results in a number with which one can make groups of 4 in such an amount that we don't need the unfair 'best third-placed teams' nonsense before going to knockout stages.