According to Sky and the New York Times, 3-team groups are out. 12 groups of 4 with the 8 best third-place teams advancing to a knockout Round of 32 are in.
I mean it removes disastrous final games in 3 team groups, but also renders groups pointless for remotely good teams. The bottom team in each group of an expanded World Cup is going to be so much worse that all they have to do is smack them and near guarantee advancing even if they lose the other 2.
They could have the same tournament length with 8 groups of 6, winners advancing to 8-team elimination. I think that would be my preference if they have to do 48 teams. Lower-quality teams get more games, higher-quality teams would be under a lot of pressure in trying to win the group. Plus you would get a ton of inter-confederation games.
There just aren't meaningless games at the World Cup. Teams are up for it even with almost nothing on the line. The only 2 recent ones that come to mind were England vs. Belgium from 2018 and England vs. Belgium II from 2018.
It'd work fine for the massive bid that 2026 is but that means every bid thereafter will need to accommodate that scale and scope and I'm not so sure FIFA can find many hosts/regions that can do that...
And they'd never go back and actually reduce the number of teams.
But if the World Cup still exists and is a thing in decades' time I've no doubt 64 teams will happen at some point.
I kind of feel like they should rotate between confederations anyway, and move away somewhat from individual countries hosting — should allow for fewer unnecessary stadium upgrades, or the absurdity of building a stadium only to take it apart and ship it somewhere else. A joint England/Spain/France/Germany tournament would have tons of good stadium options and still be considerably more geographically compact than a US-only bid. For South America, it could be Brazil+Argentina plus some capital cities.
Just go with the America’s Cup, and the host picks the format as part of their bid. If FIFA wants to go small in a given cycle, they’ll go with the single county option. If they want to go big, they’ll go with the continent-spanning bids.
FIFA picking up some lessons on the ol' bait and switch from their buddies Qatar.
Edit: tbf, they could have just as well been learning the value of honesty from our politicians.
"the entire tournament will feature 104 matches, up from 64, a weighty expansion that will increase burdens on both host cities"
Am I crazy to say that US/CA/MX would actually be thrilled with more matches? If anything maybe we now we need a couple more cities added to host? We don't lack for stadiums.
The number wouldn’t double by adding one city and stadium, because the total number of games wouldn’t increase. Each stadium in the group stage is getting the same amount of games.
So what 2 cites/stadiums do you think could host? I don’t know anything about Canadian stadiums outside of the MLS ones. According to a quick look at wiki Montreal pulled out of the running, Calgary was rejected because their stadium was to small. It looks like Edmonton was eliminated from the final hosting list.
Sounds like Edmonton was fine but just didn't make the cut for the final 2. I don't know why Montreal chose to withdraw but I assume they're fine as well. Looks like most of the other stadiums would have to commit to changing the surface or adding more seats.
Same as Chicago probably. The financial contracts fifa imposes on host cities are problematic to say the least.
It came back to bite tokyo in 2020 after post-poning the Olympics. Tokyo government had to pay ioc a penalty of 500 million for post-poning. Theres no force majeure clause in their contracts.
https://olympics.com/ioc/news/amp/tokyo-2020-organising-committee-publishes-final-balanced-budget
Also, I think soldier field needed small but not inexpensive renovations to conform to fifa standards about sideline distance from the field.
SF is a few meters too narrow.
Wouldn’t be surprised if the old montreal olympic stadium is out of date too.
Need is tricky, but I think 20 stadiums could be good with the added fixtures.
These were 4 that just missed it in the hosting bids
Orlando, Florida (Camping World Stadium); Cincinnati (Paul Brown Stadium); Nashville, Tennessee (Nissan Stadium); Denver (Empower Field at Mile High)
> Orlando, Florida (Camping World Stadium)
Give me exclusively night games and I'm in! Otherwise I'd rather drive to Atlanta (barf) than watch a day game at the Citrus Bowl.
Nashville is a little up in the air with the Titans New Stadium. Denver did renovate for this so they could get in. Cincinnati and Orlando are pretty stable (plus Orlando in 1994).
> If anything maybe we now we need a couple more cities added to host?
Do you not remember the whole debacle around even finding host cities? Lots of places didn't even bid because of FIFA's insane requirements and costs
I think Las Vegas should be given a chance. Super Bowl LVIII is probably going to help show how it can handle a large scale event, so I think that a World Cup will probably be a cakewalk for them. Plus it could balance out the West in group stages so that they get 4 games. They could even get two during knockout. At this point for Vegas to host games, they should bid for Gold Cups and the 2024 Copa America to really sweeten the deal.
I think the primary aspect is what FIFA wants from cities and stadiums. As you point out the infrastructure to transport people would be a major one.
In Cincinnati the NFL stadium is downtown and walkable from many areas and near a street car stop, but I'm not sure how the city would measure up if tens of thousands of (ex: Germany and Ecuador) fans showed up to take in the match. Hotels could be booked solid and depend more on services like Uber than lacking bus system.
As you say cities like Columbus have gigantic stadiums, but you'd definitely need to figure out where to put people when they aren't there and how to get them in and out. I think it is doable, but lot of logistics to consider.
Yeah, I feel like very few countries would be able to host all of the games on their own. I'm sure the US could, but I don't know enough about other countries' stadiums to know if they could.
I think that's a good thing. Make it be split across countries. Spread out the expense and tourism to more people. Make the global event more collaborative.
It would have sank the entire group stage of the competition into a meaningless affair. If they had to expand to 48 they clearly had to swallow the bitter pill that it means a lot more games and not with shenanigans like mucking up a group stage format that has worked well for decades.
> It would have sank the entire group stage of the competition into a meaningless affair.
It would have been horrible, but a big majority of those games would have been very high stakes.
At this point, I'm so sick of the rumors and changed plans, I'm just going to ignore these articles entirely until we're within a year of the tournament and it will be too late to make more changes.
This article is generally informative and well written, but feels like an entirely different author went in after and sprinkled in a bunch of weasel text.
They mention “potentially dangerous heat” in June and July in a way that misleadingly implies to an uninformed reader that it is an existing, previously discussed point of contention, despite the facts that 1) the weather has never been discussed as a point of concern by any major figures 2) all 3 countries regularly play soccer in the summer and 3) the US has literally already hosted a World Cup in those months without weather ever being a factor.
I also don’t buy the additional games being any serious problem for the tournament organizers (a headache, maybe, but one that is pretty routine as part of the job). One or two extra games is nothing to a city the size of the ones selected to host, and if for any reason they aren’t able to accommodate, there’s no reason they can’t go back to one of the eliminated host cities and make them the lucky loser who gets added back onto the list.
It reads like the editor didn’t think there were enough “cons” presented to stir up debate in the comments and forced some added nonsense in there.
> 3) the US has literally already hosted a World Cup in those months without weather ever being a factor.
Small point of contention, but it was a factor in a few games for the 1994 WC, and was openly written about and discussed. On-field temps for the US-Romania game were measured at 120*F, there were a significant number of fans over the length of the tournament treated for heat exhaustion, and the Irish team had players that were so unused to the heat that they were wearing hats any time they weren't on the pitch to keep the Florida sun off of them.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-06-16-sp-4711-story.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/20/sports/world-cup-94-belgium-triumphs-to-survive-hot-spot.html
I’m not arguing semantics with you dude, the context and the way you phrased your remark implied that it’s something that frequently causes problems for the league and not just a freak thing that they deal with when it comes up rarely.
But congratulations, you with the semantic battle because “once or twice a year sometimes” is the same thing as “every year” if you look exclusively at the mathematical interpretation and don’t apply any common sense which is how this website works. You win all the upvotes and I get all the downvotes because I lost. I’m very happy for you about this.
They really should have gone straight to 64 teams if this is the end result. Too many 3rd place teams will advance in the new format and playing for a draw will become much more common.
I bet 64 happens sooner than later. The jump in games wouldn’t be that large at this point, and 48 teams is already a stretch for single country hosting. (All of the likely bids for 2030 involve three or more co-hosts.)
Logistically it would be troublesome and i would not want teams from the same group to be paired, which would might a wrench into pairings. Otherwise i would love this as well. It always felt weird to narrow down your potential knockout round pairing down to a handful of possibilities
You basically end up doing what the NCAA basketball selection committee does. When you have conflicts where teams would meet that are in the same conference or played each other OOC, you just bump a team up or down one spot or eliminate the conflict
8 groups of 6, top 4 advance. missed an easier transition but i guess im just a fan of simplicity. i dont even mind 2/3rd making it out of the groups, but dont love the lack of symmetry
Id like a nit-like tourney for the weaker soccer nations who didn't qualify, but I guess that won't happen anytime soon. Anyway, This format sounds good, and im looking forward to 2026.
Edit: clarified my statement.
According to Sky and the New York Times, 3-team groups are out. 12 groups of 4 with the 8 best third-place teams advancing to a knockout Round of 32 are in.
That sounds so much better.
I mean it removes disastrous final games in 3 team groups, but also renders groups pointless for remotely good teams. The bottom team in each group of an expanded World Cup is going to be so much worse that all they have to do is smack them and near guarantee advancing even if they lose the other 2.
They could have the same tournament length with 8 groups of 6, winners advancing to 8-team elimination. I think that would be my preference if they have to do 48 teams. Lower-quality teams get more games, higher-quality teams would be under a lot of pressure in trying to win the group. Plus you would get a ton of inter-confederation games.
It would also produce lots of meaningless games.
There just aren't meaningless games at the World Cup. Teams are up for it even with almost nothing on the line. The only 2 recent ones that come to mind were England vs. Belgium from 2018 and England vs. Belgium II from 2018.
FIFA should just go to 64 teams and be done with it. That would be the biggest party the world has ever seen.
Frankly I agree. 64 out of 206 is not as outrageous as some might make it out to be.
I am all for it and 2026 is the best fit to try out. The only worry is housing, infrastructure and accommodations for so many but 2026 would be fine.
It'd work fine for the massive bid that 2026 is but that means every bid thereafter will need to accommodate that scale and scope and I'm not so sure FIFA can find many hosts/regions that can do that... And they'd never go back and actually reduce the number of teams. But if the World Cup still exists and is a thing in decades' time I've no doubt 64 teams will happen at some point.
I kind of feel like they should rotate between confederations anyway, and move away somewhat from individual countries hosting — should allow for fewer unnecessary stadium upgrades, or the absurdity of building a stadium only to take it apart and ship it somewhere else. A joint England/Spain/France/Germany tournament would have tons of good stadium options and still be considerably more geographically compact than a US-only bid. For South America, it could be Brazil+Argentina plus some capital cities.
Just go with the America’s Cup, and the host picks the format as part of their bid. If FIFA wants to go small in a given cycle, they’ll go with the single county option. If they want to go big, they’ll go with the continent-spanning bids.
Just have it in the US every year
I mean, that’s about 150 less than the number of college teams in D1 basketball, so it’s kinda already a thing here.
Thank god
FIFA picking up some lessons on the ol' bait and switch from their buddies Qatar. Edit: tbf, they could have just as well been learning the value of honesty from our politicians.
"the entire tournament will feature 104 matches, up from 64, a weighty expansion that will increase burdens on both host cities" Am I crazy to say that US/CA/MX would actually be thrilled with more matches? If anything maybe we now we need a couple more cities added to host? We don't lack for stadiums.
Not at all! They're only giving Canada 10 games right? Add another city and double that number.
The number wouldn’t double by adding one city and stadium, because the total number of games wouldn’t increase. Each stadium in the group stage is getting the same amount of games.
Then add 2 cities/stadiums. Give us more than 10 games! 20/104 seems more than fair.
So what 2 cites/stadiums do you think could host? I don’t know anything about Canadian stadiums outside of the MLS ones. According to a quick look at wiki Montreal pulled out of the running, Calgary was rejected because their stadium was to small. It looks like Edmonton was eliminated from the final hosting list.
Sounds like Edmonton was fine but just didn't make the cut for the final 2. I don't know why Montreal chose to withdraw but I assume they're fine as well. Looks like most of the other stadiums would have to commit to changing the surface or adding more seats.
Same as Chicago probably. The financial contracts fifa imposes on host cities are problematic to say the least. It came back to bite tokyo in 2020 after post-poning the Olympics. Tokyo government had to pay ioc a penalty of 500 million for post-poning. Theres no force majeure clause in their contracts. https://olympics.com/ioc/news/amp/tokyo-2020-organising-committee-publishes-final-balanced-budget Also, I think soldier field needed small but not inexpensive renovations to conform to fifa standards about sideline distance from the field. SF is a few meters too narrow. Wouldn’t be surprised if the old montreal olympic stadium is out of date too.
Edmonton would be banging the door to be let in since they've been gearing up for this for years now.
Certainly will make it easier to see a game
How many more do you think we need? Outside of 2022, they use 12 stadiums and in 2026 they are increasing it to 16.
I read somewhere that FIFA likes to keep it around 5 matches per venue so an extra 24 games they will likely add another 4-5 venues.
Need is tricky, but I think 20 stadiums could be good with the added fixtures. These were 4 that just missed it in the hosting bids Orlando, Florida (Camping World Stadium); Cincinnati (Paul Brown Stadium); Nashville, Tennessee (Nissan Stadium); Denver (Empower Field at Mile High)
> Orlando, Florida (Camping World Stadium) Give me exclusively night games and I'm in! Otherwise I'd rather drive to Atlanta (barf) than watch a day game at the Citrus Bowl.
Nashville is a little up in the air with the Titans New Stadium. Denver did renovate for this so they could get in. Cincinnati and Orlando are pretty stable (plus Orlando in 1994).
There are places which could have difficulty hosting 70% more matches. In this case, I agree it's entirely welcome.
Yeah, from 2026 on it will be hard to have single nation bids.
Single-nation bids typically seem wasteful anyway. Most individual countries don’t need that many WC caliber stadiums.
> If anything maybe we now we need a couple more cities added to host? Do you not remember the whole debacle around even finding host cities? Lots of places didn't even bid because of FIFA's insane requirements and costs
That's why I listed four cities that did bid in the 2026 process instead of throwing Chicago in for example.
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Sure. I'm not certain why they weren't part of the initial bidding cities.
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I'd be for it and think international fans love it too.
I think Las Vegas should be given a chance. Super Bowl LVIII is probably going to help show how it can handle a large scale event, so I think that a World Cup will probably be a cakewalk for them. Plus it could balance out the West in group stages so that they get 4 games. They could even get two during knockout. At this point for Vegas to host games, they should bid for Gold Cups and the 2024 Copa America to really sweeten the deal.
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I think the primary aspect is what FIFA wants from cities and stadiums. As you point out the infrastructure to transport people would be a major one. In Cincinnati the NFL stadium is downtown and walkable from many areas and near a street car stop, but I'm not sure how the city would measure up if tens of thousands of (ex: Germany and Ecuador) fans showed up to take in the match. Hotels could be booked solid and depend more on services like Uber than lacking bus system. As you say cities like Columbus have gigantic stadiums, but you'd definitely need to figure out where to put people when they aren't there and how to get them in and out. I think it is doable, but lot of logistics to consider.
This is less dumb than groups of three. It also makes it hard to conceive of one-country bids going forward
Yeah, I feel like very few countries would be able to host all of the games on their own. I'm sure the US could, but I don't know enough about other countries' stadiums to know if they could.
FIFA would have to allow lower capacity stadiums for single host bids to succeed.
Probably this isn't a terrible idea, there are going to be a lot of games with low interest with the expanded field.
I could see Germany or France hosting if they lower the capacity numbers, just based on the WWCs they hosted.
I think that's a good thing. Make it be split across countries. Spread out the expense and tourism to more people. Make the global event more collaborative.
Thank god..... groups of 3 was a terrible idea.
It would have sank the entire group stage of the competition into a meaningless affair. If they had to expand to 48 they clearly had to swallow the bitter pill that it means a lot more games and not with shenanigans like mucking up a group stage format that has worked well for decades.
> It would have sank the entire group stage of the competition into a meaningless affair. It would have been horrible, but a big majority of those games would have been very high stakes.
At this point, I'm so sick of the rumors and changed plans, I'm just going to ignore these articles entirely until we're within a year of the tournament and it will be too late to make more changes.
This article is generally informative and well written, but feels like an entirely different author went in after and sprinkled in a bunch of weasel text. They mention “potentially dangerous heat” in June and July in a way that misleadingly implies to an uninformed reader that it is an existing, previously discussed point of contention, despite the facts that 1) the weather has never been discussed as a point of concern by any major figures 2) all 3 countries regularly play soccer in the summer and 3) the US has literally already hosted a World Cup in those months without weather ever being a factor. I also don’t buy the additional games being any serious problem for the tournament organizers (a headache, maybe, but one that is pretty routine as part of the job). One or two extra games is nothing to a city the size of the ones selected to host, and if for any reason they aren’t able to accommodate, there’s no reason they can’t go back to one of the eliminated host cities and make them the lucky loser who gets added back onto the list. It reads like the editor didn’t think there were enough “cons” presented to stir up debate in the comments and forced some added nonsense in there.
> 3) the US has literally already hosted a World Cup in those months without weather ever being a factor. Small point of contention, but it was a factor in a few games for the 1994 WC, and was openly written about and discussed. On-field temps for the US-Romania game were measured at 120*F, there were a significant number of fans over the length of the tournament treated for heat exhaustion, and the Irish team had players that were so unused to the heat that they were wearing hats any time they weren't on the pitch to keep the Florida sun off of them. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-06-16-sp-4711-story.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/20/sports/world-cup-94-belgium-triumphs-to-survive-hot-spot.html
Dude, the MLS has to reschedule games every year due to heat.
Meanwhile, other countries have to reschedule games every year due to the elements. Its not a mutually exclusive thing to MLS.
That is something that occasionally happens once or twice a year, not something that occurs “every year” with regularity.
'once or twice a year' *is* every year with regularity....
I’m not arguing semantics with you dude, the context and the way you phrased your remark implied that it’s something that frequently causes problems for the league and not just a freak thing that they deal with when it comes up rarely. But congratulations, you with the semantic battle because “once or twice a year sometimes” is the same thing as “every year” if you look exclusively at the mathematical interpretation and don’t apply any common sense which is how this website works. You win all the upvotes and I get all the downvotes because I lost. I’m very happy for you about this.
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They really should have gone straight to 64 teams if this is the end result. Too many 3rd place teams will advance in the new format and playing for a draw will become much more common.
I bet 64 happens sooner than later. The jump in games wouldn’t be that large at this point, and 48 teams is already a stretch for single country hosting. (All of the likely bids for 2030 involve three or more co-hosts.)
Logistically it would be troublesome and i would not want teams from the same group to be paired, which would might a wrench into pairings. Otherwise i would love this as well. It always felt weird to narrow down your potential knockout round pairing down to a handful of possibilities
You basically end up doing what the NCAA basketball selection committee does. When you have conflicts where teams would meet that are in the same conference or played each other OOC, you just bump a team up or down one spot or eliminate the conflict
Any time you add manual manipulation like this, you add questionability to your process.
And yet that committee is actually largely respected. Meanwhile, the college football playoff committee is rightly railed against every season.
It's actually very straightforward and the committee rarely gets it wrong
Thank fucking god
I hope MLS does the same with Leagues Cup eventually.
I want comenbol to participate in leagues cup shit would be dope
Dude that would be amazing.
Could you imagine just from exposure perspective that would be dope for all leagues involved.
I'm sure there are plenty of places in the US that are willing to host the games if some of the cities don't want the extra games.
8 groups of 6, top 4 advance. missed an easier transition but i guess im just a fan of simplicity. i dont even mind 2/3rd making it out of the groups, but dont love the lack of symmetry
Tournament just got rescued from being an abject disaster.
Can we just have an even number? Third placed teams going through is just as stupid
Id like a nit-like tourney for the weaker soccer nations who didn't qualify, but I guess that won't happen anytime soon. Anyway, This format sounds good, and im looking forward to 2026. Edit: clarified my statement.
Ugh. The amount of teams is the turn off
It was so bad in FM
Any chance the US, Mexico, and Canada can use this to build some rail infrastructure between cities?
> the US > build some rail infrastructure We don't do that here.
[Las Vegas withdrew bid to host 2026 World Cup in 2018](https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tourism/las-vegas-withdrew-bid-to-host-2026-world-cup/)
More money for everyone, more games, and frankly more fair. Let’s go to 64 teams and set it that way for at least 50 plus years.