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From: Mark on 16 Jul 2010 07:10
The thinking behind this is that hopefully it will give a better
indication of who the top 8 or so teams in the world really are.

32 teams, as is currently the case. 8 groups of 4.

Only the 8 group winners go through.

Quarter-finals: 2 groups of 4 like they had in 1974 and 1978. The top
2 go through.

Final round: 4 team round-robin group like they had in 1950.

Alternatively, if it isn't going to be too many matches, we could
even have one big group of 8 teams after the 1st round.
From: Clément on 16 Jul 2010 08:05
"Mark" escreveu:
> The thinking behind this is that hopefully it will give a better
> indication of who the top 8 or so teams in the world really are.
>
> 32 teams, as is currently the case. 8 groups of 4.
>
> Only the 8 group winners go through.

I don't like the idea of only group winners advancing. It makes things too
vulnerable to one fluke result (more than they already are) and to draw luck
(groups of death would become groups of massacre).


> Quarter-finals: 2 groups of 4 like they had in 1974 and 1978. The top
> 2 go through.

If one likes the idea of a second round robin stage, they could go with the
format other sports (such as ice hockey and volleyball) use, and Anders
proposed here days ago:

- Merge two groups in the following round. The 1st round results between
qualified teams would stand. Let's take this WC's groups A and B as an
example:

Second stage, group 1

A1 Uruguay
A2 Mexico
B1 Argentina
B2 South Korea

Group results (from the 1st stage)
Uruguay 1-0 Mexico
Argentina 4-1 South Korea

Group standings
1. Argentina 3 1-0-0 4-1 +3
2. Uruguay 3 1-0-0 1-0 +1
3. Mexico 0 0-0-1 0-1 -1
4. South Korea 0 0-0-1 1-4 -3

Next matches:
Uruguay - South Korea
Argentina - Mexico
Mexico - South Korea
Uruguay - Argentina


This way, there would be one less match than if each team had to play 3
teams again. Another plus would be that this system would make 1st stage
matches more significant. Remember how Brazil-Portugal wasn't really
meaningful? Not in this system, as Brazil would have a big incentive to try
and win the thing.

Among the cons, the biggest could be that there's significant risk that the
2nd stage's 2nd matchday could become wildly pointless. In the above
example, assume that the first matches went just like their real World Cup
counterparts. We would have this situation:

Group standings
1. Argentina 6 2-0-0 7-2 +5
2. Uruguay 6 2-0-0 3-1 +2
3. Mexico 0 0-0-2 1-4 -3
4. South Korea 0 0-0-2 2-6 -4

Mexico-South Korea would be an uninteresting eliminated teams contest.
Uruguay-Argentina would an interesting contest for 1st place, though, but it
isn't hard to come up with a scenario in which both matches could become
irrelevants (or close to it).

Another possible con. In this World Cup, group stage play was very cautious,
and the games started to pick up as the stakes were higher. While there's no
guarantee this will always be the case, at this time there isn't much of a
case to favor more group stages at the World Cup.


> Final round: 4 team round-robin group like they had in 1950.
>
> Alternatively, if it isn't going to be too many matches, we could
> even have one big group of 8 teams after the 1st round.

For the final round, I don't like it at all. The world champion could be
determined one or more rounds in advance, which is not good for this kind of
event.


Abra�o,

Luiz Mello

From: Raja, The Great on 16 Jul 2010 08:23
On Jul 16, 7:05 am, Clément <lcmello.lis...(a)terra.com.br> wrote:
> "Mark" escreveu:
>
> > The thinking behind this is that hopefully it will give a better
> > indication of who the top 8 or so teams in the world really are.
>
> > 32 teams, as is currently the case. 8 groups of 4.
>
> > Only the 8 group winners go through.
>
> I don't like the idea of only group winners advancing. It makes things too
> vulnerable to one fluke result (more than they already are) and to draw luck
> (groups of death would become groups of massacre).

Shouldn't the world Cup be a cup of massacre? Only the absolute best
with no slip-ups win it? The problem with 2 teams advancing out of 4
is group games are boring as teams know they can finish second with a
draw or two.
From: JCQ on 17 Jul 2010 10:16
On Jul 16, 7:10 am, Mark <Pammieshe...(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> The thinking behind this is that hopefully it will give a better
> indication of who the top 8 or so teams in the world really are.
>
>  32 teams, as is currently the case. 8 groups of 4.
>
>  Only the 8 group winners go through.
>
>  Quarter-finals: 2 groups of 4 like they had in 1974 and 1978. The top
> 2 go through.
>
>  Final round: 4 team round-robin group like they had in 1950.
>
>  Alternatively, if it isn't going to be too many matches, we could
> even have one big group of 8 teams after the 1st round.

1982 was a pretty good format in my opinion. 24 teams with 12 teams in
the second round (4 groups of 3). The winners move on to the semi
finals. I don't like the knockout stage because football is full of
draws so it's best to avoid them until at least the semi finals. FIFA
likes 32 teams but we can all see that there are too many bad teams.
Still it does make it more exciting for more countries. I don't know a
good solution for a 32 team tournament that wouldn't mean extra games.
From: JCQ on 17 Jul 2010 10:23
On Jul 16, 7:10 am, Mark <Pammieshe...(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> The thinking behind this is that hopefully it will give a better
> indication of who the top 8 or so teams in the world really are.
>
>  32 teams, as is currently the case. 8 groups of 4.
>
>  Only the 8 group winners go through.
>
>  Quarter-finals: 2 groups of 4 like they had in 1974 and 1978. The top
> 2 go through.
>
>  Final round: 4 team round-robin group like they had in 1950.
>
>  Alternatively, if it isn't going to be too many matches, we could
> even have one big group of 8 teams after the 1st round.

1982 was a pretty good format in my opinion. 24 teams with 12 teams in
the second round (4 groups of 3). The winners move on to the semi
finals. I don't like the knockout stage because football is full of
draws so it's best to avoid extra time until at least the semi finals.
FIFA
likes 32 teams but we can all see that there are too many bad teams.
Still it does make it more exciting for more countries. I don't know a
good solution for a 32 team tournament that wouldn't mean extra games.
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