It’s a much better way of doing it than the stupid three team plan. Would’ve meant that there was a 50/50 chance your first group game was the other team’s last one. They were also going to have penalties after a draw in the group stage to eliminate the issue of all three games ending 0-0, 1-1, etc.
Not a fan of tournaments where finishing 3rd in a group of 4 gives you a 66% chance of progressing. It subdues the drama of the last group games. It's better than the stupid 3 team group idea though.
If they're adamant on having a 48 team tournament I would prefer an initial 'qualifying round' between say the 32 lowest ranked teams. The 16 winners then go through to the group stage to join the other 16 teams in 8 groups of 4.
Not a fan of tournaments where finishing 3rd in a group of 4 gives you a 66% chance of progressing. It subdues the drama of the last group games. It's better than the stupid 3 team group idea though.
If they're adamant on having a 48 team tournament I would prefer an initial 'qualifying round' between say the 32 lowest ranked teams. The 16 winners then go through to the group stage to join the other 16 teams in 8 groups of 4.
Agree. Would’ve preferred them to go with 40 teams and 8 groups of 5 than either of the two options to date. Only issue with that though is you don’t have all the teams in the group playing at the same time like with the three team plan.
I think they should just get straight to the inevitable conclusion whereby all 200 odd nations play each other home and away twice in a league structure before the top 128 teams go through to the knockout stages.
I think they should just get straight to the inevitable conclusion whereby all 200 odd nations play each other home and away twice in a league structure before the top 128 teams go through to the knockout stages.
It’s obviously because they are worried some of the big boys won’t qualify like Italy this time.
Solution they have a selected group that auto qualify and the rest like Scotland and Wales play to qualify, so the leagues can carry on and we don’t have to have these awful international breaks.