The International Football Federations Thread

[The Lusophone]

If it means an automatic place for an Oceania team, then I think I'm all for this

[Adam]

Add a 5th South American spot, automatic Oceanian, an extra African, North American and Asian place and play offs between every continent for the remaining 3 places and job's a good un. I'm fine with expanding it to 40 to be honest, the more the merrier.

[stokeriño]

I could see a split along the lines of...

Asia - 7
Africa - 8
North America - 5
South America - 5
Oceania - 1
Europe - 14

That would give Asia, Africa and North America all roughly 1 spot per 6.5 to 7 countries. South America is never going to get more than 5 with only 10 countries in it. Oceania is never going to get more than 1 even with 22 countries to share between. Europe will get a minor bone thrown to it with one more but their ratio will still be 3.7 countries per spot.

[Colly]

I'm just not a fan of tournament numbers that don't give an even split down to the knockouts. 64 teams or bust.

[DavidMarrio]

How would 40 teams work. Top 3 qualify from 10 groups of 4? That would leave potentially 2 extra teams so two best 4th placed teams? To make it 32?

Can't they just keep it simple...

[stokeriño]

Eight groups of five, top two go through to the Last 16?

[MDK]

It should just be all FIFA teams plus some of the nonsense teams like Sealand, Vatican etc, in a straight up knockout tournament. Brazil vs St Kitts, Ireland vs Doctor Congo, Sealand vs Gaza!

[Meacon Keaton]

2 hours ago, stokeriño said:

Eight groups of five, top two go through to the Last 16?

I'd be ok with this, if they're intent on changing it. Gives everybody an extra match in the tournament and doesn't create a weird amount of groups where you'll potentially have group winners playing other group winners in the first round of 16.

[Lineker]

My worry about the tournament increasing to 40 teams is how much longer it'll make the tournament.

[GA!]

1 hour ago, MDK said:

It should just be all FIFA teams plus some of the nonsense teams like Sealand, Vatican etc, in a straight up knockout tournament. Brazil vs St Kitts, Ireland vs Doctor Congo, Sealand vs Gaza!

Read that as Sealand vs. @Gazz. I reckon he could take down those shipping containers.

[METALMAN]

I don't think it should be changed.

Let's look at the European Championships. It was good at 16 teams. The quality was high and nearly every game was meaningful. Now that it's 24 teams, not only do you have some really poor quality teams participating, you also have three getting through from some groups, meaning that so many group games are utterly pointless.

Can imagine similar happening for the World Cup. 32 teams is just right.

I mean, both models give Scotland a better chance of qualifying, but I don't give a toss about that. I'd rather be entertained.

[stokeriño]

Yeah, but you really need to come up a money-orientated reason not to do it. Got any of those?  

[METALMAN]

I am less likely to go to the pub and watch the likes of Iceland v Hungary than I am to watch games at a properly competitive tournament. That's some pub and some brewery lost the price of a pint from me. :/

[EddieG]

Eh, the World Cup used to be fine at 16, the Euros used to have 8, expansion is normal, it keeps happening.

Let's not dismiss the 24 teams at Euro '16 until it's actually happened, mmk?

[METALMAN]

That point would be relevant if I ever claimed the World Cup was fine at 16 or the Euros were fine at 8. Plus, you use two examples of expansion to claim that it's normal.

It's not normal. See:

World Cup 1930 - 13 teams
1934-38 - 16 teams
1950 - 13 teams 
54-78 - 16 teams
82-94 - 24 teams
98-2022 - 32 teams

We'll dismiss World Cups 1930 and 1950 as anomalies because they were intended to have 16 teams. We're left with the World Cup having expanded twice. Between 1934 and 2022 that's two expansions in 88 years, or one expansion every 44 years. Two expansions in 20 tournaments between 1934 and 2022 (not counting the 1950 anomaly). 10% of World Cups are expansion tournaments. Expansion is not normal.

Expansion is normal; it keeps happening. Just look at the Premier League...oh...wait. It had 22 teams until 1995, didn't it?

But let's put that to the side. Even if it was normal, that doesn't make it good, or okay. Cancer is normal; divorces are normal; Conservative governments are normal. 

So let's put "normal" to the side. 32 is good for a World Cup. There are enough good teams to keep it interesting. It's nicely divisible. Same goes for the Euros and 16 teams. 40 and 24 team tournaments are silly. It will create daft meaningless games with daft meaningless teams. It will drag on too long. I will get bored.

I can dismiss it now if I like. I can do so on the basis of the turgid group stage affairs created by 24 team World Cups. And also because I just, like, can.

 

[The Lusophone]

21 minutes ago, metalman said:

It will drag on too long. I will get bored.
 

Maybe you need to work on improving your attention span?

[METALMAN]

Ha! No!

Football needs to work on attracting my attention. There are a lot of things competing for my attention and I've only watched two football games since the World Cup. Football needs to work on improving its entertainment value. My attention span is just fine thank..

...

...what was I writing about again?

Spoiler

What about that joke, eh? Reckon I could teach football a thing or two about improving entertainment value.

 

[Colly]

Restating myself, but I'm happy with any setup that doesn't involve 'best 3rd place' teams going through. It's fupping stupid.

[MDK]

https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/4d5ki3/theres_a_bizarre_situation_in_u17_euro_2016/

This is weird. TL;DR is that if Austria lose to France, then Greece or Iceland (who are playing eachother) have more chance of qualifying if they end in a score draw than if they actually win. 

[MDK]

Best own goal