Do we need to change the World Cup format?

This newsletter is coming out a bit late. At this point the World Cup knockout rounds have been in full force and no one is thinking about the group stage anymore. This has been the World Cup of too much. Too much football, too much content. The news cycle moved past the flaws of the group stage long ago. However, since I couldn’t even keep up with my own World Cup related emails, how could I expect anyone to read this one? Therefore I decided to wait until we finally had a few days off to send this one out, timing be damned.

As predicted the football at this World Cup has been delivering. My fear coming into the tournament was that the group stage would look like what’s become of the expanded Euros. The group stage in that tournament has become too many teams playing very conservative football, knowing that with the best third place sides progressing through, they had a bit of a safety net. It produced very drab games and made the group stages particularly boring and unmemorable.

That is… not what’s happened at this World Cup. Despite the third place “safety net” teams showed up ready to play. The games were fun, some thrilling goals were scored, and, most importantly, the stars have absolutely balled out. The golden ball race features the biggest names in the sport. Hell we had a day where Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi, and Erling Haaland all scored at least two goals each. I’m sorry, that actually happened twice.

This is literally everything you could have hoped for in the tournament. And yet the group stage still felt like it was missing something rather important. Jeopardy.

The expanded tournament has meant a change in format. We all know 32 teams was perfect. 48 teams is not. Expansion, by definition, also means we’re letting in weaker teams. Now, none of the new teams that were included were particularly bad. Nearly everyone at this tournament represented themselves really well. Cape Verde holding Spain to a draw in their first ever World Cup match was a great story, but it never felt like this put Spain in any jeopardy of not getting out of their group1.

Adding these teams does expand the safety net though. The 2022, 2018, and 2010 World Cups each had two (of eight) groups with one team finishing with zero points (in 2014 there were three groups). This year there were six groups that featured a team picking up no points. Having a free three points like that is a huge advantage considering that four points is enough to send you through.

When the draw was initially made all eyes quickly focused on Group I, which featured France, Norway, Senegal, and Iraq. In the old days this would be labelled “the group of death” given that France, Norway, and Senegal were all strong teams more than capable of reaching the round of 16, except only two of them would. But with the new format everyone assumed all three would progress. They did. And while Senegal left themselves no room for error, they had the best goal difference of any of the third place teams.

There is a positive side to so many teams failing to pick up a point. Since the Euros expanded to 24 teams, twice we’ve had teams draw all three group games and go through2 - including, famously, Portugal in 2016 who went on to win the whole thing. As Iran found out, you couldn’t do that in this tournament. You had to actually win a game to go through.

The group stages of this World Cup felt a lot like the League Phase of the expanded Champions League. Two years ago the Champions League expanded from 32 to 36 teams, eliminating that perfect the top two teams in each group advance format for one league table where teams play eight games and at the end only 12 are eliminated. On any given match day there will be a really good and fun game going on, the trick is figuring out which one it is since it’s usually not the one featuring the two biggest names.

The format is ultra forgiving and leaves almost everyone still alive for something on the final day. This creates a fantastic matchday 8 where almost everyone has something to play for and the table swings wildly. That day always delivers that drama. It’s so good that it could make you forget those Liverpool-Real Madrid or PSG-Bayern matches in October really don’t matter.

That was the group stage of this World Cup. Good games but very low stakes. There’s just one difference. Prior to the tournament FIFA quietly changed the tie breaker rules from goal difference to head to head. I happen to like this change. It ever so slightly raises the stakes of those early group stage matches however there’s no denying it significantly decreased the drama of match day three. Most of the groups were already decided and most fourth placed teams were already eliminated.

The drama was in the slow burn of watching third place teams, who had already played, desperately try to hold on to their qualification place. That’s not compelling and it’s a flaw of the format.

It should come as no surprise that it didn’t take long for people to start talking about expanding the tournament to 64 teams in order to fix this format flaw. I even saw rumors (full disclosure that I have no idea of the validity of them) that FIFA was already considering this.

There are so many reasons that 64 teams would be a terrible idea. Too many to list here as this is a topic that really deserves it’s own post (coming soon). While 64 teams would allow you to get back to the coveted “only the top two teams in each group advance” jeopardy that the tournament needs, you don’t actually need to expand in order to achieve that goal.

This year the third round of matches exposed yet another flaw with the current setup. In the aforementioned Group I France and Norway each won their opening two games setting up a massive winner take all match to decide the group winner.

This was the best case scenario. These were two of the best teams in the first two rounds. Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland had each been delivering the good and now were going to throw it down on the same pitch. This was a game everyone wanted to see.

Except Norway decided the game didn’t matter. The Norwegians made nine changes to their team, leaving Haaland and all their other top players on the bench. Winning the group just wasn’t important to them. That seems to be a flaw. There should be an incentive to winning your group.

Now let’s be fair here. There was probably some bracket manipulation going on here. Had Norway won the group it was looking like they’d have a potential round of 16 match against Germany3. They decided they’d rather take their chances with a fresher team in a potential matchup with Brazil4. Bracket manipulation isn’t anything new or something that’s caused by this new format. England’s run to the 2018 World Cup was undoubtedly helped out by the fact that they lost their final group game against Belgium which gave them a far easier path through the knockouts - something they knew would be the case going into that match.

There should never be a scenario where a team has an incentive not to win it’s game. With the expansion to 48 teams we have the opportunity to fix that.

They will say that winning your group gives you the benefit of getting a better draw. Eight group winners get drawn against third place teams, which is better than being drawn against a runner up.

There’s just two problems with that. The first is which group winners face third place teams is determined, in advance, by a random draw. Not every group even has the chance to play for that “reward.” The second is, there’s no such thing as an “easy” draw. Germany found that out the hard way when they were eliminated by Paraguay.

We’ve also seen this in the expanded Champions League. In the first year, Manchester City f***ed around in the league phase and found out when they were drawn against Real Madrid in the playoffs. A year later they took care of business and finished in the top eight, only to be drawn against… Real Madrid in the round of 16. In 2024-25 Liverpool topped the league phase, only to be drawn against PSG.

It’s the World Cup, no matter what you’re going to draw a difficult opponent. The value in the tournament is advancing.

The fix to all this is easy. We only have to look as far as the Champions League.

While 24 of the 36 teams advance from the Champions League League Phase, the top eight go directly to the round of 16. The next 16 teams compete in the playoffs for the right to join them.

All FIFA needs to do is adopt the same format. Only the top two teams from each group advance, but now the top eight group winners advance straight to the round of 16. This fixes the problem of the stakes not being high enough in the group stages and gives teams the incentive to actually try and win their group.

All it would cost FIFA is having eight fewer matches in the knockout rounds. That would mean eight fewer games of revenue. In the grand scheme of the World Cup eight games is just a drop in the hat for what FIFA is bringing in. The effect would be something like two fewer football pitches are built around the world while the suits that totally aren’t lining their pockets with money line it with just a little less money.

If FIFA wanted to make the World Cup the best possible event, they’d forgo that money and change the format. But we have to remember FIFA doesn’t necessarily want to do that. FIFA isn’t in the business of putting on the best posssible event, they’re in the business of making the most amount of money. Gianni Infantino’s presidential campaign was literally based on increasing FIFA’s revenue.

The World Cup is already really good. It could be better but FIFA doesn’t need it to be better. Even if the group stage lacks jeopardy and there are too many dead rubbers, you’re still watching it.

The federations aren’t going to want to contract things either. More teams advancing from the group stage means more highlights and exposure for smaller countries. More managers can put “got team out of the group” on their C/V. Weaker teams advancing to the knockout round gives more managers a chance to put “won a knockout game” on their C/V.

Share Kwest Thoughts

I started writing this at the tail end of the group stage. I’m finishing this in between the round of 16 and the quarterfinals and it’s leading me to ask the question, is FIFA actually right?

The United States’ win over Bosnia in the round of 32 may feel like a token resume builder so the program can say they (finally) won a knockout game but guess what, winning knockout games is a lot of fun! Despite the controversial Balogun red card the vibes were really high for the next few days as anticipation built towards the round of 16.

The US’s embarrassing loss to Belgium stings even worse because of how high the expectations of the team were. Those expectations were high because so many people started believing in the team, we started believing that this team could really make a run in the tournament. Isn’t that what the World Cup is about? A country getting behind their team and believing?

The Bosnia match played a big part in that. Is that something we’d want to give up in exchange for a free pass to the round of 16 (yes, my proposal the US would have ranked as the 11th best group winner and would have played in the round of 32 anyway)? Is it better for the fans, the momentum, the vibes, to play a competitive third group game only to not play for another eight(ish) days as opposed to having a dead rubber but playing a fiercely competitive match five days later to keep the vibes going?

I’m not even positive the players would like this. The World Cup is a dream and it doesn’t come around often. Players want to play more World Cup games, not less. If you told a player they were going to lose in the round of 16 I’m pretty sure they’d rather play a knockout game (and win) then earn a bye to get them straight there.

I hate admitting FIFA won because the format really is so dumb. We should be doing whatever we can to minimize dead rubbers and always be incentivizing teams to win. But knockout games are great. Winning knockout games is huge for the fanbase and the vibes.

The format may be dumb but, maybe it doesn’t need to be changed after all?

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