Euro 2016

[Cloakmaster]

Wiht the Euro Tounrments It's really difficult, since you have only 53 Team in Qualification stage. 24 means nerarly half of them.

With the World Cup I am fantasizing about a somewhat off-balnced System:

35 Teams in 7 Groups of 5.

Distribution:

UEFA - 12,5
CAF - 7
AFC - 5,5
OFC - 1,5
CONCAAF - 6,5
Title Holder - 1
Host Country - 1

If the World Cup has two Host Countries, that Confederation looses one of its Qualification spots. If both Hosts come from two Confederations, each looses 0,5 Spots.

Each Group should be allocated to one "home" City (Any Host Country shuold have at least 7 suitable, somewaht bigger stadia ) where each team has two "home" matches of its four group matches.
"Away" games can be in anohter 7 Cities/stadiums or - depending on the possibilites of the Host - more or less than 7.

Groups of 5 mean 5 Matchdays with 4 matches per team. Teams could be seeded (after FIFA table) giving the Top seeded team the no-match on Matchday 3.

Winners and 2nd placed teams along with two ("lucky loosers") 3rd placed teams begin the KO-Stage.

Winner A - 2nd/3rd B*
Winner B - 2nd/3rd C*
Winner C - 2nd/3rd A*
Winner D - 2nd/3rd E*
Winner E - 2nd/3rd D*
Winner F - 2nd/3rd G*
Winner G - 2nd/3rd G*
2nd A-G - 2nd A-G

*If the 3rd placed team is qualified, the 3rd placed will play the winner of the opposing Group. Else the 2nd of that Group.

1. It becomes more imporant to be good in Group Stage. Becomming 2nd of four is easier than becoming 2nd of 5. And no one can bet to be good enogh to advance as one of the two 3rd placed teams.

2. More than 50% of the Teams will go home after Group stage.

3. The number of matches in Total is still bearable. The Tournament wohl last just 5 days longer than before.

4. Title Holder has his directy Entry back.

5. More teams from all over the world, so it's more "World" in the Cup. With 208 Nations in Total, ther shuold be some space for 35 of them.


For Europe, i Would not Mind a Round of 20, with 4 Groups of 5 Teams. I like that better than 24 teams. And somewhat better than 16, because i Don't like the concept to keep 50% of the teams after the Group stage.

[Forza AZ]

I still believe for 24 teams the World Cup 1982 is the best system. No 3rd placed teams qualifying for the next round, but have another group stage (4 groups of 3) followed by the semi finals.
A variant could be to first have a knock-out stage and then 2 3-team semi final groups, to avoid directly having groups with 2 groupwinners and other groups with only 1 groupwinner.

This way you don't have an advantage being drawn in a group that plays thei last MD late.
To make the 3-team groups as interesting as possible you can have the order of the 2nd and 3rd match determined by the result of the 1st (loser 1st match plays the 3rd team first, so the final group match won't ever be useless; this system is used in Dutch lower league promotion play-offs).

Another option might be to have 4 groups of 6. However that will make the number of matches for the finalist 8 (if you go straight to QF's) or even 9 (if you go to 1/8 finals first). That might be a bit to much.


For the qualifying I already read already UEFA might not take the current system with 9 groups (top 2 + best 3rd qualify, other 3rd's in play-offs).
But go for 2 seperate rounds with groups of 4 with the winners qualifying for the final tournament. Losers of round 1 get another chance in round 2.

[HibeeJibee]

Groups of 3 are unfair as someone misses each matchday, last especially.

[Forza AZ]

Groups of 3 are unfair as someone misses each matchday, last especially.

In the system I propose teams can influence if they are the one that misses the last MD. Since the winner of MD-1 will get to play in MD-3.

I agree that groups of 3 are not ideal, but it is a better system then having 3 3rd placed teams qualify for the 1/8 finals, since then being in 1 of the last groups that play is an advantage. Unless all last MD games are played at the same time. But that will never happen in a Euro.

[SHEV]

UEFA - 12,5
CAF - 7
AFC - 5,5
OFC - 1,5
CONCAAF - 6,5
Title Holder - 1
Host Country - 1

You can't be serious )

[Michael S Collins]

Groups of 3 are unfair as someone misses each matchday, last especially.

In the system I propose teams can influence if they are the one that misses the last MD. Since the winner of MD-1 will get to play in MD-3.

I agree that groups of 3 are not ideal, but it is a better system then having 3 3rd placed teams qualify for the 1/8 finals, since then being in 1 of the last groups that play is an advantage. Unless all last MD games are played at the same time. But that will never happen in a Euro.

Invariably in a "best 3rd places" tournament, 4 points is enough, and the last time it wasn't, the very last team to play was the one KO'd! (Canada)

It's use in the Copa America often leads to a far more adventurous tournament, so I am not opposed it to being tested here.

[Cloakmaster]

UEFA - 12,5
CAF - 7
AFC - 5,5
OFC - 1,5
CONCAAF - 6,5
Title Holder - 1
Host Country - 1

You can't be serious )

Why not?

[flob]

UEFA - 12,5
CAF - 7
AFC - 5,5
OFC - 1,5
CONCAAF - 6,5
Title Holder - 1
Host Country - 1

A 99% bye for New Zealand + a ridiculous intercontinental playoff?

But I have to admit leaving out CONMEBOL is interesting...

[Cloakmaster]

ARGL, something dropped out! I had a feeling that something was wrong mit that Figures:


New Try.

UEFA 11,5
CAF 5,5
AFC 5
OFC 1
CONMEBOL 6
CONCACAF 4
Host 1
Title Holder 1

I hope now it's better.
I don't like the Idea of 0,5 Places for OFC meaning that one Area might be completly excluded from the "World" Cup. And 1 Place still looks somewhat unfair to me, so is was up to 1,5. (Maye by moving Australia Back to OFC in the process)
Reduciing UEFA's Places is given to the fact that mostly Title Holder and/or Host Contry come from UEFA anyway. Maybe it would be a good idea to reshape these confederations altogether.
For Example moving some States from southeast asia towards OFC an resizing the entry spots for AFC and OFC.

There are 209 Nations now Member of FIFA. 53 of them, about 25% are from UEFA. But UEFA has more than 33% Participants in the World Cup.

OK, i am from Europe and shupld be happy about this. But I don't think it agrees with the general Ides of a World Cup.

[JK]

Reduciing UEFA's Places is given to the fact that mostly Title Holder and/or Host Contry come from UEFA anyway.

You overlooked the fact, that the title holder isn't automatically qualified.
And the next two WC won't be in Europe.

[Cloakmaster]

JK: YOU are overlooking, that i am favorizing the World Cup to be expanded to 35 teams, including a renewed automatic slot for the Title holder.

And "Mostly" does not mean "Always". So far, 10 out of 19 World Cup Tournament have taken place in Europe. Taking the next two World Cups into Account it is 10 out of 21, still nealry 50% for one out of 6 Confederations.

I'd rather favor 3 slots each for AFC and OFC, but of course this means transfering several nations from AFC to OFC at the same time.

[SHEV]

There are 209 Nations now Member of FIFA. 53 of them, about 25% are from UEFA. But UEFA has more than 33% Participants in the World Cup.

OK, i am from Europe and shupld be happy about this. But I don't think it agrees with the general Ides of a World Cup.

But giving CONMEBOL 18% spots, when they are only 4% of total FIFA members is ok with you? )

In your logic CONMEBOL should have 1,5 spots.

It's ridiculous to distribute spots like that. Makes absolutely no sense. Let's divide Andorra into 1000 different states and get all the spots in WC.

Maybe let's distribute spots in European Cups by population of each European country? Or by size? Or by number of clubs? Or by number of wild animals in the woods? No, it's always strength that dictates how many clubs should each have.

[Cloakmaster]

Of Cousre you can't distribute everything it exaclty according to procentual share. But some more "eqaulizing" should be possible.

It is somewhat similar to Champions League: A third, fourth, maybe even 6th oer 7th placed team from Spain oder england will still be stronger and more competitive in Champions Leage than the Champions from San Mario, Romania oder Belarus. But a Champions League should (mostly) consist of Champions versus Champions and not of Spain&England against "the others".
That Change was made in 2009/20110.

And therefore a WORLD Cup should have Participants from all over the World, and not UEFA against "the others" or maybe a 3-way action: UEFA, South America and "the rest".

all this, of course, within certain limits. UEFA will always be the most potent confederation, even if they loose some of thier merits.

[JK]

One full spot for OFC is too much in all kinds of scenarios. Only 11 countries are trying to qualify from there. 9 of those countries are tiny island states with less than 1 million inhabitants. And the remaining two bigger countries New Zealand and Papua New Guinea are not world class teams. 0.5 spots are enough for them.

Personally I would like it, if CONCACAF and CONMEBOL have together a qualification phase for the WC. The same with AFC and OFC. CONMEBOL and OFC don't have many members, so it it possible. But I know it won't happen.

I am definitely against less places for the UEFA in the near future. There are just too many good countries in Europe. Already a lot of them have practically no chance to qualify, although they would have a good shot at it in other associations. Other associations have to get better first, before I would agree with less UEFA places.

[Cloakmaster]

As I said before, a World Cup should not only and exclusively be between the best teams possible. If You want this you can reduce the Word Cup to a semifinal wiht Brazil, Argentinia, England and Spain.

It also is about the World. Reducing UEFA places to 11,5 would effectively reduce by 1, since mostly the UEFA team will win its playoff. So its at least 12 teams, compared to 13 as they have now. In addition to the Title Holder and Host Country spots, you will mostly still have the 13 teams you have now, maybe even 14 spots.

With the changes there is also the option to reshape the confederations, or conduct special regional qualification zones for the World cup. Or why not 2 or even 3 playoff Spots for UEFA, so 11 fix and adidional 3 in playoffs?

You idea of a jonit qualifications fro CONCACF/CONMEBOL and AFC/OFC goes in exactly the same direction. (But then you could add AFC/UEFA to that list)

But the main Idea is the expansion from 32 to 35 Countries. Ways of Qualifications may vary.