Quote:
Originally Posted by ISiddiqui
I think one of the issues to consider is how long do you want the tournament? Or do you want to squish the games closer together (which would really make the exhaustion obv by the end of the tourney).
If you want proper rest, it'd have to be another week of games... so 5 weeks for the World Cup.
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Realistically, you can't make the groups eight of five teams. While that only expands the number of games played by one for each team, it means two extra rounds of games because each team has to have a bye not playing someone. So it's effectively another eight to ten days added to the schedule, not to mention determining what would be the fairest way to assign those bye dates in the schedule (would it be better to miss the first round and play four straight or play four straight and skip the last or some combination that splits the games around a bye?).
If it ever went to 40, it would more likely go to 10 four team groups and just increase the number of venues and games played per day to account for the additional teams. It would also mean that only the ten group winners would be guaranteed to advance with the six best runners-up joining them, leaving four second-place teams going home. (either that or going to 20 teams in the knockout round with the eight worst second place teams going at it in the play-in round, but that would also expand the schedule by at least four or five days)