Quote:
Originally Posted by Solecismic
The new system does seem to eliminate the group of death problem, since two teams advance. If it's true there will be 16 groups of 3 when the tournament goes to 48 in 2026, then the draw will be much more important.
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With 16 groups of 3, All the teams that we today saw in pot 1 and 2 would all go in pot 1. All the teams in pot 3 and 4 would go together in pot 2. And all the teams that missed out recently, they'd go in pot 3. The draw will become a crapshoot, as it would be more likely to have any of the top 7 teams in the world to face another before the quarterfinals. So yeah, I agree that the draw would actually mean a lot and not quite for the first two matches, but more so for the expanded knock-out phase.
The real problem of that format is teams playing in matches 1 and 2 of the group being at a huge disadvantage. Just imagine a group with, for example, Germany, Austria and Algeria, with Algeria beating Germany 2-1, then losing 2-0 to Austria. In match 3, Germany and Austria could collaborate and eliminate Algeria by letting Germany win 1-0. But thankfully there are people at FIFA that are old enough to remember the 1982 World Cup. No way they'll let history repeat itself. Right?