Here's the problem with 48 teams and the "8 best third teams advance" system. 6 of the 12 groups had teams so bad they earned 0 points. So those 6 teams that finished third in those groups started with 3 points and a positive GD. They had a massive leg up on the others. It didn't guarantee promotion but it sure helped. Of those 6 teams with the free 3 points, only 1 didn't advance in Scotland. The other 6 groups had 3rd place teams that had to work harder. Luck of the original draw really helped or hurt here.

48 teams brings in a lot of really bad teams and if you get one in your group you win a lottery. 64 teams will make it worse. Groups with 2 bad teams get lucky and groups with only 1 bad team will have to fight. You will get lots of "group of death" scenarios with 64 teams and lots of free rides at the same time.

I also don't like the idea of adding an elimination round for 3rd place teams, because (1) it has the top 2 teams sitting around way too long waiting for the real KO round and (2) the math at 48 doesn't work anyway. 12 3rd place teams squaring off doesn't match to 8 spots

Let's look at who advanced based on qualification. The 48 teams are put in 4 Pots for the draw which puts one team from each Pot in a group. This is to try to balance the groups.

Pot 1:
The top 12 teams from Pot 1 all advanced which included the 3 hosts (who otherwise would have been in Pot 2) and the 9 highest ranked teams.

Canada and Portugal were the only Pot 1 teams that did not win their group. With Switzerland (17) and Columbia (13) winning those groups. To be fair Columbia would have been a Pot 1 team using the top 12 seeds since Italy did not qualify using only ranking to seed them.

Pot 2:
3 teams from Pot 2 did not advance - Uruguay (16), Iran (20) and South Korea (22). They had pretty miserable tournaments with Uruguay getting no wins, Iran forging 3 ties and Korea only beating Czech and then completely disappearing in 2 ugly losses 1-0.

Pot 3:
A few Pot 3 teams managed to get 2nd in their groups: South Africa (61), Egypt (34), Norway (29) and Ivory Coast (42). And in prior years those third place teams in their groups would be out.
The pot 3 teams that did not advance are: Panama (30), Scotland (36), Tunisia (40) Uzbekistan (50), Qatar (51) and Saudi Arabia (60)

Pot 4:
There were 6 teams put into pot 4 that had to play their way in via a further playoff after qualification. These two advanced and would have been Pot 3 teams based on ranking:
Sweden (38)
DR Congo (46)

And then you have the true wild cards and cinderellas in the tournament who defied all odds.
Bosnia (64) - was also in that play in tournament but would have been in Pot 4 anyway
Cape Verde (68) - managed 2nd place in their group with 3 ties.
Ghana (72)

There were 3 other play in teams in Pot 4 that did not advance Turkey (22), Czech Republic (40) and Iraq (57)


I think the advancement of those 5 teams from Pot 4 justifies the expansion to 48 teams. In 2022 no team ranked lower than 60 got in and you had a lot fewer play in teams only one of which advanced Australia.

Round of 32 schedule:

Sunday, June 28

• South Africa (~60) vs Canada (~30) 2 p.m. CT (SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA)

Monday, June 29

• Brazil (6) vs Japan (18) 12 p.m. CT (NRG Stadium, Houston)
• Germany (10) vs Paraguay (~39) 3:30 p.m. CT (Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA)
• Netherlands (8) vs Morocco (7) 8 p.m. CT (Estadio BBVA, Monterrey, Mexico)

Tuesday, June 30

• Ivory Coast (~34-42) vs Norway (~29-31) 12 p.m. CT (AT&T Stadium, Arlington, TX)
• France (3) vs Sweden (~38) 4 p.m. CT (MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ)
• Mexico (14-15) vs Ecuador (24) 8 p.m. CT (Estadio Azteca, Mexico City)

Wednesday, July 1

• England (~4) vs Congo DR (~46) 11 a.m. CT (Atlanta Stadium, Atlanta, GA)
• United States (16-17) vs Bosnia-Herzegovina (~64) 7 p.m. CT (Levi's Stadium, Santa Clara, CA)
• Belgium (~9) vs Senegal (~14) 3 p.m. CT (Lumen Field, Seattle, WA)

Thursday, July 2

• Spain (2) vs Austria (~23) 2 p.m. CT (Los Angeles Stadium, Inglewood, CA)
• Portugal (5) vs Croatia (11) 6 p.m. CT (Toronto Stadium, Toronto, Canada)
• Switzerland (~19) vs Algeria (28) 10 p.m. CT (Vancouver Stadium, Vancouver, Canada)

Friday, July 3

• Australia (~27) vs Egypt (~29) 1 p.m. CT (AT&T Stadium, Arlington, TX)
• Argentina (1) vs Cape Verde (~68) 5 p.m. CT (Miami Stadium, Miami, FL)
• Colombia (~13) vs Ghana (~74) 8:30 p.m. CT (GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, MO)

three matches per day, except the first day, is fantastic.

I'm gonna be glued. At most there are 2 matches i'm just meh about.

Pick your bracket. I used the ESPN fantasy bracket.

I got France beating Argentina - no shocker really. But I have the USA to the semifinals.

If you did not stay up late and watch Algeria-Austria do yourself a favor and watch the highlights.


You'll see the highlights jumped from the 70th minute to the 93rd minute because both teams had seemingly shut it down and were fine with a tie.

Algeria was controlling the ball for the last 7 minutes or so in the midfield just passing it back and forth. Not making any deep runs or passes. And the fans started whistling and booing the lack of effort.

Then watch what happens suddenly. It's insane.

Algeria goal about 92'55" (on 90 +4' added minutes so roughly a minute left). And it was a minute+ of time waste on celebration. Ref was probably going to blow the whistle right about 95' and Austria had a final push down the left side. He was probably just letting that attack play out. And wow.

Great summary, thanks for that. I was expecting WAY more blowouts than we got, but the smaller teams made for some really fun matches and a few showed quite well.

They're also easy to get behind and it's been really cool to see these generally anonymous players make a name for themselves. Cape Verde's keeper is over 17m Instagram followers now.

Curious to see who of them make moves to bigger clubs after the tournament.

Mathguy64 said:

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Here's the problem with 48 teams and the "8 best third teams advance" system. 6 of the 12 groups had teams so bad they earned 0 points. So those 6 teams that finished third in those groups started with 3 points and a positive GD. They had a massive leg up on the others. It didn't guarantee promotion but it sure helped. Of those 6 teams with the free 3 points, only 1 didn't advance in Scotland. The other 6 groups had 3rd place teams that had to work harder. Luck of the original draw really helped or hurt here.

48 teams brings in a lot of really bad teams and if you get one in your group you win a lottery. 64 teams will make it worse. Groups with 2 bad teams get lucky and groups with only 1 bad team will have to fight. You will get lots of "group of death" scenarios with 64 teams and lots of free rides at the same time.

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There are two sides to this coin on the 8 teams though. One is "well, the 4th was 0-0-3 and therefore 3rd got a nice leg up" while the other is that a big reason they went 0-0-3 was that the 3rd place team was still a pretty solid team deserving to be in the upper 2/3 of the 3rds. 4th got handled 3 losses by 3 solid teams. In reality I think both scenarios were in play, but given this method essentially was only used to exclude 4 of the 3rd place teams, I don't really sweat any possible injustice there.

I don't like the idea of 64 either. That said, I also think they will never back off of 48 now that they've done it and 64 will be $$$$$$$$ tempting

Quote:

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I also don't like the idea of adding an elimination round for 3rd place teams, because (1) it has the top 2 teams sitting around way too long waiting for the real KO round and (2) the math at 48 doesn't work anyway. 12 3rd place teams squaring off doesn't match to 8 spots.

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I think the qualified teams might actually like a couple extra days off before the knockout round. And my proposal auto qualifies the top 4 ranked 3rd place teams. It's only the 8 lower ranked 3rd place teams that have a play-in round for the last 4 knockout places. Again, this doesn't have precedent as far as I know in international tournaments and the travel/logistics would be tricky, but it does allow the last 3rd place teams to determine their fate on the field.

Using this year as an example, DR Congo, Sweden, Ghana, and Ecuador would auto qualify for the knockout round. For the final four knockout round spots, we would get:

Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Uruguay
Algeria vs Scotland
Paraguay vs South Korea
Senegal vs Iran

Enrico Pallazzo said:

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Mathguy64 said:

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Here's the problem with 48 teams and the "8 best third teams advance" system. 6 of the 12 groups had teams so bad they earned 0 points. So those 6 teams that finished third in those groups started with 3 points and a positive GD. They had a massive leg up on the others. It didn't guarantee promotion but it sure helped. Of those 6 teams with the free 3 points, only 1 didn't advance in Scotland. The other 6 groups had 3rd place teams that had to work harder. Luck of the original draw really helped or hurt here.

48 teams brings in a lot of really bad teams and if you get one in your group you win a lottery. 64 teams will make it worse. Groups with 2 bad teams get lucky and groups with only 1 bad team will have to fight. You will get lots of "group of death" scenarios with 64 teams and lots of free rides at the same time.

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There are two sides to this coin on the 8 teams though. One is "well, the 4th was 0-0-3 and therefore 3rd got a nice leg up" while the other is that a big reason they went 0-0-3 was that the 3rd place team was still a pretty solid team deserving to be in the upper 2/3 of the 3rds. 4th got handled 3 losses by 3 solid teams. In reality I think both scenarios were in play, but given this method essentially was only used to exclude 4 of the 3rd place teams, I don't really sweat any possible injustice there.

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Yeah, those 3rd place teams still had to go win that game. And isn't Senegal the only team that advanced that way? Everyone else with a supposed "gimme" game also got a point off someone else.

I don't think South Korea or Uruguay can complain at all. Korea had it all at their finger tips and lost to South Africa. Uruguay had one of the best draws in the tournament and simply messed it all up.

Iran couldn't win a match, although they might say they didn't lose one.

I guess maybe you can say Scotland got a tough draw with Brazil and Morocco.

Great games so far today.

Though that Germany- Paraguay game was boring as hell until the end, lol. Suck it, Germany!

12 billion in revenue for this WC.
That doesn't suck for a nonprofit.

https://blueprint.ng/fifa-world-cup-2026-to-generate-record-e12bn-revenue-official/

Non-profit

This just in: Mbappe is stupid good.

Like wow.

Mbappe in 18 matches in 3 WCs has 18 goals. Unreal. Already a WC and Golden boot.


Messi has 19 WC goals but that is across 6 WC's and 26 matches.

Mbappe moves without the ball better than anyone I have seen.

Meantime…

From Freddy 🇩🇪 IG: pic.twitter.com/Mz6AliFWAi

— IcyVert (@IcyVert) June 30, 2026

Wrong thread.

I never read his comments sections, but I will bet it was a combo of bitter euros, people who thought he was dojng it for engagement, people who grew tired of all the special breaks he got that normal Americans would never get (like the tour of the space capsule): and then people being contrarians to try and generate their own engagement.
Basically the full cesspool of the interwebz.

oragator said:

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I never read his comments sections, but I will bet it was a combo of bitter euros, people who thought he was dojng it for engagement, people who grew tired of all the special breaks he got that normal Americans would never get (like the tour of the space capsule): and then people being contrarians to try and generate their own engagement.
Basically the full cesspool of the interwebz.

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Comments weren't that bad, sure you had the typical cesspool nonsense. I would say 80% of comments were positive.

What time does match start Weds 1st, HOUSTON TIME?

monarch said:

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What time does the match start Weds 1st, HOUSTON TIME?

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monarch said:

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monarch said:

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What time does the match start Weds 1st, HOUSTON TIME?

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Noon

Both appeared to be tough groups going into it

monarch said:

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What time does match start Weds 1st, HOUSTON TIME?

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The USA match is at 7

Oh my!