World Cup Match 9: Germany vs Curaçao (World Cup)

Germany 4 - 0 Curaçao

Kai Havertz, Jamal Musiala, Florian Wirtz, Leroy Sane

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Submitted via the Prediction Portal

 

Lineups confirmed. Change your predictions where necessary

@World Cup 26

 

When Curaçao got the equaliser I did think maybe they could have put up a good fight and while I appreciate their spirit it's matches like this that makes the whole expanding of the World Cup to 48 teams is a mistake. You don't want to see teams in the finals who are just whipping boys for the other nations. And the worry is that there has been talk of a further expansion to 56 or 64 teams could be on the cards especially when you can't really give CONMEBOL anymore (6 of the 10 teams qualified already and a 7th gets into the playoff) and Europe is likely to not get a fair share of the new spots despite European having the most depth leaving Asia, Africa North/Central America and Oceania to make up the numbers. AFC, CONCACAF and OFC don't have the depth to justify more spots on a quality basis, AFC is a little better as there are the obvious ones of Nigeria and Cameroon we are missing but beyond that its also weak

 

At the moment it's being proposed as a one off for the centenary (which is also why despite it being cohosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco the first 3 matches of the tournament will actually be played in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay, being a European team who gets drawn in one these 3 countries groups and gets them as match 1 is going to be tough, flying from Europe to South America, trying to acclimatise and then back to Europe where they have to do it again). But let's be honest it won't then go down again if it happens.

It's claimed that increasing the number has a positive impact on investment in the game in nations in the regions that get more spots. For example with Oceania there was little point in nations investing before because they didn't even have a direct spot, the winner of their qualifying played in an inter continental play off. It's why Australia left for Asia because while its a much tougher qualifying it carried direct qualification spots and a good number of them before this change where as in Oceania it was always between them and New Zealand and then having to win the play off.

Now New Zealand know its worth investing more because they are guaranteed to qualify (they won their matches 3-0, 8-1 and 8-0 in the groups and in the knockout stages 7-0 and 3-0) but it gives the others more of a chance because whoever losses to them in the final goes into the inter continental play off which went to New Caledonia but we also saw Fiji and Tahiti in the play offs. If they got another automatic spot and a playoff then these 3 would have a real incentive to invest even more and a couple of others might also see a chance to sneak in.

While it has that benefit though there is the money aspect for FIFA. Much like UEFA with the changes to the Champions League the TV deals are actually based on number of matches. They add 16 more teams then thats many millions more (Especially as I can see them adding an extra knock out round because what they could do is have all the first place teams go into the round of 32 automatically. Then have the the 2nd place teams play a 3rd place team in a preliminary round to see who takes the rest of the spots in the round of 32)

The problem is as I said how do you prevent it producing awful matches, thankfully so far the whipping boys actually have largely put up a good fight outside of Curacao (In fact outside of Curacao the teams given a pasting have been Paraguay and Tunisia who on paper should have been able to put up a good fight in the first round matches)

• They are against giving Europe too many more
• South America can't really get more because as I said they have 10 nations and already 6 qualify and 1 goes into the play offs. You are getting close to just having all of them qualify)
• Oceania only 11 nations so you can't give them too many more especially as the depth isn't that of South America
• Asia has a decent number of nations but tbh if you look at who missed out this time it's only really China of any note football wise that missed out. Will it give the likes of Oman and UAE more incentive to invest? Sure. Maybe it might also make India and Pakistan who on population alone are massive under achievers (They came 3rd in Indias case and 4th for Pakistan in the first group stage). As we see in the UK where we have no problem getting those of Afro-Caribbean decent into Football we have real trouble getting those of both Indian and Pakistani decent into it despite there being more of the population from each of these than there is of Afro-Caribbean's. Trying to change the attitude in these countries where its really Cricket or nothing might make it a worthwhile thing to do
• Africa could support a few more imho. Apart from Cape Verde all the ones that qualified are nations that aren't that surprising. And we are missing both Cameron and Nigeria who have decent World Cup pedigree. And I think if we look at AFCON and World Cup qualifying that its pretty competitive. Cape Verde failed to qualify for the last AFCON finals. Gabon who did great in the World Cup qualifiers being the top team of the group qualifiers who went into the knockout for the last place (loosing to Nigeria in the semis). That group just below the big names are close and anything that puts more investment into them would be good
  
• North and Central America are working on them getting 6 direct and one playoff slot, the same as this time. The 3 hosts this time are almost as nailed on for 2030 as they were this time. Jamaica, Trinidad and Costa Rica who are teams with World Cup pedigree didn't make it so you could probably extend qualifying spots here.

In some way I have to say if they wanted to go up to 64 teams it might make more sense doing what some of the qualifying events do (and what happens in European club football) and have the lowest ranked teams play in a knock out round before the group stages. Would potentially give every nation a bigger chance of getting a win, wouldn't have to add as many extra weeks (or having to have 5 or 6 matches a day) to get the tournament done and would potentially make the groups stringer than just splitting teams into 16 groups of 4.

Mind you what I wouldn't mind either but which is probably impossible because of of the number of stadiums you need would be the Swiss model because while diluting the quality of the Champions League further isn't great that final round of group games where everyone plays at the same time does produce some great drama where every goal can massively change the outcome especially if the knockout draw remains set rather than the champions league that has a draw later because then teams would also have it where every goal would change who was playing who in the knockouts and teams might have more incentive to make score an extra goal for a better knockout draw