Ruined the tournament
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Just when you thought football couldnāt get any greedier, it does.
Apart from making even more money, what is the point of diluting the biggest tournament in football?
But why not, who wouldnāt be excited at the prospect of thrilling games like Malaysia v San Marino?
Doesnāt bother me. More games to watch even if they are shitty ones. It still comes only once in 4 years around, so it stays special.
Want to be the best, gotta beat a few more nations on the way. Not a bad thing.
Whatās the point of the group stages now? It really will just be a preamble with little to no jeopardy.
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If it means the PL fixtures arenāt disrupted as often by meaningless qualifying games, where stronger countries fill their boots against fodder like the Faroe Islands, then Iām for it.
Should just make it a 150 team tournament. Letās start it right now. 29 month competition.
Englandās next game is against Djibouti to be played in the Mongolian desert.
Granny Infertility doing wonders for the game, what a top bloke to carry on from Septic Bastard
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Exactly look at this nonsense 8 best third place teams to join the top two group winners.
Who seriously gives this a watch in the group stages, let alone qualifying games.
We had a shit world cup last Dec, too. Cracking final, but the rest of it was dogshit compared with other World cups
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Be better off making it 16 teams than 48 butā¦money talks 
Itās quantity over quality the bigger you make it. A bit like Christmas with dickheads putting trees up in November.
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It just seems ridiculous that 32 of the 48 teams can progress to the next round. 2/3 of the teams will qualify. Feels like thereās no jeapardy at all, no sense of tension.
With 12 groups as well, thereās less likely to be groups of death so all the good teams will get through.
It would essentially be pre-World Cup qualification but just at the actual fucking World Cup.
However, the one positive would be more knockout games. Thatās where the drama tends to be obviously. It just means the initial stage of the tournament will be boring as fuck.
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Yeah the one benefit I see to this is more games or meaning with the knockout stages. Reality is so much of the group stages are nations doing just enough to get by. Knockout matches are definitive with no second chances so the more of them and the less group games the better.
Also means a World Cup with more African teams too which for the continent will be really positive.
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3rd placed ranking is one of the dumbest things around, whomās only purpose is to try safeguard struggling big nations.
Euros 2020 for reference:
Shite shite and shite.
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The groups are dumb too, I think this couldāve been salvaged with bigger groups (4 Groups of 12) so there is still a threshold of performing well.
However I declare my bias as I always thought 4 man groups really served no purpose.
8/12 groups the top 3/4 will qualify. Thatās justā¦ridiculous.
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I donāt mind it. Rugby World Cup usually has 20 teams and barely anyone plays that sport.
Will be great to see more teams there more often.
Easy for English fans to say itās too many because they are usually always there anyway. Different for countries which only appear every 12 to 16 years or so or even less.
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I donāt rate it, but itās no real different to the Euros having 16 teams qualify for the knockouts or whatever it is.
@DavidHillier i disagree with you regarding the last WC, the Germany, Spain, Japan and Costa Rica group was an unreal climax.
The Switzerland vs Serbia drama.
Australia vs Denmark was also intriguing matchday 3 along with South Korea upsetting Portugal for Uruguay to go out.
The Netherlands vs Argentina gameā¦
The Croatia upset against Brazil.
The Morocco heroics vs Spain and Portugal.
The final as you say was just unbelievable.
It doesnāt mean this.
Seeā¦
16 day shitternational break 
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