Why The World Cup Should Have Stayed At 32 Teams

FIFA decided years ago that it was going to expand the World Cup to 48 teams. They obviously did it for the money, but some of the arguments they made had merit. There are over 200 national teams in the world. With the World Cup once every 4 years, the majority of nations would go decades without seeing their team in the World Cup. More nations outside of Europe and South America needed spots, to grow the game.

Those are all legitimate points. Because of how competitive soccer is, even a 32 team tournament is almost impossible to get to for most nations. Europe and South America are so far ahead of the rest of the world, that an Affirmative Action for soccer might be needed to start closing the gap. I also disagree with those who say we shouldn’t expand because of “dilution of quality.” The Champions League is where you watch the highest quality soccer. International soccer is for national pride.

My main problem with expanding the tournament is the mathematics of it. 32 teams is perfect, because it means 8 groups of 4 teams. The top 2 teams from each group advance and we go from the round of 16 on to the final. But any number of teams besides 16 or 32 lead to problems of groups and/or symmetry. Back when the World Cup had 24 teams, there was a problem in converting that to a knockout stage.

Knockout stages can only go round of 16, quarterfinal (8 teams), semifinal (4 teams) and so on. But with 24 teams, if the top 2 teams from each group advance, you get 12 teams, which cannot go straight to a knockout. As a result, the World Cups from the 1970s to early 1990s saw various strange formats. They included 2 separate group stages, either with the second group stage with 3 teams, before a semifinal and final (1982) or with only the top team of each respective group in the final group stage playing in the final (1974 and 1978).

They also saw a 24 team group stage be awkwardly fitted into a round of 16 (1986, 1990, 1994). In those cases, 3rd place teams in multiple groups made it past the knockout stage. But the problem with that was that it was inherently unfair. 3rd place teams from different groups competed for final knockout spots. But having 4 points in a much easier group wouldn’t necessarily make a team better than one that obtained 3 points from a much more difficult group.

In a World Cup, there are two distinct stages; the group stage and the knockout stages. The group stages are 8 separate mini leagues. If you are in the top 2 in one of the mini leagues, you advance to the round of 16. You advance through your own merit. In 24 team tournaments, your advancing can be decided by a result outside your mini league group.

Circling back (as a certain mediocre former White House press secretary would often say) to the 24 team tournaments with two group stages, having 2 consecutive group stages takes the fun out of the tournament. Knockout soccer is essential for the World Cup. If you limit the knockout soccer to 1 or 2 rounds, you limit the excitement. Besides 24 team tournaments, 16 teams is obviously way too small for the World Cup.

But if you expand beyond 32 teams, unless you go to 64 teams to keep it symmetric, you likely go to 48 teams. Expansion to 40 teams (8 groups of 5 with top 2 advancing) might be easier logistically. But it might not be worth it to only expand by 25%. 48 team tournaments have the same problem as 24 team tournaments symmetrically and mathematically. We aren’t going back to two consecutive group stages. So it necessitates 3rd place teams advancing.

Besides what I mentioned about results in other groups determining if a nation advances, it also makes group stage games less important. If over half of 3rd place teams advance to the next round, group stage games have less meaning. It also results in an extra knockout game. 24 teams to 16 in the knockouts become 48 teams to 32 in the knockouts. That one extra game for the players isn’t a dealbreaker, but it is one extra thing that makes a 48 team tournament not as optimal as a 32 team tournament.

I will say that FIFA’s decision to make the 48 team tournament format 12 groups of 4 was a relief to me. If they had chosen to make 16 groups of 3, it would have made the group stages farcical and micky mouse. It would be another of the thousands of reasons why soccer just isn’t that big in the USA, widely known as the World Sports Hegemon. Making the tournament 48 teams is by no means a catastrophe. But I think that I have laid out enough reasons through the formatting alone to show that a 32 team tournament was the optimal format for the World Cup.

But alas, the decision has already been made. And while it should have been held exclusively in the US, Canada and Mexico are getting some crumbs. Maybe Canada can finally not lose a game in the World Cup. And maybe Mexico can finally make the semifinals. Ok, we all know that’s not going to happen. So let’s get ready to enjoy the World Cup in 2026!