Originally Posted by Letters
another season of endless laughs and mishaps from Man Ure
although I suppose it might have been even funnier if Southgate had got teh job
another season of endless laughs and mishaps from Man Ure
although I suppose it might have been even funnier if Southgate had got teh job
It may and I say may just be possible that Jim Ratcliffe doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing
another season of endless laughs and mishaps from Man Ure
although I suppose it might have been even funnier if Southgate had got teh job
"That prompted the broadcaster to ask whether Mr Barton, who was manager of Bristol Rovers until October last year, had a brain injury."
Euro 24 thread closed?
So decided to take a Quick Look at the scheduling for the World Cup in North America
First thing to note is that the tournament will last over five weeks starting on Thursday June 11th with Mexico playing the opening game against whoever is drawn in their group in the Azteca arena, and the final on Sunday July 19th 2026 in New Jersey.
The second thing to note is that despite being a shared tournament, it’s totally lopsided in that regard with no matches taking place in Mexico or Canada after the round of 16 stage.
FIFA had originally planned for this new 48 team format to be 16 groups of three teams and only the group winner progressing to the knock out phase. This would have meant that the tournament will have remained at 64 games and that the eventual winner would have played six rather than seven games.
It also would have prevented a lot of dull pointless games, but that’s not FIFA’s style
So now we have 12 groups of four. Where group winner and group runner up, and 8 out of 12 third place teams go into a round of 32. So we now have 72 group stage games, and 32 knock out fixtures (including the 3rd place play off match)
So we’ve gone from 64 to 104 matches. And the winning team now has to play 8 games
I don’t know if the European leagues will accommodate by starting the season a week later, but who cares if we get more players injured as long as FIFA gets the money it craves from tv sales
Ultimately, like with all things to do with football these days, it does all come down to the money.
One podcast I’m watching on YouTube is “The Rest is Entertainment” with Richard Osman and…some journalist woman. Anyway, in one episode they were talking about this sort of thing.
They were explaining how they divvy up the games - they basically take turns but of course there’s a lot of guesswork, so ITV will say they’ll have quarter final 3, say, and do so anticipating that England will be in it, then BBC will pick one and so on.
Osman was saying that because ratings for big games like this are still high (while rating for other shows have fallen), if England get to a semi-final and they’ve picked to show that one it can attract their financial results for the year, such is the impact.
Totally mad, that's just too much football
And the US bias re venues doesn't surprise me
Just seems so bloated to me, 32 teams was pretty much the perfect format for the World Cup.
The Euros were also much better with 16 teams.
Not so sure re the Euros, I think some of the 'smaller' teams have been the best teams to watch while many of the 'bigger' teams have been fairly boring or even painful to watch
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