I feel sorry for Americans who tuned into the World Cup to watch soccer for the first time in their lives during the past week. Yes, there have been a couple of exciting matches. But by and large, the soccer has been pedestrian and disjointed. With 32 teams in the tournament, there is a huge gap in ability between the best and worst -- and we can fix that.
The World Cup started out in the 1930s with the object of having 16 teams travel from the Americas and Europe to compete in a short tournament. As soccer's popularity grew, so did the Cup. It expanded to 24 teams in 1982 and then to 32 teams in 1998. Over the same period, the Cup became much more international; Africa wasn't included in the early days, and now it commands five of the 32 spots. Asian football has progressed, too, as demonstrated by Japan's victory over Cameroon last Monday.
Despite these improvements, the expansion of the tournament has watered down the quality of the soccer to a considerable degree. Because of idiosyncrasies in the geographical quotas and the playoffs through which teams qualify for the main event, quite a few low-caliber squads have somehow made it to South Africa. For example, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) ranks North Korea 105th out of 207 teams from around the world, and New Zealand is 78th. (The hosts, South Africa, qualified automatically despite languishing at number 83.)
This dilution of talent has led to some appallingly poor matches. Algeria versus Slovenia and France versus Uruguay offered some of the most mind-numbing excuses for soccer I've seen in my life. And yet we could have avoided these travesties of sport. If we had reduced the World Cup field back down to 24 teams, only one of those squads, Algeria, would have made it to South Africa. In fact, taking out the eight teams that were last in line to qualify would also have removed Greece, Honduras, New Zealand, Nigeria, and North Korea, none of which seemed up to the task in the first round. All of them lost except New Zealand, which drew with Slovakia at the last minute and drew with Italy.
It would be easy to structure a 24-team tournament. We could have four groups of six teams playing a round robin, with the two top teams from each group going directly to the quarterfinals. This system would keep the fans of the 24 teams interested for longer, as each one would play at least five matches. The quality of the soccer would be higher, and so would the television revenue; the tournament would have 68 matches instead of 64. Moreover, because of its longer group stage, the new system would guarantee that the best teams moved on in the tournament.
Some of my fellow soccer commentators have responded to my idea by saying that having 32 teams expands the global market for soccer. I think that market is already pretty huge, and it's not likely to grow very much in places like Nigeria, Greece, and Honduras because of their participation in the final stages of the World Cup. In fact, the soccer market is probably growing most quickly in countries whose teams didn't even come close to qualifying for the final 32 -- countries like China, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.
What would increase the global market for soccer -- especially in the United States -- would be matches where the incredible talents of the world's best players were on display in suspenseful games of non-stop action. That's why we need a 24-team tournament again.
Follow Daniel Altman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/offside9
In terms of watering down the quality, I disagree, this year has seen a lot of attacking play, mainly from the minnows. Football is not just about entertainment, it is more about the result. If teams have to give up playing good football and park the bus to get a result, most will do that. I suspect Americans may be tuned off because they are not familiar with watching football, most supporters of nations in the World Cup will undoubtedly has seen many a game that was dire or unexciting just by watching their respective league matches or national teams in qualifying.
Your final paragraph is utter rubbish, we are seeing the incredible talents of the world's best players were on display in many suspenseful games, maybe not non-stop action but again, football is not always like that, only a rare number of teams have the fitness level to play high tempo for 90 minutes.
32 teams is just right I believe. I also disagree with your take that more teams mean less quality. Europe (UEFA), the undisputed continent for quality soccer, is given more spots that the other confederations. Whereas the remaining 3 to 4 spots for the other mean that only the best countries qualified from their respective confederations.
maybe some should just stay home and do something else so as not to water down the web.
Another fact of the matter is, if you want America to get into the Cup, put it on national TV. I was thinking that digital tv with so many 'new' extra channels it would be broadcast by CBS, NBC, ABC or at least FOX on some backchannel 3.4, or 9.3 - So much for advanced technology being wasted, and having to rely on cable which I will never get again. Nor could I find it broadcast on the web - in reasonable location to US population. ESPN3 is a mess.
This is the World Cup, this party isn´t built for American TV audience. If the average American is ignorant enough about football to not know what to expect from a match like Algeria-Slovenia, then it´s better for him to stick to familiar shows, like Oprah. The rest of the world really doesn´t give a damn about American Average Joe´s football fobia, you realize that don´t you?
It´s good to have a wide representation from different regions around the world, now THAT is global marketing, not elitism.
The European WC qualifying is a really tough one, in fact it´s so tough that most non-European teams now in the cup wouldn´t get through it and some teams that dropped from Europe this time would dance through for example Asian qualifying. FIFA knows this and the European slots for WC will not be dropped. With reduced number of teams and Europe taking half the slots, it would mean tougher competition for example the US. Would you like to see US play Mexico for one N. and C.American slot or maybe thrown into S.American qualifiers?
I beg to differ, Mr Altman. I have been following the World Cup since 1986 in Mexico when 24 teams played. It was precisely to increase the global market of football that it was decided to increase the number of participating teams to the current 32.
You do not give any plausible reason for your premise that the number should be reduced again, taking us back to the dark ages when participation in the world cup was restricted to a small elite group of countries, apart from pandering to the wishes of the United States. The world does not revolve around the US, Mr. Altman.
When we had 24 teams, the six countries placed 3rd on their groups with better results would advance to the Round of 16. Getting this back would seem like a major step backwards.
You're a soccer expert so I know you're aware of amazing underdogs stories. You're suggesting getting rid of all countries that've got there through playoffs. Well, to use an example from 2006, if we've done that, Australia would have never been on the Round of 16. And they could have been on the Quarter Finals, since they lost with a "weird" PK to Italy. Examples abound.
Sometimes an inferior team can beat the Soccer Gods just by using intelligent tactics - if the players manage to do what an intelligent coach asks.
I know it's hard to digest, but that's what football is about. Tactics, player commitment... things like that. Definitely not ratings. While some complain, we'll keep watching.
As far as the fans, I love football but I gotta tell you, after watching all the games so far, it is getting tiresome, it runs together, like seeing three or four movies in a row all with the same script but with different actors. But I'll keep watching.
As far as the determining geographical slots, it is about the money-FIFA wants to promote and maximize the commercial value of the sport... The CONCACAF should not have 3 or 4 slots, may be two, tops, Africa has too many now... I am missing Croatia, Czech Rep, Sweden, may be even Russia, Turkey...
I think there are two schools of thought here. There are the romantics who want a tournament like NCAA March Madness, cinderellas and all. And then there are people who just want to see good soccer. The matches described by some commenters with words like "gripping" may have been suspenseful in regard to the scoreline, but the quality of soccer was poor. (I can't believe anyone would praise ENG v ALG as a viewing experience!)
I want to see more of the game's best talent facing off, and fewer missed passes, overhit crosses, flubbed chances, etc. And I can do without 7-0 drubbings of teams that have no place in the tournament. If my Saturday league team played a bunch of 12-year-olds, we'd probably look like Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo, too.
True, there are exceptions such as the 8 - 0 score between Germany and Saudi Arabia or the recent 7 - 0 win by Portugal over North Korea, but it does not happen often enough to warrant that these teams do not deserve to go the world cup and their presence watered down the quality of the tournament.
Once everyone had played once, the games improved because teams needed wins.
As far as expansion of the game is concerned - you are absolutely wrong about its scope. Have you noticed that China still does not have a good team even though they excel in athletics due to the efforts and investment of its government? In the next few years, China will sport a better team. There are many asian countries like India where the sport isn't all that popular. FIFA definitely sees a market for expansion there. Africa is capable of producing a lot of talent even though they don't have formidable leagues within the continent.
I think its great to see teams like South Africa perform so well at this level even though they're ranked so low. If we followed your idea, bad teams will never find exposure at the highest level and be forever relegated at the bottom of the pit so you can have your 1 month of entertainment while you take a break from American sports!