{"id":5484,"date":"2026-06-25T13:53:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T13:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=5484"},"modified":"2026-06-25T13:53:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T13:53:03","slug":"world-cup-2026-the-games-that-show-a-48-team-tournament-is-flawed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=5484","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: The games that show a 48-team tournament is flawed"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Teams could, of course, play for specific results before third-placed teams qualified. <\/p>\n

Take one incident at Euro 2004, which led to Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and Italian federation president Franco Carraro making accusations of match-fixing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If Sweden-Denmark was a draw and the teams scored at least twice, Italy would finish third because they scored fewer goals in matches between the three sides.<\/p>\n

Sweden equalised in the 89th minute. The final score? Sweden 2-2 Denmark<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Uefa insisted there was nothing suspicious<\/a> about the result.<\/p>\n

There is a further twist at this World Cup.<\/p>\n

The fixtures for the third-placed teams are determined by which groups provide the qualifiers.<\/p>\n

Play early, and you don’t have an idea where you will go if you finish third. Play later, and you know what the path looks like. <\/p>\n

What does that mean in reality? <\/p>\n

The runners-up in Group J will play the winners of Group H – Spain are top of the table right now.<\/p>\n

But where will the third-placed team in Group J go? They could play the Group L winners, perhaps England, or Switzerland who finished top of Group B.<\/p>\n

Austria and Algeria will know what the last 32 looks like. They could be in a position where finishing third is more favourable than second. <\/p>\n

Rather than playing for a draw, Austria might feel they are better off losing and taking up that match.<\/p>\n

The weather may yet play a part too.<\/p>\n

If there are storms which cause a match to be paused<\/a>Fifa says the other game in the group will not be halted.<\/p>\n

So, one fixture might be suspended for a couple of hours due to lightning, and when the teams comes back out they know what they need to do to qualify.<\/p>\n

If Australia-Paraguay and Austria-Algeria do play out draws there, will probably be questions about the integrity of the format.<\/p>\n

But this has been Fifa’s choice. The World Cup did not need to be expanded, but it was part of the manifesto on which Gianni Infantino was elected in 2016. <\/p>\n

Maybe it will give Infantino a reason to restore the tournament to a perfect number. <\/p>\n

Not reducing to 32, but increasing to 64.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teams could, of course, play for specific results before third-placed teams qualified. Take one incident at Euro 2004, which led…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}