Cristiano Ronaldo hasn’t played a World Cup game in 12 days, and he’s never going to play one again. Meanwhile FIFA’s out here floating a World Cup 64 teams plan for 2030, like the problem with this tournament was ever how many teams show up.
Here’s what actually happened. Before that Round of 16 game against Spain, the guy basically stood in front of a room full of reporters and said this is it, this is my last one, and hey, I hope tomorrow isn’t my last game too. Spain got a goal in stoppage time. Tomorrow was his last game. 20 years, 6 World Cups, one trophy he never got, and it comes down to…
USA fans know the feeling too, minus the Ballon d’Ors. Belgium put 4 goals on the U.S., a co-host of this whole tournament, and sent them home July 6th, an actual beatdown, 4-1, didn’t even feel that close. USA’s been sitting right next to Ronaldo for 12 days.
And earlier today, England beat France 6-4 for third place, an actual 10-goal track meet between two teams that had their hearts ripped out in the semis three days ago. Tuchel said before kickoff nobody on either side even wanted to be there, they wanted the final, not a bronze medal. They played anyway and it turned into one of the best games of the whole tournament. Tomorrow Spain and Argentina play for the whole thing. FIFA built the infrastructure to keep teams playing after they’ve already lost, they just used it ONE time. There’s a third place game. That’s it. That game’s loser is already 4th place, and after that there’s nothing, no fifth place game, no sixth, you lose in the round of 16 and you’re just gone, 12 teams worth of guys packing suitcases while the tournament keeps running without them for two more weeks. Why does the bracket only run in one direction?
So here’s my actual fix, and it’s not that complicated. Round of 16 on, you win, you keep moving in the real bracket, same as it’s always been. You lose, you don’t go home, you get shifted into your own bracket against everybody else who lost that round. USA got run out of the building by Belgium. Portugal lost to Spain in stoppage time. Instead of both of those teams flying home the same week to do nothing, USA plays Portugal. That bracket plays out exactly like the real one does, its own final for 5th, its own consolation game for 7th, all the way down, until every team that actually qualified for this thing gets a real result instead of just disappearing. This whole tournament happens once every 4 years. The teams that make it this far should get more than one shot for their fans to actually watch them play, not just a coin flip between a beatdown and a heartbreak in the round of 16.
FIFA Doesn’t Need a World Cup 64 Teams Plan, It Needs to Use the Bracket It Already Built
Infantino was on Swiss radio this week explaining why the world’s biggest tournament needs to get even bigger.
“Every nation should be able to dream of taking part in the World Cup.”
He said that, not me.
Gianni, buddy, every nation can already dream without you inviting 16 more of them into a tournament that’s already this stretched. You don’t get there by adding countries who didn’t earn this cycle, you get there by giving the 48 who did qualify more chances to actually play once they’re here. This tournament already jumped from 64 games to 104 just by going 32 teams to 48. Go to 64 teams and you’re at 128. That doesn’t make the soccer better, it just means there’s more of it, and some real chunk of that is going to be a team that had no business on the field. My version doesn’t add one single new country. Same 48 that already survived qualifying, more of them actually getting to play instead of getting bounced after one bad Monday.
Now I’ll give the players’ union this much, because they’ve got a real point and I’m not going to pretend they don’t. FIFPro is literally in a legal fight with FIFA right now over how packed the calendar already is, guys are playing an absurd number of games a year for club and country already, and something in somebody’s knee is going to give out eventually. That’s real, I’m not the guy telling athletes to go play more. But look at who’s actually in my bracket. Messi’s still alive in this thing, so is Yamal, neither of them needs saving from anything. I’m talking about the guys who are already eliminated, already back home doing nothing, a lot of them not even the ones who played every group stage minute, the depth players, the guy who got 5 minutes off the bench and nothing since. Nobody’s asking anybody to play more tournaments. I’m asking guys who are already there, already out, to play one or two more games instead of zero.
Ronaldo wanted one more World Cup game. FIFA had the exact bracket sitting right there and used it exactly once. Fix that before you go find 16 more countries.
