The new group stage

I know I took the piss out of Scotland a bit the other day, but they didn't deserve the death of a thousand cuts that the new tournament structure inflicted on them. The BBC had been calculating the odds on them getting through as a wild card all week, and by Saturday afternoon they reckoned it was down to 0.07%. You might think that was an improvement on the odds they started with two weeks ago, but immediately after they lost to Brazil their chances were estimated at 43%. This figure steadily fell as the days went by and one result after another went the wrong way from their point of view.

South Africa, having looked like they couldn't find the goal if they were tethered to it, managed a completely unexpected victory over South Korea which left both teams better placed than Scotland. Ecuador did the same to Germany, a frankly astonishing result that took away another Scottish chance. All week this went on, until finally last night Croatia beat Ghana by less than the required 392 goals and the obvious reality of the situation was mathematically confirmed.

Hugs and Glenfiddich, Scotland, but at least you've found a new way to crash and burn. After your previous World Cups we might have thought you'd exhausted all the options, but it was nice to see you fail innovatively. If it's any comfort England now seem nailed on to go out to Mexico on penalties in the round of 16, which is very much on brand for us, and at least you've still got that to look forward to.

The fact is you ran into a problem with the new system, which comes down to maths. We have 48 countries in twelve groups of 4, and there is no way to reduce 48 to a power of 2, an outcome that the knockout phase requires, by removing a multiple of 12. There were actually only 2 realistic options for FIFA's planners. They could have taken the group winners and the best 4 second places and put them into a round of 16, or alternatively they could have taken the top 2 and the best 8 third places and put them into a round of 32, which was the option they picked.

I'm a big fan of the World Cup expansion, because it has expanded the World Cup. If it was up to me there would be six weeks every four years when the World Cup wasn't on, rather than the other way round. I could handle that, if they could save the Tour de France for that time slot then I would get through it somehow, but 202 weeks without a World Cup is just ridiculous.

The new system has marginally improved the previous arrangement, under which great chasms of time without a World Cup in them were mysteriously tolerated, but at a cost. The cost for the Scottish team was that they had to hang around all week before finally getting sent home without even the formality of a knockout game against Belgium, but there was perhaps a bigger cost for their fans, who found themselves in the same position without the footballers' economic padding. The Iranians, meanwhile, will likely be reflecting on the price they have paid to come 9th on a list of 8 names.

It's also been a problem for the teams that did get through, but didn't know who they'd be playing. Germany play Paraguay tomorrow, but the only found this out last night. That hardly seems fair on either team.

I have a solution, which is to go to 64 countries and have 16 groups of 4. This would require 96 group games, which at 4 games a day for the first 2 rounds then 8 games a day for the third (with the last 2 games in each group happening simultaneously) would give us a group phase of 20 days. This is 4 days longer than we have this year, which is a good start, but crucially it would simplify the process.

Because qualification for the knockout phase would flow logically, like it did before. The top 2 countries would go through, the winner of Group A would play the second placed team in Group B, the winner of Group B would play the second placed team in Group A, and so on all the way through to Groups O and P. There would still be 32 countries in the first knockout round, as there are this year.

I'm thrilled to have been the first to advocate this new system, and I can't wait for FIFA to take it up. They don't even have to name it after me, if they really don't want to. Just do it.

Next, some thoughts on how the group phase went and what it tells us about where football is now.

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