World Cup 2026
Given that the whole tournament last time consisted of 32 teams it feels quite ridiculous that the knockout stage itself now has 32 teams. Teams can reach the knockout round on 1 win and 2 losses, and a bigger knockout round adds more randomness into the tournament. Qualifying so easily also lowers the stakes of all the group stage games.
I made a bracket for this World Cup including the 1st placed teams and the 4 best 2nd placed teams (coincidentally all had 6 points+).
France vs Croatia
England vs Colombia
Netherlands vs Morocco
Brazil vs Belgium
Mexico vs Ivory Coast
Spain vs USA
Argentina vs Norway
Switzerland vs Germany
If you still wanted to avoid the problem of having only some of the 2nd placed teams qualify, you could have a small knockout round between the 2nd placed teams 5th-12th who then face those ranked 1st to 4th. Or you could make the whole tournament a Champions League style swiss group stage.
The other thing is that Extra Time desperately needs to be scrapped until the Final. It adds nothing to lower knockout games and simply contributes to fatigue. This isn't something limited to the World Cup though. The same should be done for all knockout competitions.
