Quote:
Originally Posted by ZFR
It's not a moot point. Having more teams means bigger chance of weak team sneaking in means bigger chance of low quality match, means on average quality of matches *will* be lower.
And it's the quality of the matches that it's all about. You complained about the quality of Spain vs Italy match. But increasing the number of teams to 24 will increase the chance of having more matches like these.
There will be some low-quality matches in 16-teams championships, but there will be a much bigger chance of having them in championships where teams which couldn't finish in the top 2 of a 6-team qualifying group still qualify.
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The Spain vs Italy match was the World champions against the European champions. You couldn't have better quality on paper, yet it was a boring, tedious nil all draw.
By contrast, the lesser teams Russia and Turkey played entertaining, match-winning football. Last time, the little known Greeks won the whole thing.
The point being, put in little known teams of "lesser quality" and upsets happen. They have less to lose and risk more. They play with spirit and gusto, not just professional experience. (Witness South Korea, Cameroon etc in past world cups too) Thus as evidenced by the above, we see better games, compared to the cynical professionalism of the World Champs.
What I'm saying is that expanding the team would bring in more "lesser quality" teams and thus raise the standard of play.
It would seem like an oxymoron, but actually makes perfect sense given the reasons I'm explaining.