2026 World Cup, Day 20: What has worked, and what hasn't?

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We're done with the group stage of the World Cup - and part of the knockout stage, natch. But before we get swept away on a tide of knockout-round games or the unstoppable waves of the French attack, it's probably a good time to talk about what works and what hasn't so far at this World Cup - and one thing that wouldn't work if they tried it.

Works: More African teams at the World Cup

Count me among the people who thought that adding 16 teams to the World Cup would occasion some serious blowouts in the group stage. And nobody got more teams added this time around than Africa, which went from five slots in 2022 to nine in 2026, plus another when the Democratic Republic of Congo won a spot via the playoffs.

Those potential five push-overs went on to be the story of the group stage. Cabo Verde drew with Spain and Uruguay. South Africa beat South Korea. DR Congo drew with Portugal. All three, the lowest-ranked African sides, made it to the knockout rounds; of the ten African teams, only Tunisia failed to get out of their group, and Tunisia was an absolute mess. (They fired their manager after the first group-stage game, and when Billy Martin was presumably not available, they hired Herve Renard. Shockingly, he was not able to turn the team around in four days.)

Doesn't work: More North American teams at the World Cup

CONCACAF got three extra slots this time around, plus an additional play-off spot, giving a chance to eight North American teams to qualify. Suriname and Jamaica got bounced in the playoffs, and the extra three qualifiers - Haiti, Curaçao, and Panama - combined to win zero and lose eight out of nine games, getting out-scored 21-3 in the process.

The USA, Mexico, and Canada may yet save a little face for CONCACAF, with the latter two already in the Round of 16 and the USA favored to win tonight. But if FIFA took away the three automatic spots for 2030, it'd be hard to argue.

Works: More knockout-round games

Maybe that's too American of me, to love playoffs, but after watching the first few Round of 32 games, it's hard to argue against how great they've been. Germany lost to Paraguay. The Netherlands lost to Morocco. Brazil and Canada scored in stoppage time to win, and Norway needed a late goal to join them. And France showed just how good they are by crushing Sweden.

The soccer world seems to be moving away from pure winner-take-all knockouts, and I understand why: league tables will always be a more "fair" way of determining winners. But you cannot beat the drama of a knockout tournament.

Doesn't work: Best third-place teams

Having eight third-place teams go through to the knockout round was, frankly, a terrible idea. It made the group stage less fun (see: Australia and Paraguay playing out an 0-0 draw in the final group-stage game, because they knew that four points would almost certainly be enough to get everybody through).

It was also a huge advantage for the teams that happened to be in one of the higher-lettered groups, who knew what they needed to play for in a way that the teams in groups that finished earlier simply did not. Take a game I was at, Iran against Egypt in Group F. Even after a late disallowed goal put Iran in third instead of second, it seemed likely that all it meant was that the two teams swapped knockout-round opponents.

Instead, all the things that had to go wrong did, for Iran - including Senegal, knowing what they needed in a way Iran couldn't, scoring five goals against Iraq to leapfrog Iran on goal difference.

Doesn't work: head-to-head tiebreakers

For whatever reason, FIFA decided that the first tiebreaker in the group stage this time around should be head-to-head results instead of goal difference.

I get the potential fairness argument of this, but the result was that several teams won their first two matches and then had zero to play for in the third one, warping the overall tournament. Ecuador, for example, beat already-won-the-group Germany in the third game of the group stage, letting Ecuador sail through as a third-place winner; in a different year, Germany would have had to play for a draw to prevent Côte d'Ivoire from potentially jumping to the top of the group.

Breaking ties head-to-head might make more sense if the best-third-place-team rankings were dumped; talk to me then.

Don't try it, FIFA: The "Swiss system"

Listen, FIFA. I know you're looking, achingly, at the UEFA Champions League, which changed its group stage two years ago to a confusing league table whose sole goal was to increase the number of matches played. And I'm sure your TV partners would love to get from 72 group-stage games to 96 or 120 or whatever number has fevered your collective brows.

Don't. We like the group stage as-is. And 48 teams has been far, far too many to keep track of already. It will not be better for anything except your fattened wallets to make everyone play four or five games. Stop it.

What is going to happen next time around

Well, I'm sure that FIFA will see sense for the 2030 World Cup. Perhaps they'll just go back to 32 teams. After all, continuing to expand just doesn't make -

Hang on, how many host nations are there next time around? On how many continents?

... If we can hold these goofs to 64 teams, it'll be a win.