Sportsbet.io's FIFA World Cup 22 Prediction Pool Discussion thread

[darxiaomi]

I know its not ended yet this World Cup but you realized, this its the last World Cup with this format?

In the next one USA/Canada and Mexico 2026 we have 48 participants, this its the last one with 32, we have this format since France 98. So its not the first time the World Cup change his format, but i think this last change its more about money/broadcasting than football. with 48 participants we can have so much low tier national teams.

Only good thing? More matches to see to bet, and surely more people in the cities who host the tournament.

[Trofo]

I know its not ended yet this World Cup but you realized, this its the last World Cup with this format?

In the next one USA/Canada and Mexico 2026 we have 48 participants, this its the last one with 32, we have this format since France 98. So its not the first time the World Cup change his format, but i think this last change its more about money/broadcasting than football. with 48 participants we can have so much low tier national teams.

Only good thing? More matches to see to bet, and surely more people in the cities who host the tournament.

I don't like the new format, World Cup already has enough small teams in it. I mean it is world cup and nobody wants to see Brazil winning 8:0 against some island country where they have to take vacation to play in it. This should be elite competition, reserved only for the best of the best.

And group stage with 16 groups per 3 teams is just ridiculous but it still not set in stone. They are even considering 12 groups with 4 teams and another one is to divide tournament in half and then winners of each half play in final.

[KTChampions]

I don't like the new format, World Cup already has enough small teams in it. I mean it is world cup and nobody wants to see Brazil winning 8:0 against some island country where they have to take vacation to play in it. This should be elite competition, reserved only for the best of the best.

And group stage with 16 groups per 3 teams is just ridiculous but it still not set in stone. They are even considering 12 groups with 4 teams and another one is to divide tournament in half and then winners of each half play in final.

I think you are wrong here. Businessmen just want such nonsense - after all, the more victories 8-0, the more shows and updates of records, when not just some historical Klose is the record holder, but the current player who successfully performed in the group stage  It is clear that all this development goes from bad to worse, but what can we do.

[darxiaomi]

I know its not ended yet this World Cup but you realized, this its the last World Cup with this format?

In the next one USA/Canada and Mexico 2026 we have 48 participants, this its the last one with 32, we have this format since France 98. So its not the first time the World Cup change his format, but i think this last change its more about money/broadcasting than football. with 48 participants we can have so much low tier national teams.

Only good thing? More matches to see to bet, and surely more people in the cities who host the tournament.

I don't like the new format, World Cup already has enough small teams in it. I mean it is world cup and nobody wants to see Brazil winning 8:0 against some island country where they have to take vacation to play in it. This should be elite competition, reserved only for the best of the best.

And group stage with 16 groups per 3 teams is just ridiculous but it still not set in stone. They are even considering 12 groups with 4 teams and another one is to divide tournament in half and then winners of each half play in final.

Yes, i think like you, i dont like this moves, also to see that kind of games we have friendlies and qualification.

I don't like the new format, World Cup already has enough small teams in it. I mean it is world cup and nobody wants to see Brazil winning 8:0 against some island country where they have to take vacation to play in it. This should be elite competition, reserved only for the best of the best.

And group stage with 16 groups per 3 teams is just ridiculous but it still not set in stone. They are even considering 12 groups with 4 teams and another one is to divide tournament in half and then winners of each half play in final.

I think you are wrong here. Businessmen just want such nonsense - after all, the more victories 8-0, the more shows and updates of records, when not just some historical Klose is the record holder, but the current player who successfully performed in the group stage  It is clear that all this development goes from bad to worse, but what can we do.

Yes, but that only make more right our posture, we are the one who loves football, they only loves busines, and they are gonna kill the football if keep doing shits. (football its inmortal, but you know what i mean)

Also for the records, its a shit seeing records broken because you can score a ton of goals against shit teams, if one thing we have in the World Cup its you dont have so many chances to do things, and that make the WC unique.

[casperBGD]

~snip
with 48 participants we can have so much low tier national teams.

if 48 is needed to have China and India on WC, then it will be 48
if they cannot qualify even with 48, number will rise again

it is important to have those two markets for TV with their national teams included in tournament, and it will happen, sooner or later
I guess that most believed China will always qualify with 32, and they did in 2002, but not after that

South America will go from 4,5 (4 secured and one through additional qualifications with Oceania) to 6 secured and 1/3 (qualification from 6 teams for 2 spots) and Asia will go from 4,5 to 8 secured and 1/3 through qualification
and one can guess that Asian football is above South American (irony)

[LTU_btc]

I don't like the new format, World Cup already has enough small teams in it. I mean it is world cup and nobody wants to see Brazil winning 8:0 against some island country where they have to take vacation to play in it. This should be elite competition, reserved only for the best of the best.

And group stage with 16 groups per 3 teams is just ridiculous but it still not set in stone. They are even considering 12 groups with 4 teams and another one is to divide tournament in half and then winners of each half play in final.

I also don't like new format. I'm afraid that level of competition will drop significantly with more weak teams added. Already now we have some games which aren't very interesting. Look at AFC for example. Basically, there is just South Korea and Japan who can fight for spot in next round. Others end tournament after group stage. From AFC teams that haven't qualified for WC now, I don't see any team which would be able to compete in World Cup. Same about Africa. Maybe Algeria or Nigeria, but in general, with all respect, African teams usually end tournament after group stage and Morocco performance was exception from rule.
And with 48 teams it's probably impossible to make good format and things that they're considering now looks ridiculous. I hate when someone is trying to fix things which aren't broken.
With current format I'm trying to watch all games of World Cup. If I'm not able to do it live, I watch replay. But with 48 teams it will be too much even for me.

[1miau]

The problem of the new format is if you increase teams above an useful number of 32 teams where we have proper group stage / round of 16 / quarter and semifinals, it's getting a huge mess if it's done for 48 teams.

I can understand that increasing limits to 48 countries is better for small countries to be a participant of the World Cup and even surprises (like Morocco) can happen more likely, where a less popular team has a streak of some good matches (as it's often happening for national leagues in the first 4 or 5 games, where we'll se unusual teams on a good position in the table). But after all, messing up the World Cup procedure will make it also less prestigious to qualify for such a 48 teams World Cup.

Same about Africa. Maybe Algeria or Nigeria, but in general, with all respect, African teams usually end tournament after group stage and Morocco performance was exception from rule.

Africa is a country of many countries and while some African teams have left the World Cup early, Africa is still under-performing in my opinion. Mané from Senegal is injured, Mo Salah from Egypt hasn't been part of this World Cup and Tunisia was able to beat France. And in the past teams like Cote Ivoire (Drogba) have also been interesting teams. In my opinion, Africa deserves to have some more spots.
There are always good an interesting teams coming from Africa. 

South America will go from 4,5 (4 secured and one through additional qualifications with Oceania) to 6 secured and 1/3 (qualification from 6 teams for 2 spots) and Asia will go from 4,5 to 8 secured and 1/3 through qualification
and one can guess that Asian football is above South American (irony)

Good point, FIFA strikes again.. 
There are indeed some good teams from South America, it's sad we still don't see more from that continent.

[slaman29]

I kinda wish Alvarez didn't get the second goal as I would have gotten an exact score. I thought 2-0 was already so risky thinking of how tight Croatia normally plays. I did climb back 1 spot so it's okay, now the problem is another game of draw experts, but is it too risky to take?

I just needed Croatia to score a for a perfect pick. Pretty much ruined my chances of even having a hope of getting a top ten place but that's fully out of reach now.

Yellow cap still to play for, I suspect we might get a few joint winners as it is already many of us "wearing" it now

I was really impressed by Griezmann, he plays everything for this France squad and i will have to check his heatmap. It should be box to box today with several key moments in his own box as well.

He has been very good throughout I think! Defense, he's active, Attack, he's active. I believe he ran more for France than he did for Barca at any point according to another report I read, hope he remembers how to do that when he goes back to Atletico cause they really need him to secure UCL

For the final Yellow Cap of this World Cup pool, we will combine the Semis and Finals (both Croatia vs. Morocco and Argentina vs. France).
In standard Sportsbet.io fashion, it will be a Boosted Yellow Cap 

That's going to be a proper finish to this World Cup!

[bullrun2024bro]

Yellow cap still to play for, I suspect we might get a few joint winners as it is already many of us "wearing" it now

Not sure, if we get too many yellow cap winners in the end. The battle for the prize money has not yet been decided and I think there will be at least some unexpected picks this time.

But all in all, the next two games will be extremely difficult to predict. Everything is possible, IMHO. I have no clue at least. Haha.

In the next one USA/Canada and Mexico 2026 we have 48 participants

Not only that, didn't the FIFA just announce a new "Club World Cup" starting in 2025 with 32 teams? I understand that FIFA wants to make money first and foremost, but how many more tournaments with far too many teams should there be? Jesus...  

[swogerino]

Yellow cap still to play for, I suspect we might get a few joint winners as it is already many of us "wearing" it now

Not sure, if we get too many yellow cap winners in the end. The battle for the prize money has not yet been decided and I think there will be at least some unexpected picks this time.

But all in all, the next two games will be extremely difficult to predict. Everything is possible, IMHO. I have no clue at least. Haha.

In the next one USA/Canada and Mexico 2026 we have 48 participants

Not only that, didn't the FIFA just announce a new "Club World Cup" starting in 2025 with 32 teams? I understand that FIFA wants to make money first and foremost, but how many more tournaments with far too many teams should there be? Jesus...  

For people that are like 1-2 points difference from the prize spots I am sure they will be forced to choose an alternative outcome of the final and the third vs fourth place game as they have got nothing to lose by doing so and they definitely should do so even in my opinion.The reason is simple and that is if they follow the other people who are at the prize spots they won't go very far and will be staying in the same spots they are now out of the prize spots,so an alternative prediction is needed,they just need to be creative and be hopeful,that is the only option for these persons to try and be in the prize spots after the tournament ends.

[KTChampions]

I think you are wrong here. Businessmen just want such nonsense - after all, the more victories 8-0, the more shows and updates of records, when not just some historical Klose is the record holder, but the current player who successfully performed in the group stage   It is clear that all this development goes from bad to worse, but what can we do.

Yes, but that only make more right our posture, we are the one who loves football, they only loves busines, and they are gonna kill the football if keep doing shits. (football its inmortal, but you know what i mean)

Also for the records, its a shit seeing records broken because you can score a ton of goals against shit teams, if one thing we have in the World Cup its you dont have so many chances to do things, and that make the WC unique.

By the way, do you remember that Infantino dreams (and tries to organize) of holding the World Cup every two years? Imagine this nonsense when, given the change in the format of the competition and the timing, the new average players will have 30 goals scored in the World Cups, while the rare legends of the past have more than 10.
They are really trying to kill football and I don't like it. But I see that the clubs are trying to resist this nonsense - most recently Infantino did not make voting on the new (naturally crazy) format of the Club World Championship - he knew that the clubs would not support it.

[buwaytress]

I know its not ended yet this World Cup but you realized, this its the last World Cup with this format?

Yeah, think I was pondering that very point just before we kicked off this one.

Then, I was saying the 3-team group format was laying the groundwork for all kinds of nonsense by the second game, though I've now learnt that this particular method is not finalised (I honestly can't see how it could work, just too many ways to collude).

@casperBGD Also definitely agree Asia getting 33% more slots than S America does seem a bit overrated -- but at the same time, this is AFC slots, I believe, which actually includes almost the entire Middle East (and Australasia). I've been saying for a while there are some Central Asian club outfits just a tick below the likes of Iran and Saudi who probably are at least as good as some UEFA and Concacaf teams (and the fact UEFA actually admitting Kazakhstan who left AFC).

And then apparently Russia is seriously considering to join AFC from UEFA, they'll probably take an extra spot.

It's football gerrymandering and money...

[Harkorede]

I think you are wrong here. Businessmen just want such nonsense - after all, the more victories 8-0, the more shows and updates of records, when not just some historical Klose is the record holder, but the current player who successfully performed in the group stage   It is clear that all this development goes from bad to worse, but what can we do.

Yes, but that only make more right our posture, we are the one who loves football, they only loves busines, and they are gonna kill the football if keep doing shits. (football its inmortal, but you know what i mean)

Also for the records, its a shit seeing records broken because you can score a ton of goals against shit teams, if one thing we have in the World Cup its you dont have so many chances to do things, and that make the WC unique.

By the way, do you remember that Infantino dreams (and tries to organize) of holding the World Cup every two years? Imagine this nonsense when, given the change in the format of the competition and the timing, the new average players will have 30 goals scored in the World Cups, while the rare legends of the past have more than 10.
They are really trying to kill football and I don't like it. But I see that the clubs are trying to resist this nonsense - most recently Infantino did not make voting on the new (naturally crazy) format of the Club World Championship - he knew that the clubs would not support it.

The problem with Infantino is that most of his decisions are often based on misplaced priorities and/or just a grand revenue generating scheme, that's the only thing I could think of with the World Cup being hosted every two years, there are far too many problems with the sports that needs tackling first before any form of proposed transformation or reorganization, for instance the main reason for hosting a world cup in a not so socially accommodating environment needs to be investigate first and from my perception and the level of restrictions the travelers had in the venue is absurd that the justification I could think of with the country level of social exposure is that FIFA were only financially motivated and not the sake of supposed general inclusion or indiscrimination.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Only good thing? More matches to see to bet, and surely more people in the cities who host the tournament.

More money too. Big nations like India, China and many others will bring new cash-flow to FIFA.

They are even considering 12 groups with 4 teams and another one is to divide tournament in half and then winners of each half play in final.

8 groups with 6 teams in each group will do the calculation easier. There will be more matches in the group stage though. Each team will play 5 matches where they are playing 3 matches in the current format.

[darxiaomi]

Maybe you dont know how or when this start to happen, but i know exactly. All this shit start with the argentinian Julio Humberto Grondona, he was the president of Argentinian association of football (1979/2014) and Vicepresident of the FIFA from 1988 to his dead in 2014.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Grondona

He was in fact the president of the FIFA and he was the man behind all the moneylaundry and a lot more of tricks.
He install a system in FIFA, to make all this possible, in the past the vote of the federation doesnt equal the same. For example the vote of the Argentinia, Brasil Germany etc counts for 10 and the votes of minor federations like Seychelles count 0.5.

So.... Grondona comes with his system (one probed in AFA) and say, look this its more democratic bla bla bla, and now all the votes are equals, so the big federations have one vote and the minors have the same 1 vote.
Then you can make all you need, its simply, you want a WC with 48 participants? EASY, i come to Burkina faso, Seychelles Kuwait, etc with a little bribery and say to you, took this and when the elections comes you voted in favor. So the big federations who doesnt want the format cant do anything against this.

Its easy and also cheap for the FIFA.
Now they collect all the money from massives events, destroy the players and big federations, and plus for all the world they sell the images of democratic and inclusive/diverse shit.

"Ohhh yes look now we have 558545 africans teams, 5448458 trillions minorities of Asia, and whatever you want." And all the press (paid) clapping.

This its the hard truth, i hope this stop, because i see this shit daily in Argentinian league now we have a tournament of 28/30 teams in first division, its a shit and this was installed trought the same method, and yes it was invented here. The excuses here was "to make the tournament more federal" because the mayority of teams are from Buenos Aires and Rosario. And now we have a low level tournament and we cant keep fighting against brasilian teams in Libertadores Cup, this plus the economic sittuation.

EDIT: i forgot one little and precious hint, Julio Humberto Grondona never learn ONE word of english...... imagine his power. A man who cant talk in english managing the world football in the dark.

[notblox1]

Guys what are your predictions for tomorrow match Croatia vs Morocco?
Croatia have one day more to rest and prepare tactics and I think both teams are going to miss some players.
Winner will be the team who is more mentally strong, but win for Morocco would be history for all African national teams.

Dont forget to make your predictions in one more Sportsbet competition for final match Argentina vs France:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5429483.0

Superbru standing changed and now sam00 is in first place.
Good luck everyone.

[darxiaomi]

Guys what are your predictions for tomorrow match Croatia vs Morocco?
Croatia have one day more to rest and prepare tactics and I think both teams are going to miss some players.
Winner will be the team who is more mentally strong, but win for Morocco would be history for all African national teams.

Dont forget to make your predictions in one more Sportsbet competition for final match Argentina vs France:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5429483.0

Superbru standing changed and now sam00 is in first place.
Good luck everyone.

I think its a shit game, for me this game doesnt have to exist. Because if you are a player, with how many force do you play this game? Its not at the same level to a competitive one.

Asides of this i think Croatia will win, for what i said above, Morocco team can go back to the normal, they lose that extra energy bring by make the impossible, or being the cinderella.

[LTU_btc]

@casperBGD Also definitely agree Asia getting 33% more slots than S America does seem a bit overrated -- but at the same time, this is AFC slots, I believe, which actually includes almost the entire Middle East (and Australasia). I've been saying for a while there are some Central Asian club outfits just a tick below the likes of Iran and Saudi who probably are at least as good as some UEFA and Concacaf teams (and the fact UEFA actually admitting Kazakhstan who left AFC).

And then apparently Russia is seriously considering to join AFC from UEFA, they'll probably take an extra spot.

It's football gerrymandering and money...

There is some OK level teams in Asia which currently don't qualify to World Cup and would benefit from expansion of tournament. Uzbekistan, UAE or China for example. They're better than weakest UEFA teams. But they would struggle against mediacore UEFA teams. Kazakhstan example shows it well - they never had real chance to qualify to major tournament through UEFA. Considering extra WC slots for AFC, I wouldn't be surprised if they will consider to return to Asian confederation.

I think its a shit game, for me this game doesnt have to exist. Because if you are a player, with how many force do you play this game? Its not at the same level to a competitive one.

Asides of this i think Croatia will win, for what i said above, Morocco team can go back to the normal, they lose that extra energy bring by make the impossible, or being the cinderella.

If we would have France and Argentina fighting for 3rd place, then I think that such game isn't needed at all. I doubt that they would be very interested to fight for it. But for Croatia and Morocco 3rd place would be big achievement and I expect that players of both teams will have motivation to fight fo it.

[Joca97]

Guys what are your predictions for tomorrow match Croatia vs Morocco?
Croatia have one day more to rest and prepare tactics and I think both teams are going to miss some players.
Winner will be the team who is more mentally strong, but win for Morocco would be history for all African national teams.

Dont forget to make your predictions in one more Sportsbet competition for final match Argentina vs France:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5429483.0

Superbru standing changed and now sam00 is in first place.
Good luck everyone.

I think that croatia has more experience in this kind of matches.They know how to play big games but this one isnt important as much. But still its to be third in the world i think we can expect lots of goals from both sides and i think croatia will take the win aswell

[boltz]

Well yea, I think the same with Croatia but when we take a closer look to Marocco team and what they achieved so far , I think it's fair to say that they deserve 3rd place as well.

For me , it's hard to favorite one of these two , but I would like to see a penalty shootout between them as this is kinda the only way to have a well deserved winner as so far. However, I think Marocco deserves more than Croatia this 3rd spot as they sent home both Spain and Portugal...