The World Cup is going to be awful isn't it?

I mean I know it will be lovely for people from countries who previously never had a chance of qualification like Curacao, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Cape Verde and Scotland, but for the rest of us I fear the quality will not be good.

48 teams of which 32 go through to the knockouts feels almost like a waste of time. Purely a money making exercise. There will maybe be a surprise exit or two but in general even a badly performing side that would usually expect to qualify is going to get through.

And then the eventual winners will need to win five knockout ties in a row, many of them likely in heat and humidity with storm delays etc as we saw in the club World Cup, meaning that we may not even be able to watch delayed games given the time difference.

The group games and even the rounds of 32 and 16 will likely have many more anti-football games with buses parked making for a s**t spectacle.

With 5 knockout rounds you'd expect to see more injuries and probably to win you'd expect to have to get through at least 1 or 2 penalty shootouts. We may well get a surprise winner and feels like a squad with more quality and fitness in depth than the best first XI is more suited to win it. I also fancy a slight underdog as they'd be under less pressure than one of the favourites would be for 5 games in a row.

And then the final is likely to be two exhausted, depleted teams in a dirge of a game.

I get the feeling that the entire conversation is going to be more about refereeing controversies, injuries and penalties than free flowing, exciting football and cracking goals.

Posted By: Legacy Fan, Nov 19, 13:58:47