A great ending to the World Cup and now we jump right back into league football.
Meanwhile, Back at the EPL...
Arsenal are top of the table, Newcastle amazingly sit in third while sides with serious pedigree like West Ham, Everton, Southampton and Wolves are in the bottom five. However, given the World Cup break, there's still more than 60% of the season left as they head into the usual holiday match congestion.
Everybody will get three matches in between Boxing Day and January 5th. Maybe it's a good thing some of the European sides exited so early from the tournament (looking at you Spain and Belgium). At least they got a little break. It is good for the fans though as we will have a game every day in that run except 12/29.
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| The Emirates, better known to Newcastle fans as the Little Shop of Horrors |
- have lost 10 straight EPL matches on the road to Arsenal, getting outscored 6-29- haven't scored at Arsenal since 12/13/14- are 3-2-17 when we include home matches over those 11 seasons
So forgive me if we're not all ginned up for this one. A draw would be an amazing result. The 538 crew has it 52/23/25, which seems about right. Prior to that clash, Newcastle will travel to Leicester on Boxing Day and face Leeds at home on New Year's Eve. Those are two winnable matches.
Other matches of note during the holiday period include Chelsea at Man City on 1/5 and Brighton hosting Arsenal on New Year's Eve.
Dennis's Aston Villa got a tough draw with Liverpool at home on Boxing Day and Spurs in London on New Year's Day. They will be left to try to salvage something from the holiday period with a home match against Wolves on 1/4.
The full list of fixtures with 538 predictions can be had here. A lot of dark orange and win probabilities over 50%, indicating a dearth of tight contests.
A Worthy Final
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| 8 goals, including a hat trick in the final, but Mbappe's expression seems to say he'd prefer the Championship trophy over the Golden Boot [Photo: Carl Recine/Reuters] |
wasn't much for the French to cheer about. DiMaria drew a PK at 21 minutes that Messi converted and he then got one for himself at 36 minutes. Giroud and Dembele were ineffective and gone before the first half ended, Griezmann exited at 71 minutes. Fortunately, Mbappe leveled things in the space of about 90 seconds, first with a PK then a goal from open play. Onto a marvelous 30 plus minutes of extra time in which both of the stars added one more each - Messi at 108 and Mbappe with another PK at 118. Both teams managed a few more chances in the remaining minutes of extra time but the whistle blew without another goal. The bad news is that no one listens to this blog and so they went to PKs rather than playing for a winner from open play for the final. Argentina prevailed there, 4-2. The best final I can remember.
"Stunning Football and Endless Controversy"
With those words, Sam Cunningham from i (London-based morning newspaper) summed it up well. For good or bad, this will go down as one of the best World Cup tournaments ever, at least on the field. The group stage was full of unexpected twists and turns. Some of the knockout matches weren't all that great but the final delivered. Certainly, the dire predictions that the football would suffer in a World Cup hosted by Qatar didn't materialize. Off the field, well that's another matter of course. Sam Cunningham's full article can be had here. It's a long read but does feel like a good catalog of the problems. And not all of the fingers should point at Qatar; FIFA may not be as financially corrupt as it used to be but they still specialize in, shall we say, curious decision making. Some of those are highlighted here by Rob Dorsett from SkySports. I can help but be amused by the section that notes how this was the first World Cup during which no UK national was arrested.
I will ask whether you think differently of Qatar as a nation after the tournament. I certainly don't. The fact that this was an exciting, competitive World Cup won't cause me to overlook the issues they still have as a country. The tournament is coming to the US in 2026. We should expect the same level of scrutiny of how we do as a nation on many of the same issues that were raised in Qatar.
48 Does Not Go Easily Into 32
Speaking of the 2026 World Cup, recall that FIFA approved expanding the field from 32 to 48. The original proposal was for 16 groups of three teams, with the first and second place teams advancing to a knockout bracket of 32. It would have taken the tournament from 64 matches to 80 matches but wouldn't require too many extra days and teams that made it to the final four would still only play seven matches in total. But, anybody who paid attention to the four-day drama of this year's last group stage matches saw what could be lost. Matt Slater from The Athletic pointed out other problems as well:
There were a few grumbles from European voices about diluting the quality of the tournament, tiring out more players and reducing the value of the various confederations’ regional qualifying competitions, but nobody made much noise about the format’s biggest weakness: the risk of collusion in the final match of the group stage.
For those not seeing the danger — and do not beat yourselves up, the game’s guardians on the FIFA Council apparently missed it, too — if you have groups of three, one team is left watching while the others play. That means the two teams in the group’s third and final fixture will both know what they need to do to proceed, and there is a chance that there could be a mutually beneficial result which sees them both go through, while the watching side goes home.
Smarter heads may eventually prevail. Two leading options under consideration are 1) 12 groups of four, with the top two in each group plus the eight best third place sides advancing to a 32 team knockout phase or 2) dividing the field in two sections of 24, each with six groups of four, with the top two in each group plus the four best third place teams moving to a 16 team knockout phase, with the winner of each section then meeting in the final. Either keeps the group stage largely the same as it is now but adds a lot more games to the tournament. To complete the tournament in a reasonable time frame would probably require 5-6 games a day during the group stage.
I have a simple alternative that will go nowhere. Set up eight groups of six teams with the top two advancing to a knockout phase of 16. This would require five instead of three group stage games and probably adds 7-8 days to the tournament. But either of the leading options on the table will require over 100 games anyway and probably add 3-4 days to the tournament.
It's FIFA so I have complete confidence they will come up with something that makes sense.
Given how fast the fixtures will come in the next two weeks, we're going to take a break and report back after the holidays. We'll rank how teams did over the holidays and preview the FA Cup. Enjoy whatever holiday you observe by watching lots of football.
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