Miguel Delaney

I think they officially finished second in both.

But it just, it basically gives teams like that a safety net, especially when there's one team in a group that everyone else should beat.

And it becomes a potluck of whether you get one of those teams.

So basically, Argentina should get through to the knockouts there and

no matter how they play and once you're there kind of anything happens so that starts to distort the tournament as well I think it will make the group stage feel that bit more meaningless and like to bring this full circle that's a classic illustration of how like you know you can talk the talk about what the World Cup is

I don't think he really gets it.

The four-team groups worked so well in 2022 because a 32-team tournament guaranteed a concentration of quality with just enough kind of outsiders getting through to represent that kind of element of surprise, of revelation, but also because two from four going through created a real kind of competitive intensity.

And he didn't get that.

So hence he has this kind of, you know, convoluted system where it's third place teams going.

It does point to a football leadership that doesn't really understand what the game actually is.

And this increasing problem of like, like Infantino is more and more selling off the game.

Like the ticket price controversy is a classic illustration is like,

Premier League club owners or owners of major clubs in Europe have been absolutely dying to bring true practices that we're seeing in the World Cup this year for years.

But domestic football cultures have mostly resisted.

And what do you have now?

You have the body that are supposed to be the ultimate safeguard for the game, just ushering all this through.

And no one can seemingly do anything about it.

It's a remarkable situation, really.

I have to say, I didn't have the issue with it some days.

Okay, maybe it's a little bit lacking in star power.