A soccer lovers dream, why fans should love the new, bigger, deeper World Cup when they look at the schedule 

I’ve heard a lot of complaining about the new World Cup format over the last few months. It’s the biggest one ever. By that I mean there are more teams in this edition than any other World Cup we have ever seen. Bigger doesn’t always mean better, but in this case you should be salivating at the soccer smorgasbord we have lined up over the next month and some chance.

More teams, more groups more matches

Some people are claiming that the field is going to get diluted under this new format. There are too many teams which means that sides that may not have qualified for the World Cup in previous editions snuck in to this summer’s tournament. They claim that those teams may not bring as much in competitiveness to the field, and the games, especially in the group stages, won’t be as entertaining.

There are 48 teams in this year’s World Cup. That means there are twelve groups of four teams. After group stages, the top two teams are automatically on to the knockout rounds, while the top 8 third place teams will also qualify for the first ever Round of 32.

Why am I telling you all of this you might ask yourself. Well, hear me out because I’m going to do my best to convince all the doubters why this World Cup might be the best ever. Not only will we see the first ever Round of 32, which means 16 extra matches, but with the 12 groups instead of 8 in the group stages, that means we have 72 group stage matches. That’s 24 more matches that we are gifted in the group stages.

No days off… almost

A total of 104 games will be played from June 11th when Mexico play South Africa to kickoff the tournament until the final on July 19th. That’s 40 more games than we had in the last seven World Cup editions that featured 32 teams. The 32 team format was introduced in the 1998 World Cup in France. Before that it was a 24 team tournament from 1982 to 1994.

So why am I telling you all these stats? Does this guarantee that this will be a heart pounding, non stop, action packed World Cup? No, I can’t promise that each of the matches will be a mirror of the first leg of the PSG-Bayern Munich semifinals of the UCL, but what I can promise is there will be almost no days off over the next month and some change.

From the 11th of June to the 19th of July, there will only be five days in which we won’t have a match to watch. The first of those won’t come until July 8th when we go from the final match of the Round of 16 to the quarterfinals. Then we get two days, the 12th and 13th of July, to prepare for the semifinals once the quarters wrap up. The semis are the 14th and 15th. After that we get a two day break before the third placed game on the 18th and the final on the 19th. That is just five days of no soccer over 39 day span.

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