The NFL plays and entire SEASON to determine who gets into the playoffs.
And the World Cup has an entire system of QUALIFYING MATCHES which whittle down the entire world to just 32 teams. This is the equivalent of a SEASON.
The they have the FINALS. This is what has been going on in Brazil. Not the SEASON, but rather the FINALS....which would be equivalent to NFL playoffs. And in the NFL, its loser goes home. For FIFA, in Portugal’s case, its winner goes home.
LOL. That is how you define a SEASON. It is not how FIFA defines a season.
You are a self-proclaimed conservative. Let me educate you a little about professional sports, especially global soccer.
Soccer is a big, big business globally. The tournament is structured to get the maximum entertainment with the greatest revenue. You have every country in the world entering a team. You have a three stage tournament.
The first stage is done primarily thru geographic regions with so many slots being allocated by region. 32 teams emerge from the first stage. There are seedings assigned to the 32 and a lottery is used to draw up the groups. The host country for the event is automatically qualified.
The second stage is the group stage of eight groups of four with each group playing a round-robin--three games per team. The two top teams from each group go to the knockout stage.
The remaining 16 teams go into the knockout third stage for an eventual winner. The entire tournament takes more than a month. Global interest is enormous.
This arrangement has proven to be a winner for FIFA and the fans. Countries that have teams in the group stage can maintain their hopes of getting into the knockout stage for over three weeks. It generates a huge amount of interest among the fans. The longer you allow these teams a chance, the greater the viewership and revenue in these countries. It is no different with the qualifications for the NFL playoff system that usually has a few teams in the running for the last playoff spot all depending on the last day's games. The NFL season is the equivalent of the World Cup second stage--the group stage.
The they have the FINALS. This is what has been going on in Brazil. Not the SEASON, but rather the FINALS....which would be equivalent to NFL playoffs. And in the NFL, its loser goes home. For FIFA, in Portugal’s case, its winner goes home.
LOL. Who gives a f**k what YOUR DEFINITION of the finals are or the season is? The World Cup has its own tournament and establishes the rules. It is the business model that works best for them. Portugal went home because of the rules and how tiebreakers are determined. It is no different than the NFL. It depends on what conference and division you are in. You can win 10 games and still not get to the playoffs while a team with a losing record could qualify. The NFL is a business and sets up the playoffs to maximize profits--just like FIFA.
“And the World Cup has an entire system of QUALIFYING MATCHES which whittle down the entire world to just 32 teams. This is the equivalent of a SEASON.”
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So what? Millions of people like it that way.
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