1930: Four groups of 4 (though 3 teams declined, so it ended up being one of 4 and three of 3), group winners advancing to knockout semifinals/final (including the United States!)

1934-38: Sixteen-team direct knockout, draws after 120 minutes replayed (only 15 teams in 1938 as Austria qualified, but was swallowed up by Nazi Germany).

1950: Four groups of four, group winners advancing to final group stage (the “final” that year was only possible as such because of Uruguay and Brazil’s earlier results; also, two groups were short: Sweden’s and Uruguay’s, due to withdrawals; Uruguay only had to play one game to make the final round robin and duly thrashed Bolivia 8-0.)

1954: Four groups of four, but with two seeds in each group that did not play each other (the two non-seeded didn’t play each other, either), but a scheduled group play-off as necessary; the two best teams advanced to three-round knockout stage.

1958-70: The “classic” format: four groups of four, top two going to knockout quarterfinals etc.

1974-78: Four groups of four, top two going to second group stage, second stage winners going to final and runner-up going to third-place match.

1982: Six groups of four, top two in each going to second group stage with four groups of three, winners of which advanced to knockout semifinals/final.

1986-94: Six groups of four, top two in each plus four best third-place teams advancing to 16-team single-elimination knockout stage.

1998-2010: “New classic” format: eight groups of four, top two in each advancing to 16-team knockout stage.

This last has been used four times…guess it’s time to change again! ^_^

Anders: I absolutely agree with you. However, that does not explain the decline (in goals scored per game) during the past two decades… But again: the ball is messing things up. Besides, as I understand, many games are played on high altitude. The combination is, maybe, not the best?

Best regards from Barcelona (no: I am a Real Madrid fan – since I was a small kid! And no: I don’t like the new era of “Galácticos”!!)!

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=105484191

Villa’s shot at 3.06 – 9/10 times he would put that away with a regular ball.
check also Torres’ shot at 3.21 – I have never seen him make a chip as aweful as this – look at it in slow, it seems like the ball just takes off on its own. Xabi Alonso’s shot at 3.41 is unbelievable, but again look at how the ball bounces during the pass to him.

I find it funny that the ball was made for strikers, made to make goals nicer, made to give tecnically strong players an advantage, and so far we see frustrated super stars and lower seated countries stealing headlines.

Goals per minute is what it should really be!!

Fred

So the format’s varied over time, sometimes there were those second group stages, sometimes there weren’t. In general, then, I do think you bring up an important point what we would need ideally would be a goals-per-minute total. That’s a lot of adding up and dividing to do, though!

Plus, I’d add the format has remained the same since 1998, yet the number of goals will have gone down substantially in three successive World Cups, if 2010 continues its trend.

Let me clarify my point…

This is the “old way” it used to “work” in the World Cups:

The top two teams in each group would advance to the second round, where they would be split into two groups of four. The winners of each group would play each other in the final, and the second place finishers in the third place match.

However, thesedays, there is a “knock out stage” (with extra time) **directly after the first group stage**… This means that a lot of games go to extra time *already after the first group stage* (add another 30 minutes of football and you will get more goals in the same game!).

So: there is probably more extra time (another 30 minutes) in the “Modern World Cups” – which increases the Goal Average in comparison to the old days…

See my point? We should compare 90 minutes vs. 90 minutes in order to get the right stats!

All the best from Germany!

Fred (Swedish)