Carlos Queiroz has been around long enough to know the trade-offs. The veteran coach has managed 11 national teams and taken six of them to the World Cup. So when he talks about the expanded 48-team format, he’s not just guessing.
After Ghana’s 2-1 loss to Croatia on Saturday in Philadelphia, the Black Stars still advanced to the Round of 32. They’ll face Colombia on July 3 in Kansas City. But Queiroz wasn’t celebrating. He was warning.
“I believe that value comes when things are rare,” Queiroz said. “The number of teams that can qualify for this competition can turn it into something vulgar and ordinary. When so many teams can qualify, is the value still rare? That would seem debatable to me, but it is only my opinion.”
He didn’t stop there. Queiroz pointed to Europe’s qualifying process, where dozens of teams now have a realistic shot at making the cut. “Who did not qualify in Europe?” he asked. “The qualification tournaments start to lose their significance if everyone qualifies. Qualification should be serious, it should be very tough, very competitive.”
The Money Question Nobody Wants to Answer
Queiroz is also blunt about what drove the expansion. “The World Cup should be something with meaning and significance. It should be rare. But, as you know, today money talks in the game.”
FIFA added 16 teams to the tournament starting this year. That means more games and more revenue from broadcast deals and sponsorships. But it also means teams that never would have seen a World Cup pitch are suddenly on it.
And to be fair, that’s where the counterargument lives. DR Congo, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire and South Africa all reached the knockout stage for the first time this summer. Those are historic moments you can’t get with a 32-team field. The expanded format gave those nations a real shot, and they earned it on the field.
Queiroz isn’t wrong about the dilution of the brand. But he’s also not wrong that the old format basically locked out entire continents from ever experiencing a knockout round. There’s a tension there, and he’s one of the few people inside the game honest enough to name it.
Ghana will get their shot at Colombia in a few days. Whether the tournament feels more or less special by the time it ends in July is still an open question. Queiroz has already made up his mind.
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