Plate or Bowl finals for 3rd and 4th teams in groups

To really progress the Women’s and age group teams football at future World Cups it would be great to have the teams that come 3rd and 4th in their pool go it out a Plate or Bowl group and then they play either knockout games or split into two pools and play more meaningful games. The players are already there in the host country. The stadium’s are all set up for it. The fans can stay for longer if they can afford it. Watching the Ireland vs Nigeria game now and I reckon we would be pretty competitive against the Irish. 

Plate group could be: NZ, Canada, Zambia, China, Portugal, Jamaica, South Africa, Morroco. 
Bowl group could be: Phillipines, Ireland, Costa Rica, Haiti, Vietnam, Panama, Argentina, Korea. 

As I write this it is clearly the same sort of format as the Uefa Champions League, Europa and  Conference League. 

This would allow more opportunities for the younger players to get more game time and to be put in the shop window for overseas clubs, where they can be pushed and develop further. 

I hope that there are a whole bunch of the NZ players use the ALW as a stepping stone to the bigger leagues. It is a fantastic gateway to higher leagues. Onwards and upwards for the women’s game. 

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To really progress the Women’s and age group teams football at future World Cups it would be great to have the teams that come 3rd and 4th in their pool go it out a Plate or Bowl group and then they play either knockout games or split into two pools and play more meaningful games. The players are already there in the host country. The stadium’s are all set up for it. The fans can stay for longer if they can afford it. Watching the Ireland vs Nigeria game now and I reckon we would be pretty competitive against the Irish. 

Plate group could be: NZ, Canada, Zambia, China, Portugal, Jamaica, South Africa, Morroco. 
Bowl group could be: Phillipines, Ireland, Costa Rica, Haiti, Vietnam, Panama, Argentina, Korea. 

As I write this it is clearly the same sort of format as the Uefa Champions League, Europa and  Conference League. 

This would allow more opportunities for the younger players to get more game time and to be put in the shop window for overseas clubs, where they can be pushed and develop further. 

I hope that there are a whole bunch of the NZ players use the ALW as a stepping stone to the bigger leagues. It is a fantastic gateway to higher leagues. Onwards and upwards for the women’s game. 

The NZ Secondary Schools Champs use the same format as the World Cup ( 8 groups of 4) and then have what you propose with the bottom 16 having their own knock-out, and then ongoing placing matches 1-8, 9-16, 17-24, 25-32, and then 1-4, 5-8, ..., 29-32, and then 1-2,3-4,5-6...,31-32.

On the positive, in theory every teams last game is against a team closest to their ability,  everyone has 7 matches,  and everyone goes home at the same time with a ranking 1-32..  It has some quirks, the 16th team has lost their last 4 games, whilst the 17th team has won their last 4 games.  

On the negatives, when teams lose, they treat these placing games less seriously.
 
Logistically it suits when you have a single venue and you see these placing games occurring at Olympics with hockey and basketball .  With multiple venues as with football you are adding cost without necessarily getting any additional revenue.  

Nope nope nope... it's not football. 

lthomas20

Nope nope nope... it's not football. 

 
But it would be more football. The extra cost of having 3 or 4 more games wouldn’t be that much surely once they have already done the cost of helping prep the fields and the pre-tournament camps etc. The costs would be spread thinner. 

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lthomas20

Nope nope nope... it's not football. 

 
But it would be more football. The extra cost of having 3 or 4 more games wouldn’t be that much surely once they have already done the cost of helping prep the fields and the pre-tournament camps etc. The costs would be spread thinner. 

From a point of view of the Football Ferns it would totally make sense.  How often do we get a chance to put on a game with a squad based all over the world, and international teams only meeting us if we play away from New Zealand?  Obviously neither the budget nor the logistics (flights, hotels) or for that matter motivation are there to do it now, but there is some merit in this idea.
Teams should all be based in Palmerston North, as an added bonus; the winner allowed to move out one day early.

Yeah, I can just imagine the Ferns and the Filipinas being *so* excited about playing an extra match or two. I think both teams just want to go home and cry a bit at this point.

NZ are the only team that never get meaningful games. All other confederation have plenty of games and opportunities to blood young talent. 

No way a fan of that idea.

watching_from_far

NZ are the only team that never get meaningful games. All other confederation have plenty of games and opportunities to blood young talent. 

No way a fan of that idea.

If you look at the Rugby 7’s tournaments they often have this. Do you think it has helped the level of play of the Malaysian men’s 7’s team having extra games against the likes of Kenya, USA and Wales? Or they would make the same progress just playing 3 pool games against NZ, England and Samoa and getting pumped? The extra games would help to give more credibility to the FIFA rankings. They wouldn’t even have to be in Palmerston North, they could be in Chch who host the 17th to 24th playoffs and Canberra who host the 25-32nd playoff’s. 

The women's game continues to fight a long fight for credibility and equality - this sounds like making it a bit like a youth participation event, as opposed to an elite global competition...

Think has been said above from an NZ perspective it would be good as play competitive games against decent teams. But every other confideration already get plenty of games against competitive teams. Etc euros nations league, euro qualifiers and euro world cup qualifiers.
Bit harsh for chch being put in same statement as Palmy!

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watching_from_far

NZ are the only team that never get meaningful games. All other confederation have plenty of games and opportunities to blood young talent. 

No way a fan of that idea.

If you look at the Rugby 7’s tournaments they often have this. Do you think it has helped the level of play of the Malaysian men’s 7’s team having extra games against the likes of Kenya, USA and Wales? Or they would make the same progress just playing 3 pool games against NZ, England and Samoa and getting pumped? The extra games would help to give more credibility to the FIFA rankings. They wouldn’t even have to be in Palmerston North, they could be in Chch who host the 17th to 24th playoffs and Canberra who host the 25-32nd playoff’s. 

I guess the key difference being the whole thing is held at the one stadium and all teams are committed to being there to the end in case they are in the final. Also, I don't follow it but isn't the 7s a series of tournaments throughout the year with an overall winner at the end of it and you get points for what place you come? So all matches and placings count for something towards the season and if you lose a bit earlier than you'd hoped one week it's still worth trying to finish as high you can for your season points. Noone is going to be interested in playing for 17th/18th after being knocked out of the World Cup at the group stage.

watching_from_far

NZ are the only team that never get meaningful games. All other confederation have plenty of games and opportunities to blood young talent. 

No way a fan of that idea.

Correct. Which is why I took the bait and responded to the original post. Other teams have more opportunities while we do not.  
Consider that Australian men's team (arguably) improved over the years by switching to AFC from Oceania.  Tougher teams to play against, and more games on good pitches. Better than the very few games they used to get before 2006.

Khalil Media

The women's game continues to fight a long fight for credibility and equality - this sounds like making it a bit like a youth participation event, as opposed to an elite global competition...

So what is the Europa Conference league? And the Carabao cup? Are they a participation comp? The men are happy to have that. And West Ham and Roma were pretty happy to reach a final of a second tier competition. 

Maybe someone hosts an invitation tournament of 16 teams and it is biannual and has 4 pools of 4, and ends up with playoffs for placings and they have one for second tier countries. We have participated in the Algarve cup in the past but I think that is only for 4 countries? 

Sure the players like Hannah W and Bott and ARiley might not be keen to play playoff positions but the likes of Foster, Anton, Satchell, Cleverly surely would be keen to show how much they have improved over the last 10 weeks they have been in camp to only get no opportunity to play on the field.