How does the current round-robin compare with the previous groups system?
Francisco Maturana: It would be premature to make a partial analysis, as the qualifiers have not finished yet, but I feel generally that the previous system was better. It was easier : with groups of four or five teams, everything was over within a couple of months. Now the coach has 18 months of stress, and some teams start with one coach and finish up with someone else. Already over 30% of the coaches have been changed. Also, in the smaller groups the smaller countries have more chance of qualifying; you just need one of the bigger teams to have a bad day, a smaller team can win and then it’s harder for the big team to recuperate. Now, if a big team has a bad day, they have 15 more games to make up for it. In the end, only the experienced World Cup teams are likely to make it. But when we weigh it all up after it’s finished, we must also take the economic and competitive side into account, and the effects this kind of system has on the domestic leagues, as well as the difficulty of i
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