The Problem
Held every four years, the World Cup brings together national teams
from FIFA’s six continental confederations: AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa),
CONCACAF (North America, Central America and the Caribbean), CONMEBOL
(South America), OFC (Oceania) and UEFA (Europe). While about 200
national teams participate in the qualification phase, only 32 of them
advance to the final phase.
Between 1998 and 2014, the tournament was scheduled according to the so-called mirrored scheme,
in which each team played every other team once in the first nine
rounds, while in the second nine rounds the matchups were repeated in
the same order but with the home-away status reversed. Criticism over
this schedule notoriously mounted over the years because some features
were objectively unbalanced. For example, one of Bolivia’s double round
breaks had it play away Argentina in round 3 followed by an away game
against Venezuela in round 4, creating a travel sequence of 7,340 km,
slightly more than the distance from London to Mumbai.
This system also means teams do not play at home for long periods –
inconvenient for the teams but also the fans and local media. In 2010,
Uruguay did not play at home for more than 6 months.