{"id":216875,"date":"2026-07-12T23:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/world-cup-isnt-rigged-its-taken-a-page-from-march-madness-opinion-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T23:57:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:57:00","slug":"world-cup-isnt-rigged-its-taken-a-page-from-march-madness-opinion-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/world-cup-isnt-rigged-its-taken-a-page-from-march-madness-opinion-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup isn't rigged. It's taken a page from March Madness | Opinion – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

DALLAS \u2014 Yes, the World Cup is rigged.
Oh, calm down. It\u2019s not what some of you think<\/a>. The World Cup<\/a> is “rigged” in the same way the NCAA basketball tournaments and tennis majors are, with brackets drawn to ensure as much as possible the top teams meet in the semifinals or finals and not before.
And, as FIFA\u2019s luck would have it, it worked. The World Cup is so chalky it might as well be a sidewalk in front of a 4-year-old\u2019s house.
For the first time since FIFA began ranking teams in 1994, the top four teams when the World Cup began are in the semifinals. No. 2 Spain plays third-ranked France on Tuesday, July 14, in Dallas, while top-ranked Argentina plays No. 4 England on Wednesday, July 15.
It\u2019s also the first time since 1990 all four semifinalists are previous World Cup champions.
“If we look at the four remaining teams, all of them could be champion,” Switzerland coach Murat Yakin said after Argentina pulled off another escape act with a 3-1 win on Saturday, July 11.
Which was the whole point.
Upsets in the World Cup, much like the NCAA Tournament, are great fun in the early rounds. Who doesn\u2019t like seeing Duke get taken out by a Mercer in the first round of the men\u2019s tournament?
OK, bad example. Pretty much everyone likes seeing Duke get taken out by anyone, in any round.
You get the idea, though. We love the UMBCs and the High Points and the Furmans and the FDUs for the chaos they cause. For making sure underdogs everywhere keep dreaming big and don\u2019t lose faith. It\u2019s the same reason we flooded the Cape Verde and Congo bandwagons at this World Cup.
When it gets down to the semifinals and the finals, though, we want order restored. We want to see the top teams and the star players because, odds are, that\u2019s going to give us the best games.
We want chalk.
Wouldn\u2019t you rather see Kylian Mbappe and Lamine Yamal go toe to toe again rather than watch one of them run roughshod over a player you only learned existed a month ago? Don\u2019t you want to know if Lionel Messi and Argentina have another life or two left in them to use against Jude Bellingham and England?
Be honest.
“We\u2019re the only team that has managed to beat (France) twice. A great team is going to face another great team,” Spain coach Luis de la Fuente said after his team beat Belgium to join Les Bleus in the semifinals<\/a>.
Havoc is fun for a while. But at some point, we want to see the best in the world do their thing.
FIFA, to its credit, recognized this. With the expanded tournament adding another knockout round, FIFA could change the rules to delay meetings between the top teams until the end of the tournament. So long as they won their groups, the top four teams would avoid each other until the semifinals.
No more repeats of 2010, when Brazil\u2019s title hopes ended early because they had the bad fortune to run into the Netherlands in the quarterfinals.
“To ensure competitive balance, two separate pathways to the semi-finals have been established when developing the match schedule,” FIFA said when it announced the rule change last November.
“This will ensure that, should they win their groups, the two highest-ranked teams will not meet before the final.”
Just as in March Madness, the top teams still have to do their jobs. They still have to win their groups and dodge upset-minded teams in the first three knockout games. They all did, ensuring the biggest World Cup yet will have the biggest finish.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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DALLAS \u2014 Yes, the World Cup is rigged.Oh, calm down. It\u2019s not what some of you think. The World Cup is “rigged” in the same way the NCAA basketball tournaments and tennis majors are, with brackets drawn to ensure as much as possible the top teams meet in the semifinals or finals and not before.And, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":216876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}