WORLD CUP!!!

[Jonathan Rogers]

Thanks guys!

The rules are difficult. Perhaps we should defined invasion as "control over" rather than "occupation" of 60% of land mass, and of course the figure of 60% was arbitrary. But all other criteria seem to be arbitrary too (we started the evening defining "invasion" as conquest of the capital, which was even worse).

Yes, the Italians can invoke the Roman invasions. Nothing is time barred. That seems to give them eight conquests. Similarly (but more contentiously) we thought that Greece could claim the conquests of Alexander the Great, though that does not help them much because his bigger conquests (Eygpt, Persia, India) did not make the World Cup Finals in 2010.

On France - we did not consider the French Revolution! Like you, we gave them Switzerland, but not England, Portugal or Slovenia. We actually attributed 1066 to Denmark! Hmm, I will take this back to my colleagues, who might bump up the French total to 11 on account of Slovenia and possibly England, but I don't think they will accept France itself. I think that foreign invasion is implicit, though you still have room for argument for some civil wars since many such sides enjoy a lot of support from foreign powers.

Roger, we gave England seven, including the contentious USA. We seemed to forget Spain. When did we occupy Uruguay (I don't remember our considering them)? So we may bump England up to nine, second = with Spain themselves. But we didn't count the two Koreas in 1950, nor Germany Netherlands and Greece in WW2. We thought we were rather a small part in some of these invasions, and in other cases our presence might be said to be have been consensual. Well, so we reasoned. Room for argument, of course, which is why it worked well in the pub.

[Phil Neatherway]

Maybe the World Cup should be run as a Swiss tournament?

[IM Jack Rudd]

I'd be in favour of running continental world cup qualifying sections as Swisses, subject to getting the logistics worked out.

[Alex Holowczak]

I'd rather the European Zone was split into Leagues, a bit like South America.

UEFA currently has 53 members, enough for 6 divisions, (5 of 9, 1 of 8). Get them to play home and away matches in each division, a total of 16 or 14 games. Then have promotion and relegation between the two, such that two teams are promoted/relegated.

UEFA gets 13 qualifiers at the World Cup. So the 13 I would have would be the 7 who avoided relegation in Division One. The relegated teams from Division One, plus promoted teams in Divisions Two to Six (12 teams total) would go into playoffs to determine the final six qualifiers. These playoffs would be seeded so teams from Division One to Three can only play teams from Division Four to Six. This stops Leichtenstein v Cyprus getting one guaranteed spot in the World Cup. The Rugby World Cup offers a similar system.

Then you can have the European Championship every two years; this League would count as the European Championship.

This way, you get to see the superpowers in action against each other more often. Division One might contain: England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain... Wouldn't it be good to see those sides in regular competition against one another? The minnows also get more meaningful competition. Luxembourg don't gain anything from a 6-0 thrashing by Germany, but competitive games against Armenia, Malta etc. might be tighter affairs.

[Eoin Devane]

Well even the final got a "like a game of chess" mention from Linekar. That concludes a successful World Cup publicity wise for our great game.