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Something like The Volleyball Nations League (18 (or16) teams + final 8 playoffs)

Last edited by sõber at 12/2/2025 6:57:40 AM

That's a tough one. 21 - 66 from 2 points range is very little tbh.

That would have been fun,
tho maybe a bit too restricting... I mean.. teams outside the top 12 can still compete for medals at NT level, and at u21 level you might end up excluding countries like England that could have a golden generation but can’t really achieve something “truly meaningful"

Unfortunately 98 is a stupid number to work with... maybe 96 would have been better since you can split it into 64 and 32
But maybe even with 98 you can still make some kind of division — like 72 and 26 (or 50 and 48)
Then you could have 72 teams actually competing for the World Title, with various consolation groups for the losing teams (so at least they face opponents closer to their level) and maybe add a couple of promotion/relegation spots between the two blocks
Because honestly if a nation has a real golden generation, even playing with only 20-year-olds, they should still be able to stay within the top 50 in the world imo

72 might actually work, even if the structure becomes a bit complex ahah

The bottom 26 teams get divided into 2 groups of 13 and play each other once... with a couple of promotion spots up for grabs... like the top 2 of each group or something like that

The top 72 would instead be divided into 18 groups of 4
We can call this the “qualifiers” for the "World Cup"
Top 2 of each group advance, bottom 2 go to the “losers” side

Main phase:
6 groups of 6 (made of 3 first-placed teams and 3 second-placed teams)
Same structure for the losers: 6 groups of 6 with 3 third-placed and 3 fourth-placed teams

From there:
• Top 2 of each group → Gold phase
• 3rd & 4th → Silver phase
• 5th & 6th → Bronze phase
(and same for the losers’ groups)

Each phase then has 2 groups of 6
And at the end you can do semis + finals... or just a final

In total it gives everyone
3 games + 5 games + 5 games + semi/final.

Although a bit complex it would be fun
Tho I don't think a change to the NT world is coming anytime soon

That wasn’t really my point tho..
I didn’t mean that a country should be able to go through the Consolation with 18 y/o, then Continentals with 19 y/o, then Consolation again with 20 y/o and eventually fight for the gold when they're 21
That’s not what I was saying...

If a nation truly has a golden generation, even if they were to play only 20 y/o players, they should still be strong enough to remain inside the top 50/72 in the world ranking
If a team can’t then maybe it wasn’t really a golden generation to begin with

So my point wasn’t about playing the same gen for 4 seasons, but rather about the idea that a genuinely strong teams should naturally keep the country in the "upper group" in such format