What would a 228 Team World Cup look like? Part 1

I thought, with not much car content to look at at the moment, that I'd take a look at a bit of an experiment I was running on Football Manager, with a 228 team World Cup. I've looked at the First Round so far, let's see what's happened.

Group A featured World Cup nations Iran and Costa Rica, however it was Hungary who took the group win over them all, including this absolute screamer from Marton Eppel (Red: pass, blue: run with ball, yellow: shot):

Greece and Blugaria finished on the same amount of points, with Iran and North Korea also qualifying easily. Costa Rica was run close, qualifying by two points, while the UAE knocked out New Zealand. https://gyazo.com/0fe016177acf4af086671fab3dd78ec0

Group B saw Portugal, Denmark and Italy walk the group with just two losses between them. The top 10 wasn't toounexpected in a group that featured six of the worst teams in the world. https://gyazo.com/e611e6c0061665bcc9c55a41fde2f2ab

Group C was won by Spain, but there were several other suprises. Guadeloupe qualified fourth, finishing ahead of Mali, while Fiji, Curacao and Singapore comfortably knocked out the more favoured Estonia.https://gyazo.com/b457477473ecfecef231d5ae74273c2e

Group D saw England just beat Brazil to take the group. Ghana took third while Poland (5th) and Saudi Arabia (9th) suffered lower than expected finishes, but the top 10 qualified comfortably with Ethiopia the best nation to miss out. https://gyazo.com/d2158e669fe8361f7a53ce168de72540

Group E featured Uruguay, who won the group, and Holland who finished third to Ivory Coast but provided us with this cracker courtesy of wingback Hans Hateboer:

Further down, Bosnia, Algeria and Peru were the ebst of the rest; Kenya qualified despite a draw with Bhutan and Indonesia were the final qualifier, knocking out Mauritania by two points. https://gyazo.com/8f315a9f06bb15ed34ff76bc066047fe

Group F saw Argentina win despite a stumble against Russia (Messi missed a penalty and the Russians scored in stoppage time). Austria took an excellent second (aided by being the only other team to take points from Argentina) with Nigeria, Sweden, Russia and Chile also comfortably going through. It was more of a surprise at the bottom of the top 10 with both Martinique and Liechtenstein beating Finland and Honduras. Malaysia and Uganda were the best of the non-qualifiers, with both beating Russia 1-0. https://gyazo.com/14805a64176f85315d3778b820b4ff90

Group G saw another three way tie for the win with Norway claiming top spot over Mexico and Serbia on goal difference. Heavyweights Colombia somehow ended up fifth behind Israel, while Bukina Faso knocked the Central African Republic out with head to head. https://gyazo.com/114aa7c3accc7ecafb18917dcb2f9fa2

In Group H, Croatia comfortably won but behind them was a shock. The unfancied Comoros somehow ended up second ahead of Paraguay, Canada and Iceland. It was both their defence and attack that did the trick, not conceding multiple goals in 17 of the 18 games they played and scoring in every single match. The top 10 comfortably qualified, knocking out Iraq, the third biggest nation to go. https://gyazo.com/771f5cec88ba1e2c060cc4d1f37bd804

Group I saw Australia, despite losing to Luxembourg, perform excellently when it mattered (beating Ukraine 3-1 and Scotland 4-0) to take the group from the aforementioned teams. Georgia also performed excellently, the highlight of their campaing a 3-2 over Ukraine as they tied Scotland for third. https://gyazo.com/55bfdd4b2237ef6fb6ff4ed532247665

Group J was won by USA who didn't lose a match, over Belgium. Third and fourth were suprise packets Jamaica and Zimbabwe who put Germany and Wales down to fifth and sixth; while Germany only got done by the in form teams, Wales lost to Liberia and drew with the unqualified Malta, results that nearly cost manager Ryan Giggs his job. https://gyazo.com/e6c41beebfc1a63fbe4c2e48cf77a325

Group K was dominated by South Korea who didn't lose a match. Switzerland finished second, then 3rd-5th and 6th-7th each tied. owever, the talking point of the group was the Faroes Islands taking out Egypt on head to head. https://gyazo.com/f46828a16892617dfcb3e1b4a6b41255

Group L was headed by France who won every single match they played. Turkey and Morocco were the other top qualifiers while French Guiana suprisingly qualified. https://gyazo.com/35f5783c40df9e1bcc8162e5f27f533e

Now, let's look at the stats of the competition. Beginning with goals, and Belgian Romelu Lukaku has the most goals by a large margin, having scored 34 in 18 games. However it was Cristiano Ronaldo who was even more impressive, scoring 28 in 12 games either side of a twisted ankle in the middle of the first round. https://gyazo.com/df516a17e9c574c099be9dae6621870b

When it comes to shots on target though, it was veteran Maltese striker Michael Mifsud who had the highest SoT percentage at 80% from Mozambique's Helder Pelembe, while Romelu also had the most SoT's from English pair Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford. Other attacking stats include Northrn Irish defender Liam Donnelly having a 70% conversion rate and Kei Kamara of Sierra Leone winning 232 headers.

When it comes to playmaking and assists, Portugal's Raphael Guerriero was king. Despite only being played 11 times, he made twenty assists despite playing just 39 key passes. Ghana's Alfred Duncan and Venezuela's Juanpi took the podium positions. https://gyazo.com/c432bd3e7a386087ecfd830961d3c122 However in terms of key passes Marco Verratti is the king with 89. The podium positions went to the unlicky Piotr Zielinski (Poland) and Paul Pgba (France), who only had 4/76 and 6/72 of their key passes become assists. In terms of chance creation, Georgia's Saba Lobhanidze created 24 (and nine were converted) while Turk Hakan Calhanoglu was second with 23/11 and Lionel Messi third with 22/13. A shoutout goes to Neymar and Nigeria's Sam Chukwueze who despite being injured for eight matches still got 17 chances created.

In defence, Ackeel Applethwaite of Barbados made the most tackles per 90 at 7.07, while with 6.76 the highest of anyone who played over 80% of games was Ezgjan Alioski of Macedonia. Carlos Gallardo of Guatemala made the most key interceptions while after filtering out all the minnows, Paraguayan centre back Jorge Moreira made the most key tackles.

When it came to goalkeeping, Australia's Mat Ryan and Italian Gigi Donnarumma both only conceded three goals while the Italian kept a record sixteen clean sheets. Another outstanding performance was by George Chigova of Zimbabwe, who only conceded thirteen. While Matthieu Pelops saved 140 shots, that's more to do with the Reunion defence than any particular skill of his.

Finally, when it comes to performance Cristiano Ronaldo scored an AVG of 9.00 which was the best. Fellow Portuguese (although only rotation options) Ruben Vezo and Raphael Guerriero got third and fourth with Antoine Griezmann in second. https://gyazo.com/7e5276640d6b0e3db9422cbe413ad76e

Marcus Rashford had the most POTM's of the round with nine while there were a few suprises including Alejandro Chmacero (Bolivia, 8th) and Salem al Dawsari (KSA, 15th). https://gyazo.com/d703f61a33a2d7e0af412a2a2a68a0e6

To finish off, here's a look at the second round draw. Remember that the top four go through:

* Group A isn't the hardest group with Ivory Coast likely to win the group.

* Group B will be harder. It features Belgium, Chile, Mexico and Switzerland, as well as group winners Hungary.

* Group C will likely be down to the non Euros with only Ireland and Kazakhstan. It's more likely that Algeria, Cameroon and Ghana as well as Ecuador will fight for the group.

* Group D features six teams- Denmark, Scotland, Serbia, South Korea, Tunisia and Ukraine- who'll be fighting for the spots.

* Group E is the group of death. Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Colombia, as well as perennial suprises Costa Rica, are all fighting over the qualification spots.

* Group F will see the European teams liking their chances- Austria, Iceland, Poland and Russia are probably favourites. However, Iran might be a dark horse.

* Group G will almost certainly see Germany and Holland go through. Australia also look strong while the fourth qualifier could be anyone else.

* Group H sees several good teams drawn together, with any of Albania, Bosnia, Greece, Morocco, Nigeria, Sweden and Wales likely to have a chance.

* In Group I, Argentina are the favourites. The group even seems easier than their First Round group; rather than Russia, Sweden and Nigeria, their next best opposition is Senegal, Slovakia and Paraguay. Also watch out for Kosovo.

* Group J will be hard to progress from if you're not Croatia, England or France. The favourites would be Czech Republic or Venezuela with not much other quality in there.

* Group K isn't a very strong group. Turkey and Peru should easily go through, but with other teams including Northern Ireland, Guinea and Kuwait as well as first round shocks Comoros who could potentially go through again.

* Finally, Group L will see a tantalising fixture with China and the USA. The latter are among the group favourites as are Norway and Uruguay. Israel, Slovenia and Congo could all also go through.