World Cup group matches could be decided by penalty shoot-outs

From an Irish perspective... we're on the fence.

1990 is now part of our footballing folklore. 2002 was best left forgotten [if only we could]. Also from an English perspective: recent showings at major tournaments have highlighted they're no longer good enough to reach a penalty shoot-out before they can consider losing one. If new Fifa plans come to fruition, there might well be penalty shoot-outs in the group stages of World Cups, meaning the likes of England and Italy can suffer the humiliation of further spot-kick failures without even needing to reach the knock-out rounds. This is all to do with Fifa's plans to expand the World Cup to a 48-team tournament. At the minute, they're mulling over how this would work, and are said to be favouring a format that would start with 16 groups of three teams, before progressing to a new knockout round comprising of 32 teams, as reported by the Associated Press. Fifa's President, Gianni Infantino has also backed the '16x3' model. "The big, big, big majority is in favour of the 48 teams with the 16 groups of three," he said after a meeting with other Fifa members in Singapore earlier this month. Clearly, there's a long way to go before anything is set in stone, but if this format is approved, it is reported that the new model would see penalty shoot-outs introduced in the group stages to decide winners of matches that end in draws. This radical change is designed to prevent teams from conspiring to arrange favourable results in their final group matches.