The pool stage has really dragged in this tournament with the extra week. Looks more and more likely that we'll get 24 teams next time around, which will mean games on every day and a much better flow for the tournament. There's been articles suggesting it will either be 6 pools of 4 or a '
Swiss-system' alternative leading into a round of 16. If there's 2 games on every day and the worst 8 teams only play 3 times then I don't think it matters much if there's a bunch of mismatches in the pool stage. It's like the first 2 or 3 rounds of a tennis grand slam. That's a lot better than 3 days without games, and then one big mismatch to start off the next round.