Discuss the World Cup 2010: England vs. USA

[zomgwtf]

Ghana beating Germany 3-1? lol did you mix up the teams

 

[Dadface]

Ghana beating Germany 3-1? lol did you mix up the teams

Whoops I did mix up the teams.
Some unexpected things have happened in this world cup so I'll keep it as it is.

 

[Identity]

Oh I do hope Ghana beat Germany... it's not that I dislike the German team, but I like the Australian team more

Chance of that happening is probably 0.01% lol

 

[cristo]

23rd June:

USA - Algeria (2-0)
Slovenia - England (1-2)
Australia - Serbia (0-2)
Ghana - Germany (1-2)

 

[Borg]

June 23rd:

USA - Algeria (4 - 0)
Slovenia - England (0 - 3)
Australia - Serbia (1 - 2)
Ghana - Germany (0 - 2)

 

[BobG]

USA - Algeria (2-0)
Slovenia - England (1-1)
Australia - Serbia (0-1)
Ghana - Germany (0-3)

 

[zomgwtf]

ugh think I'm too late to submit :(

Oh welll
USA - Algeria (2-0)
Slovenia - England (1-2)
Australia - Serbia (1-1)
Ghana - Germany (0-0)

GO BLACKSTARSSSS. Man I really hope they can pull off a tie. All they need to do is concentrate on defense and prevent Germany from scoring. If Serbia ties Australia, which I think is likely, and Ghana loses by 1 point only then Ghana still goes on because Ghana took more points from Serbia.. . Hopefully it comes down to that so I can rub it in all my friends faces haha.

 

[D H]

Oh shoot! Missed the deadline!

Since this doesn't count ...

USA - Algeria (2-0)
Slovenia - England (2-1)
Australia - Serbia (1-0)
Ghana - Germany (0-1)

 

[Monique]

Way to go USA! Keep that score!

 

[Monique]

Congrats! And that means that I've accumulated a huge amount of points in my work's football pool

 

[estro]

Congrats to the US team, well deserved place in the 1/8 finals.

 

[Evo]

This is part of a schedule that Kurdt made for the pub.

 

[D H]

This is part of a schedule that Kurdt made for the pub.

I'm looking at that schedule as comprising top-left, top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right sets of teams that feed into the two semifinal games. Assuming Germany and Serbia win this afternoon, the US will have landed in what will arguably be the softest of those quadrants. Match 49 is Uruguay v South Korea, and those predicted results will make match 50 be USA v Serbia. We have a somewhat reasonable chance to advance to the semifinals! Thinking we could go further than that is wishful thinking because the bottom left quadrant looks to be nasty. I foresee Netherlands v Italy in match 53 and Brazil v Spain in match 54.

 

[Monique]

Just check the calender: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/calendar.html

 

[Gokul43201]

Can someone explain what puts the USA ahead of England in the standings? They have the same number of points, drew against each other and have the same goal differential (+1). So what measure is used to break the tie and decide that the US plays 2D and England plays 1D?

 

[Monique]

USA scored 4 goals in total, England only 2. That actually messed up my prediction, I had England advancing as number 1 and USA as number 2.. oh well.

 

[Gokul43201]

USA scored 4 goals in total, England only 2. That actually messed up my prediction, I had England advancing as number 1 and USA as number 2.. oh well.

So that's what they use to break the tie - goals for? That seems to suggest that offense is more important than defense. Oh well. I guess any randomly selected metric is a fair metric so long as all the teams know about it in advance.

 

[Monique]

After the number of points accumulated, the goal differential is the first tiebreaker, the total number of goals scored is the next tiebreaker. If that doesn't give an answer, they look at the result between the teams. If that doesn't give an answer they flip a coin

 

[cristo]

Assuming Germany and Serbia win this afternoon, the US will have landed in what will arguably be the softest of those quadrants.

Tell me about it: that was meant to be our draw. Still, England looked a bit better today and have some chance of advancing at least beyond the Germany game.

 

[Monique]

Thursday:

Slovakia - Italy (0 - 1)
Paraguay - New Zealand (2 - 0)
Denmark - Japan (1 - 0)
Cameroon - Netherlands (0 - 1)

 

[Dadface]

Slovakia-Italy(0,1)
Paraguay-New Zealand(0,1)
Denmark,Japan(1,1)
Cameroon-Netherlands(1,2)

 

[zomgwtf]

GOOD JOB BLACKSTARS. .

Anyways.

For tomorrow:
Slovakia - Italy (0-1)
Paraguay - New Zealand (1-1)
Denmark - Japan (0-1)
Cameroon - Netherlands (1-2)

 

[cristo]

Paraguay - New Zealand (2 - 0)
Slovakia - Italy (0 - 1)
Cameroon - Netherlands (0 - 2)
Denmark - Japan (1 - 1)

 

[BobG]

Slovakia - Italy (0 - 1)
Paraguay - New Zealand (2 - 0)
Denmark - Japan (0 - 1)
Cameroon - Netherlands (0 - 3)

 

[BobG]

Tell me about it: that was meant to be our draw. Still, England looked a bit better today and have some chance of advancing at least beyond the Germany game.

Argentina, Mexico, Germany, and England

That's the bracket of death.

Actually, the USA might have a tough time against Uruguay. But, surely a South American team has to lose in this tournament eventually. (Won't be tomorrow, though.)

 

[cristo]

Argentina, Mexico, Germany, and England

That's the bracket of death.

Yup, we should have put 3 or 4 past Slovenia and then would not have been in this mess. To be honest, after the way we performed in the last 10 minutes running into the corner to try and waste time, I don't think we deserve to advance much further. Any team desperately trying to hold on to a 1-0 win against a decidedly poor Slovenia side are not destined to be world champions! But still, you never know what will happen: maybe we'll see an England - Brasil final in a few week's time!

 

[Gokul43201]

After the number of points accumulated, the goal differential is the first tiebreaker, the total number of goals scored is the next tiebreaker. If that doesn't give an answer, they look at the result between the teams. If that doesn't give an answer they flip a coin

Thanks for the info, Monique. I would have thought that they would use the head-to-head result before the goals scored. I wonder if there's ever been a team that was eliminated by a coin toss - that would really suck!

 

[BobG]

Thanks for the info, Monique. I would have thought that they would use the head-to-head result before the goals scored. I wonder if there's ever been a team that was eliminated by a coin toss - that would really suck!

Close. In 1990, second place in group play between Netherlands and Ireland was decided by a coin toss. In 1990, there were 24 teams and 6 groups, so the top 4 third place teams advanced, including the Netherlands.

Using goal differential is a better measure than head to head. One measures what kind of tournament a team is having while the other measures what kind of day a team had. Usually, anyway. Portugal's running up a 7-0 score on a NK team that just didn't seem to care any more kind of hurts that idea, but that doesn't happen very often.

I'm not too keen on using total goals over head to head, though.

That Portugal-NK game brings back bad memories of coaching youth soccer. The team we were supposed to play wanted to reschedule since a Saturday school activity was going to leave them with only 10 players. I agreed to reschedule and took care of the details. The scheduler told me not to do it. Their scheduling problems were their problems and if I did do it, I'd have to live with whatever happened.

I did it anyway. The fields were unplayable on the make-up date due to heavy rain. There was no choice on the date for the make-up to the make-up date. And, unfortunately, the fortunes had turned and I could only field 9 players for the game.

We hung in there, only trailing 2-0 nothing at half, and only 3-0 nothing with about 10 minutes to go. They rang up 7 goals in the last 10 minutes - two or three just on goal kicks that were barely clearing the penalty area. You can believe I remembered that coach for a while.

 

[Gokul43201]

Using goal differential is a better measure than head to head.

Agreed. I was talking about the "goals for" being used as a tie breaker before the head-to-head result, which seems somewhat arbitrary (and partially redundant).

Italia 90 was the only World Cup that I watched almost in its entirety. Don't recall the coin toss decision though.

 

[D H]

Paraguay - New Zealand (1 - 0)
Slovakia - Italy (0 - 1)
Cameroon - Netherlands (0 - 1)
Denmark - Japan (1 - 0)

 

[D H]

Agreed. I was talking about the "goals for" being used as a tie breaker before the head-to-head result, which seems somewhat arbitrary (and partially redundant).

Yes, it's somewhat arbitrary. Tie-breaker rules, regardless of the sport, are always a bit arbitrary. That goal differential comes first is essentially saying that, for example, a 2-0 win is bigger than a 4-3 win. Goals for says that the 4-3 win is bigger than the 2-0 win.

Some competitions use "least goals against" instead of "most goals for" as the second tie-breaker. The rationale in using "least goals against" is that soccer is supposed to be a beautiful game. A 4-3 win indicates sloppy play by both teams. There is a problem with using "least goals against" as a tie-breaker at the professional level. It tends to encourage overly defensive play, and that in turn encourages viewers to switch the TV channel to something else. Heaven forbid!

 

[Kurdt]

Wow. Bye bye Italy. That was a cracking match.

 

[BobG]

What a shocker! Both finalists from 2006 out in the first round.

 

[Borg]

[STRIKE]Predictions[/STRIKE] Guesses for 6/25:

North Korea - Ivory Coast (0 - 3)
Portugal - Brazil (2 - 2)
Switzerland - Honduras (2 - 1)
Chile - Spain (1 - 0)

 

[BobG]

North Korea - Ivory Coast (1-2)
Portugal - Brazil (1-2)
Switzerland - Honduras (0-1)
Chile - Spain (1-1)