A lot of tournaments keep the 1st and 2nd seed on opposite sides of the bracket so they can't meet until the final. This is extremely common. Mexico and US are 1 and 2 seed. I believe CONCACAF uses FIFA ranking to seed.
Right, that is correct for fixed bracket tournaments but that's not how the Gold Cup is set up. The US and Mexico cannot possibly face each other until the final no matter how they do in the group stage. Not very many tournaments are set up like that. Look at the Women's World Cup. The USA was one of the top seeds but could have been on completely opposite sides of the bracket depending on their finish in the group.
Yeah, the only major tournament with a similar setup that I remember was the 2002 World Cup, which kept two sides of the bracket separate to prevent the possibility of Korea and/or Japan having to play games in the other country. Hence how Turkey and Brazil played each other twice. (they still had situations like Mexico's group where teams started out in Japan but were guaranteed to play their knockout games in Korea, but that's neither here nor there to this discussion)
Wow! Stoppage time golazo equalizer for Curacao, and then almost an even bigger Curacao golazo winner with basically the last kick of the game. But just wide. Now the next game means something. El Salvador can finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd.
Honduras is already eliminated. El Salvador needs a draw or better. Edit: sorry, misread that. A 1-0 Honduras win advances Curacao. A 2-1 sends it to H2H, which El Salvador wins. Any 1-goal win above that scoreline puts El Salvador through on goals scored. So 1-0 or any two goal win for Honduras puts Curacao into the quarters.
2 goals. But I think a 1-0 win for Honduras would also do it. EDIT The real question is what happens if Honduras win 2-1. EDIT EDIT The real question is answered above.
If 'SLV 0-1 HON', then CUR advances on goals scored ... If SLV loses by 1 goal but scores at least 1 goal, I believe they still top CUR by goals scored or head-to-head? A tie keeps SLV in 2nd place, unless it's like 4-4, then they could top JAM. In conclusion, this show just got muy interesante ...
Gahddammit Honduras, picked a lovely time to actually compete ... but if only El Salvador can get one on the board then there's still hope ...
Is it just me but has this been one of the most enjoyable tournaments ever? Seeing the Curaçao team celebrating warms the cockles of my cold, cold heart.
Agreed. I think it has shown well for the decision to go to 16 teams. I liked that decision because it got rid of 3rd place teams making the knock out stage. But this year's tournament also shows that the bottom teams to make it in aren't guaranteed to get squashed, as feared by some. Some years that will probably happen, but there will also be years like this.
Curacao players celebrating while eating bags of kettle corn will be the enduring image of this Gold Cup.