My 2022 World Cup Group Stage Predictions: What do you think?

Great, the brazucas have a bye to Quarterfinals...

So many teams gifting qualifications. Spain and Argentina just passing the ball around for the last 15 minutes, Portugal B today, France B almost too the other day. Guess now it's Cameroon's turn.

 

That may go down as the most puzzling result of the group stages.

Japan beat both Germany and Spain.
Costa Rica lost to both Germany and Spain (by a combined 9 goals, no less).

Yet Japan lost to Costa Rica.

Go figure.....

 

The current Netherlands squad is probably the least talented in my lifetime. An inexperienced keeper, no superstar striker, no real superstars at all (except maybe Van Dijk). If they had been drawn in just about any other group, they may not have even made it to the knockouts.

Compare this squad to the Dutch squads of the late 80's (Koeman, Gullit, Rijkaard, Van Basten) or 90's (Davids, Seerdorf, Bergkamp, the DeBoers, Overmars, etc.).....

 

Like someone else mentioned.

Style matchups.

Counter attacking teams don't do well against bunkering sides.

 

They were somewhat lucky to even make it out of that group.

 

What an insane WC

Saudi beat Argentina but go home.

Tunisia beat France but go home.

Cameroon beat Brazil but go home.

Japan lose to Costa Rica after beating Germany but pull through.

Korea in the worst position going into the final match pull through.

Australia make it through.

It's been insane.

 

27 out 32 teams won a match


Only Qatar, Canada, Wales, Denmark and Serbia go home winless.

 

Serbia effed up again.

Never have I seen a team so hyped yet fail every single time. Horrible.

 

No team won the 3 matches on the 1st round

Denmark, Belgium and Germany out in the 1st round

Morocco and Japan topping their groups

Australia going through

Many groups decided by goal difference


Its all unexpected, crazy, and in many ways, fun.

Day 3 everyone thought Saudi Arabia beating Argentina was gonna be the biggest upset or unexpected thing to happen but it only was the first piece of a chain reaction of crazyness

 

It's a new record in 32-team world cups, surpassing the previous edition by one (only 6 teams finished winless).

Also the first time in ALL world cup history that no team managed to win all their group games I believe.
Edit: nope, no team did it in 1994 either. My bad.

 

It appears that the order of the games was just as important as the quality of the teams in many of the groups.

 

That's always been the case though.

 

I know Spain already broke this trend, but is there a WC contender that didn't lose in the first round this time around ?

 

It has always mattered to some degree, but I doubt it ever mattered as much as it did in this WC. I wonder if the quicker turn around between games is influencing the line ups and efforts of the "aleady qualified" more than in previous WCs. It sucked for Uruguay this time, but I also remember it helping Paraguay in 98 when their third game was against already group winner Nigeria who eased off in that game, which helped Paraguay advance over Spain. I remember Ivory Coast getting screwed by the order in 2010

I have not run the numbers, but it feels like this WC has had more 4 point teams eliminated than any WC in the 32 team era. Ecuador, Mexico, Tunisia, Germany, Belgium, Cameroon, and Uruguay ALL out with 4 points. That has to be a record. Poland, Korea, and Spain advance with 4 points.

 

The Dutch, depending on how one defines "contender".

 

Teams already qualified (16)
Pot 1 (6): England*, Argentina*, France*, Spain, Brazil*, Portugal*
Pot 2 (4): Netherlands*, USA, Croatia, Switzerland
Pot 3 (5): Senegal, Poland, Japan*, Morocco*, South Korea
Pot 4 (1): Australia

* = Group winner.

Teams already eliminated (16)
Pot 1 (2): Qatar, Belgium
Pot 2 (4): Mexico, Denmark, Germany, Uruguay
Pot 3 (3): Iran, Tunisia, Serbia
Pot 4 (6): Ecuador, Wales, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica, Canada, Cameroon, Ghana

This is quite a contrast with 2018 where almost all Pot 1 & 2 teams ended up going through, except for Peru, Germany and Poland, which were upset by Denmark (3), Sweden (3) and Japan (4) respectively.

I wish we can a bigger sample size for next world cups, but the stupid expansion to 48 teams is going to make this irrelevant.

Random thoughts:
* Even though almost all of them gave a fight, except for Ecuador, Australia and Cameroon, every other Pot 4 team ended up as the last place of their group.
* Every pot 1 team (except Spain) who went through won their group.
* As you may notice, most upsets were caused by Pot 3 to Pot 2 teams. Most pot 1 teams went through and most pot 4 teams were eliminated
* Wales would have been in pot 3 if the draw had been made after their playoff, and Tunisia would have been placed in pot 4

 

That must have been Brazil's Z-team then... anyway, what did I tell you, Cameroon and South Korea to win their games one one to sneak into the round of 16... okay, well something like that...

 

That Brazil team is still better than most teams in this competition.

Certainly much better than Portugal and France's B teams.

 

Yes I remember, and Spain beat Bulgaria 6-0 but it didn't matter. Sad to see really.

Well Nigeria didn't recover from that Paraguay game. That was 2 straight world cups Nigeria topped their group yet failed in the 2nd round.

I wonder for the numbers guys if a team has done that before.

 

All three teams that had 6 pts after two matches played a team that had 1 point and were almost guaranteed of winning group. All three of those 1 pt teams won their match!

 

Teams tanking will also be a problem in 48 team WCs. If teams A and B win their first games, they have no reason really to play their best head to head since they’ve both advanced.

 

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