radically different contexts. Professional yellows come back to bite you, and also are nowhere near a sure game determining act. Utterly different universes.
At the risk of being "that American" who is convinced they've figured out how to solve soccer, I think an easy solution for this would just be to seed teams in the round of 16 by points and tiebreakers, rather than set positions by group. (So for example, England would be the 1 seed and get the worst qualifier, Poland - tied with South Korea on 4 pts and 0 GD, but with only 2 goals for to South Korea's 4.) It would incentivize the teams that qualified going into MD3 to still go for it in order to earn a theoretically better R16 matchup.
It can't work because of rest days. When you pair group A v B and so on, you know those teams will have similar rest. The US couldn't play a team in group H tomorrow if that's how the rankings worked.
I think Poland needs to retroactively be reranked: 97th. Lewa and the goalie can stay at 26, the rest of the team is 97th.
They are definitely the favorites and if things go chalk that’s the final. But there will definitely be some upsets, as there always are in a knockout format.
I keep thinking that Brazil isn't what it used to be, even when they're great, but maybe its more reasonable argue that most teams that make the world cup or even play in Copa America these days are just much more effective at keeping games tight. Teams seem to have figured out how to keep games tighter than they used to be, even bad teams, w/only rare exceptions. Maybe its just harder to blow the doors off teams these days. Other than Costa Rica doing their impression of the Saudi's in 2002 against Germany, England seemingly finishing every chance against Iran and Australia getting worked after their opener against France, its been fairly tight. Felt like there were at least 8 crazy fun games in the group stages at least and lots of exciting endings and moments (oddly, I found groups E through H featured far more entertaining play than Groups A through D which even when unpredictable (Denmark stepping on a rake) tended to be a bit blah. Not too surprising considering the groups featured toothless attacks and strong defenses in general, and/or just ---- teams in much heavier quantities). Good Tournament so far. When the group stage ends, its a warning to me to stop betting regulation wins lol, I suck in the knockouts at predicting anything.
Yeah I was rushing the post a bit and forgot to mention the structure would need to change to give teams rest days. There would have to be off days between the end of group stage and beginning of R16 (probably 4) which expands the length of the tournament. It probably causes more problems then it solves, but if you want to eliminate dead rubbers completely (or dead rubbers for one team while the opponent is in a do-or-die situation) then this is probably the trade off.
The bolded part is nonsense. Ream’s yellow didn’t hurt him or the US, and certainly didn’t help Wales. and of course professional yellows are different from what Suarez did. That’s why he got a red card and Ghana got a PK. And Uruguay was affected by that, because they lost the next game, which Suarez couldn’t play. sometimes teams catch breaks. It sucks sometimes, but it’s not a reason to rewrite the rules.
Brazil definitely plays more defensively/conservatively than they could. And they rely on Neymar to help create a lot of their offense. It’s not as if they don’t have talented replacements though. France also plays tighter than they could. Just the nature of the World Cup.
So, you want to go forward with allowing a glaring context in which violating the rules leaves the player way ahead of where they'd be if they didn't? There's no context in which that's a good idea. It's like changing the rules to have all DFK fouls in the box restarted with a wall from the edge of the 18 instead of a PK. If you did that, it'd be a foul fest in the box, because fouling a forward before they can shoot is invariably going to leave the defender better off. The professional yellow is pretty unsatisfying, but you can only do that once a game.
Sort of crazy the the only teams remaining from the Western Hemisphere are the US, Brazil, and Argentina.
Teams that advanced: Pot 1: (6) Brazil, France, Argentina, England, Spain, Portugal Pot 2: (4) Netherlands, Switzerland, United States, Croatia Pot 3: (5) Senegal, Japan, Morocco, Poland, South Korea Pot 4: (1) Australia
Most of England, a vast majority of Spain, and all of Portugal and Senegal are in the Western Hemisphere.
This is shaping up to be one of the most unpredictable/fun WC's of my lifetime even if we don't advance tomorrow.
How about a Concacaf Group Phase post mortem: My random thoughts: Canada: deserved better than 3 losses, royally screwed that first game. May have come in third in the group with competent refs. US: played 4 good halves and 2 so-so halves. Coming into the tournament, I would have taken that in an instant. Not much I can say that has not been said already. Mexico: Uninspired against Poland, survival mode against Argentina, great against Saudi Arabia. If they had played with that intensity and attitude in the earlier games, they may have made it through, which might have been a bad thing overall by papering over some of their issues that need addressing. Finished with 4 points and a -1 GD. That is exactly what we had in 2002 that led to our quarterfinal run. This is a fickle game. Costa Rica: Damn they make things interesting. About 20-30 minutes away from 6 points in THAT group. Who would have bet on that? Costa Rica was the HIGHEST scoring Concacaf team in the group stage while playing in the toughest group. CR scored 3 goals, US, Mex, and Canada- 2 each. Despite the awful GD (all from one horrid game), I think they did better than any/most expected. (-1 GD against Japan and Germany combined.) It is a shame they are so limited by their small population and economy. I think they have the best "soccer brain" in Concacaf. Concacaf 3 wins and 0 losses against Asia.
It’s like I predicted after the first couple of games .. the refs are letting too much go . The cynical players know they can whack a few even injure them ( Neymar now Jesus ) without even getting a warning !! Two of the world’s best forwards are now effectively out of the WC . Also Messi and Mitrovic , Foden , Kane plus tigers are all carrying ankle / foot injuries.
LVG has put together a nice team. They press opportunistically, rather than risk overextending themselves with a high press. This allows them to get numbers back more often than not. Against Senegal, Ecuador, and the US, the Dutch have been outshot 47 to 23 with 13 shots on goal against to 10. LVG has his boys set up to finish, though. As I'd mentioned earlier, they remind of the Philadelphia Union. Few teams use systems featuring two forwards and an a-mid. A nice bit of counter-programming can make up for gaps in talent.
Took Baccus minutes to do a Pepe on Messi Body check leading with elbow and knee . Not even a yellow when it was clearly intentional!