Knockout Stage General Discussion Thread

Canada v South Africa was confirmed last nightI believe the USA v Bosnia-Herzegovina is now confirmed.

Also the Group C v Group F matchups. Brazil v Japan & Netherlands v Morocco.

Mexico, Germany, Argentina, Switzerland, snd Ivory Coast have clonched progression to the Rd32 and have their spots in the bracket, but not opponents.

Ecuador & Sweden are thru as well, but not placed in the bracket yet.

 

Morocco vs Netherlands lol.

 

Brazil Japan will be nice. Japan beat Brazil in a pre-world cup friendly. I'm sure Brazil will overcome them but it will be close.

 

So Germany -Paraguay in the next round. Another defensive CONMEBOL team for Germany to try to figure out. Tricky.

France -Sweden. I cannot see the Swedes advancing unless they turn into a bunker team and pray for penalties.

 

Australia can bunker and physically make this a war.

 

It could go either way.

 

I think Australia is a mentally tougher team, and a better defensive team, plus more physical. That's why I would give them the slight edge, but its a 50/50 match like many of the knockout matches.

 

The group stage has been entertaining, but now the tournament really begins. Knockout football is a completely different game, one mistake, one moment of brilliance, and you're going home.

 

AFC advanced 3/6 teams to the Round of 16 last time, but possibly only 2/9 to the Round of 32 this time around.

 

As I say that, apparently have Austria have scored against Algeria (I'm watching the Argentina game). If this result holds, Iran would advance.

 

Looking forward to Spain vs Austria and Switzerland vs Algeria. Karma is a beach with hot sand and rough waters.

 

I noticed Algeria and Austria did not really have any close chances outside their goals. Given the circumstances, this is highly suspicious. So I decided to check something.

Initially I used AI but it was acting up so I did it manually.

I did not have time, so for now I only included match day 1, so 24/72 matches, and I also inserted Algeria vs Austria in there. Draws are in bold.

Look at the numbers after the = sign. That is the differences between goals and xg. So if it is in the positives, that means more actual goals were scored compared to xg. It is combining the total goals scored in the match across both teams, and also combining the total xg (so the xg of both teams added together).

As you can see, Algeria vs Austria has an abnormally high xG for a draw, and overall a very high xG, only lower than 3 blow outs. So it is highly plausible that Algeria and Australia fixed their match/orchestrated their goals/did not have any chances outside their goals that were close.

1. Sweden vs Tunisia: 6 1.64 = +4.36

2. Germany vs Curacao: 8 4.63 = +3.37

3. USA vs Paraguay: 5 1.82 = +3.18

4. Algeria vs Austria: 6 3.16 = +2.84

5. Netherlands vs Japan: 4 1.37 = +2.63

6. England vs Croatia: 6 3.51 = +2.49

7. Argentina vs Jordan: 4 1.54 = + 2.46

8. Austria vs Jordan: 4 2.19 = +1.81

9. Iraq vs Norway: 5 3.3 = +1.7

10. France vs Senegal: 4 2.35 = +1.65

11. Iran vs New Zealand: 4 2.74 = +1.26

12. Uzbekistan vs Colombia: 4 2.78 = +1.22

13. Portugal vs Congo: 2 1.46 = +0.54

14. Mexico vs South Africa: 2 1.48 = + 0.52

15. South Korea vs Czechia: 3 2.65 = + 0.35

16. Australia vs Turkiye: 2 2.1 = -0.1

17. Canada vs Bosnia: 2 2.23 = -0.23

18. Belgium vs Egypt: 2 2.43 = -0.43

19. Saudi vs Uruguay: 2 2.53 = -0.53

20. Brazil vs Morocco: 2 2.76 = -0.76

21. Ghana vs Panama: 1 2.06 = -1.06

22. Haiti vs Scotland: 1 2.26 = -1.26

23. Ivory Coast vs Ecuador: 1 2.71 = -1.71

24. Qatar vs Switzerland: 2 4 = -2

25. Spain vs Cape Verde: 0 2.59 = -2.59

Here is the link with the data:

https://soccer.realgm.com/analysis/...Tracker-Results-Expected-Goals-Of-Every-Match

I had to do it manually so I only had time to do based on match day 1. If you have access to a good AI program you can feed it this link and ask it to calculate and rank all 72 games. Ask it to rank the 72 games based on the difference between total goals scored across both teams in each match and the total xg (both teams' xg added together) in each match.

 

Iran was simply not good enough.
Statistics and numbers should not be focused upon. Iran deserves to go home. That’s that.

 

Nobody is talking about Iran. We are talking about Algeria and Austria. Iran is already disqualified.

 

They both tried to win their match. It ended as a draw.

 

DId you see the goals? Did you not see my comment about xG?

 

I saw the goals. I watched the game. They both were trying to win instead of just playing out the clock at the end. .

 

They were playing out the clock for about 15 mins, then suddenly exchanged goals at the end to make it seem less obvious.

If you saw the goals you would see that 3/4 of the first 4 goals were clearly orchestrated, such as defenders jogging or letting the attacker get past them, or nonexistent marking. Watch the reply of the highlights and you will see. The last 2 goals looked more normal, but they were orchestrated as well.

The xG doesn't lie. I just visually scanned the rest of the games in the link I provided in my previous comment about xG: it seems like no other game from match day 2 and 3 exceeded Algeria vs Austria, not even Senegal 5-0 Iraq. So Algeria vs Austria match is 4th/72nd in terms of difference between goals scored and xG, with the only other draw (out of 10 draws) being Japan vs Netherlands that was even remotely close to Algeria vs Austria in terms of difference between goals and expected goals. And the other 3 games with a higher value all being blowouts.

This shows that the goals were orchestrated. There is no teams both team will be this clinical in a do or die match. They combined had zero serious chances outside their goals.

 

I'm not really sure on the ending. I think it may have been unscripted, because Austria would have to be nuts to agree to that. On the other hand it is weird Algeria would score and try to set up a match against Spain when they had successfully ran the clock out until then. Unless of course they knew Austria would score again.

 

I think they both planned for a late back and forth, but the chances to do so came later than expected. If you see Austria's last goal, you see very few Algerian players in the box, it was a 4 vs 3 for Austria. Also, the Austrian striker was running, one Algerian defender spotted him and pointed to the other Algerian defender to cover him, but the other Algerian defender continues jogging to allow a free header from a cross, but the cross went a bit long, but the Austrians were able to header pass it back into the middle for the goal.

 

I think Iranian have some affinity with math, somehow all the Iranian I met so far have that affinity. I do to but since I see how many people find it cringe I wouldn't want to mention twice in the same message that I did the calculation manually ...

 

overall I felt that Algeria was trying more than Austria.