World Cup

[mondo_notion]

Maradona's in some state tonight.

[Jupiter]

Germany got twice as many votes as any other country on our poll. Obviously a lot of people on this board don't know much about football.

[afc1903mad]

Is qualifying decided by GD or head to head

Head to head, then goal difference, then (might be goals scored), then fair play, then toss of a coin.
So if it’s a draw between Belgium and England, it will depend on bookings.
England has two yellows, Belgium has three.

[nice1simmy]

Germany got twice as many votes as any other country on our poll. Obviously a lot of people on this board don't know much about football.

That will be the pant pishers then

[Jupiter]

There should be more stoppage time

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ly-inaccurate/

[Jormungand]

Can anyone explain this utter sh1te about the loser of England-Belgium supposedly having the advantage for the rest of the tournament? The argument seems to rest on the fact that the winner will probably play Brazil in the quarters - so phkn what? England can just as easily get horsed aff Colombia next round; Belgium could well beat Brazil. Since when did it become undesirable to win a match? Twitter gimps, honestly.

[Jupiter]

Can anyone explain this utter sh1te about the loser of England-Belgium supposedly having the advantage for the rest of the tournament? The argument seems to rest on the fact that the winner will probably play Brazil in the quarters - so phkn what? England can just as easily get horsed aff Colombia next round; Belgium could well beat Brazil. Since when did it become undesirable to win a match? Twitter gimps, honestly.

Who would you rather play in the quarter finals, Brazil or Sweden/Switzerland? That's why it was better to lose tonight.

[sancho_panza]

If you think about the draw as four quarters each with four teams trying to make the semi-final then the England quarter is clearly the weakest.

If you look at the odds for winning the tournament at the moment, for instance, Colombia are the 9th best team and Switzerland are the 11th best team (Sweden 13th). Every other quarter they could have ended up in involves beating a team much better than those three: Brazil (favourites), Spain (second favourites), France (5th favourites).

[ragnarok]

I've been pretty underwhelmed by the overall standard of the football. The standard at Euro 2016 was poor as well. The inflow of money in modern football doesn't seem to correlate with an increase in quality. Perhaps the concentration of resources in a small number of leagues and clubs and the heightened financial stakes of elite club football has resulted in smaller arena for world class talent to develop.

Compare with France 98 and Euro 2000 - probably the last two tournaments before the Champions League became the be all and end all. There were three or four teams in each of those who would comfortably be favourites in this WC.

[Pacman1903]

I've been pretty underwhelmed by the overall standard of the football. The standard at Euro 2016 was poor as well. The inflow of money in modern football doesn't seem to correlate with an increase in quality. Perhaps the concentration of resources in a small number of leagues and clubs and the heightened financial stakes of elite club football has resulted in smaller arena for world class talent to develop.

.

i.e Modern fitba is a bit f@cked these days