2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa

As for tonight’s permutations, as I understand it…

GERMANY WIN, SERBIA WIN: These two teams would qualify, with the placings depending on the respective scores. Currently Germany have scored 4, conceded 1, and Serbia scored 1, conceded 1. So Serbia need to beat Australia by 3 more goals than Germany beat Ghana by, which would tie the goal difference/goals scored stats, and Serbia would top the group by virtue of beating Germany in their match. Otherwise, Germany go 1st and Serbia 2nd.

GERMANY WIN, SERBIA DRAW If Germany win by a single goal, and Serbia draw 0-0, then Germany and Ghana go through as 1st and 2nd. If Germany score more, or Serbia get a score draw, then Germany and Serbia qualify as 1st and 2nd.

GERMANY WIN, SERBIA LOSE Germany 1st, Ghana 2nd.

GERMANY DRAW, SERBIA WIN Serbia 1st, Ghana 2nd.

GERMANY DRAW, SERBIA DRAW Ghana 1st, Germany 2nd.

GERMANY DRAW, SERBIA LOSE Ghana 1st, Germany 2nd.

GERMANY LOSE, SERBIA WIN Ghana 1st, Serbia 2nd.

GERMANY LOSE, SERBIA DRAW Ghana 1st, Serbia 2nd.

GERMANY LOSE, SERBIA LOSE Ghana 1st, Australia 2nd.

Who decides that the winner of Group G plays Runners-up of Group H? Brazil may be playing Spain there.
Are these 2nd round games decided at random or is there some reasoning behind it?

[quote=“Colophon, post:1261, topic:542677”]

As for tonight’s permutations, as I understand it…
GERMANY WIN, SERBIA LOSE Germany 1st, Ghana 2nd.

Does not that depend on goal difference?

A + B are one bracket. C + D are the next bracket, and so on.

ETA: If you mean how are the groups assigned, that’s a random draw. The top 8 seeds (the 7 top-ranked teams according to FIFA, plus the host team) are each placed in their own group, and the other three teams in each group are assigned randomly, though arranged by region. See here.

If you want to see how the draw pans out, you can use the BBC’s team tracker. Just enter the winners and runners up for each group, and pick a likely winner for each round.

No - Ghana have 4 points at the moment, Serbia 3 points. So it would be Germany 6pts, Ghana 4pts, Serbia 3pts, Australia 1pt.

It’s all decided by the initial tournament draw. If you look at a fixture wallchart it all makes sense.

Props to Tim Howard, too, for that quick throw to Dempsey that started the whole thing.

I think it’s all scheduled in advance, even before the draw. So we knew it would be the winner of Group G against the runner-up of Group H, even before we knew which teams would be in those groups.

Looking back, I’m surprised the ref didn’t call the goal back for offsides. There was a US player in the goal, after all.

You know you were thinking it.

Kind of interesting looking at the tracker. If the remaining matches go to form (obviously, some won’t), England’s route through the competition is Germany, Argentina, Spain, Brazil, probably the toughest imaginable. If we’d managed to top the group it would have been Serbia, Uruguay, Brazil, Spain, a much easier run to the semis.

If Australia wins (Serbia loses) then Ghana and Australia have 4 points , no?

Sorry, brain freeze. :smack:

You are right. Currently, Ghana’s GD is +1, Australia’s is -4. So Germany would need to thump Ghana and/or Australia put several past Serbia, but yes, Australia could qualify in 2nd in this scenario.

Apparently iPlayer was serving 800,000 streams of the England game, on top of its usual load.

What are you? A communist? :slight_smile:

The goal was struck by Donovan, who wasn’t even close to being offsides. There were players forward, sure, but they never touched it so… no offsides.

There was no offsides on the early (non) goal, so it wouldn’t have been that much of a stretch to make shit up on that one too.

So I have wandered over to some of the English sites to see the comments and whay I find amusing is how they tell us 'Yanks" to stop whinging about disallowed goals etc., you know because we don’t really understand the game.

Because of course other countries (especially England) never ever complain about a percieved injustice. Comical.

They’re telling you to stop whinging because borderline cases like that go against you all the time. That was a really close call, and I think the US player was actually fractionally offside, but I accept that it was close enough that the linesman should have given the benefit of the doubt to the attacking side. But the point that I hope my compatriots were making is that razor-thin offside calls are no basis for cries of “injustice!” They happen all the time. Deal with it.

I thought the reaction to the disallowed goal in the Slovenia game was totally overblown; calls like that happen all the time. It’s unfortunate, but there’s no replay, so just move on.

To have it happen a second time, when either time a goal would have allowed the US though, was pretty hard to stomach.

It sounds very patronizing.

You really need to stop whining now, because you’re sounding like a petulant kid. Although i guess you are a Steelers fan, so it shouldn’t be too surprising.

Yes, the offside call shouldn’t have been, but that’s just how it is sometimes. The United States deservedly made it through, and are at the top of the group. Not only that, but plenty of people from all over the world, me included, were happy to see them make it out of the first round.

But every American who keeps bleating like a sheep and implying that the bad decisions constituted some sort of conspiracy to keep the US out of the next round is going to dry up the foreign support pretty damn quickly. Just put it behind you and move on, ferchissakes. I’ll bet that’s what the players themselves are doing, much to their credit.