Ok, that was harsh, but the top NCAA teams or the best junior national teams would be better than the new bottom eight if they went with 32.
I imagine that’s true now. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if UNC would beat Thailand.
According to the FIFA rankings (which are notoriously trash, but what’re you going to do) the bottom teams in the current WC are ranked in the 30s. Depending on how additional teams are allocated, you might not get much worse if at all. The teams that just missed the cut in UEFA are likely better some of the teams in the tournament.
It is set up in advance. Finishers in each group are set to play specific finishers in other groups, with a rather complicated setup for the third place teams that advance. It looks like the winners of groups E and F will play a 2nd place finisher, no matter what. All of that is set up in advance. The teams (except host France) are then randomly assigned to groups. The US was randomly assigned to group F, which means that they will play a 2nd place team if they finish 1st in their group.
It may look like a silly method, but any other method would be fraught with problems. In reality, if a team expects to win the world cup, they shouldn’t worry about playing a 2nd place team versus a 3rd place team in the round of 16.
I disagree with this part. If a top-ranked team is going to play a good team in the round of 16, they have to play their starters. If they are going to play some third place team who squeaked in a with a few draws, they can put in more of their bench squad (like USA did vs. Chile, not playing Morgan or Rapinoe). That reduces the possibility of injuries and yellow/red cards for your starters, leaving you stronger for the next round.
Take a look at the probabilities here:
Germany has a 93% chance of making it past the first elimination round, and that has to be because they are going to play some second tier team in the round of 16. Compare that to USA, France, or England (the other top teams) – their chances are in the 60s and 70s. The fact is that there’s a huge drop off between the top two teams in a group and the third and fourth place team. USA and Sweden are much, much better than Chile and Thailand, for example.
Anyone else also watching Copa America?
I loved Colombia’s performance vs Argentina over the weekend.
Also, why isn’t there a true “America’s” cup? As in the entire continent? It’s silly to have just South America and even end up having to bring in two teams from across the globe to compete. Why not have a full Continental tournament, would definitely be more popular too.
And even ignoring that, a tougher schedule is, well, tougher. Suppose that the USA is the best team in the tournament. At best, we’re maybe 55% or 60% to beat Germany or France, 65% if I want to be SUPER jingoistic. So our odds of beating something like Spain->France->Canada->Germany all in a row is WAY less than 50%, just based on simple math.
We could easily construct a bracket where we have a super tough slog through rounds of 16-8-4, while Germany glides through on the other side, and our overall probability is much lower than theirs of actually winning the tournament, even though we’re > 50% to beat them, and have a higher likelihood than they do of beating any single opponent.
A well constructed tournament bracket minimizes that effect (or at least, many people would argue it does).
It’s still very much the luck of the draw. It is looking like Germany will be playing either Nigeria or the winner of New Zealand and Cameroon, which should not pose a problem. France on the other hand is looking at a likely game against either Australia or Brazil, neither of which is going to be easy. Somebody is going to get an easy 3rd place team to play. As long as that is based on a random draw, I am fine. And I still think that there is not a better way available.
Well, they are separate continents and have different confederations. 2016 did have the Copa America Centenario though, which was a combined tournament played in the US (mainly?).
I thought it was a great tournament and hoped it would become a regular thing. There was talk about that happening, but it’s fallen off and probably permanently dead with the confederations all moving to a league. A 4 year cycle of the Gold Cup, combined Copa America, qualifying, and the WC would be great for the US. Get rid of one of the Gold Cups and you’re good to go.
I agree that Colombia played well against Argentina. Brazil’s roster is by far the most complete though, they have to be huge favorites.
I’ve been watching it a little, as well as a little of the Gold Cup. Last night I watched a little of the Honduras vs. Jamaica match, and I was astounded by how shockingly poor the play was at times. What should have been very easy passes ended up nowhere near their target. And these teams win or draw against the United States semi-regularly.
CONCACAF has its own tournament. But yes, I agree, I’d like to see CONCACAF and CONMEBOL merge for an Americas tournament; seeing the USA duke it out against Mexico, Jamaica, etc. is quite boring. Even if USA gets crushed mercilessly by Brazil, Colombia, etc. each time, it would still be worth it.
BTW it’s sad to see how far Argentina has fallen.
I’m not sure if you’re agreeing with me or not. The third place team in most of the brackets in the Women’s World Cup is much, much worse than the typical first and second place team. Germany, just by being in the group they are in, got to play a third place team. No such luck for USA or France. So, German can play more of their bench players for what’s likely to be a walk in the part in the first elimination game, but USA and France has to play their starting lineup. Because of that, USA and France will have a higher likelihood of losing, and also of getting cards and injuries to their star players.
That’s why Germany’s chance of winning their first game is so much higher than USA and France, even though we don’t know any of the opponents.
Don’t cry for them.
Strange that Brazil seemed to let off a bit at 1-0 today. One more goal would have had them win the group rather than finishing third.
This isnt true. Brazil is a 3rd place team and will play either Germany or France. It will be a tougher match than the USA v Spain.
Because:
A) the structure of soccer worldwide is that there are continental confederations that run the sport for each continent, which associations have banded together with their members to form the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. The continental confederations each have their own continental championship. The one for Europe is called the UEFA European Championship, and is contested every even year that is not a World Cup year (thus, every four years). The CAF (Africa) and the AFC (Asia) run championships, too.
CONMEBOL is the confederation for South America (or, at least, most of it; the Guyanas are excluded, as well as the island nations off the coast of Venezuela). It runs the Copa América. That tournament has a rather inconsistent history of when and how it is run. In the old days, since CONMEBOL has ten member national associations, it would run the tournament with those ten (for example, by having two groups of five play a round robin, with semis and finals). Starting in 1993, CONMEBOL started inviting two guest nations from outside South America, which creates a tournament with three groups of four teams, allowing for eight teams to qualify for knockouts (1st and 2nd place teams, plus the two best 3rd place teams). That year, the US and México were the invitees. The idea was that México is good enough that it can compete with the South American powers, and the US needed to have some games that mattered prior to the 1994 World Cup. Thereafter, México was invited along with someone else (Costa Rica being the next most invited country) every edition until this year’s tournament.
CONCACAF is the confederation for the North American, Central American and Caribbean teams. It has a championship, too, called the Gold Cup. That competition started in 1991, and is hosted or co-hosted by the US in odd years. It, too, now will invite out-of-confederation teams from time to time (Brazil in 1995 was the first). This stopped in 2007. Not shockingly, the Gold Cup has never been won by a nation other than the US or México.
In 2016, CONMEBOL decided to run a special tournament to celebrate “El Centenário”, the 100th anniversary of the first year the Copa América was contested. In order to maximize revenue, it was decided that the tournament would be held in the US, and expanded on this occasion only to 16 teams. The six invitees were all from CONCACAF (the US, México, Costa Rica, Panama, Jamaica, and Haiti). Again, not shockingly, of the six, only the US and México qualified for the knockouts. There was a lot of talk about CONCACAF and CONMEBOL establishing some sort of permanent joint tournament, but that died out quickly in the aftermath of the 2016 Copa América Centenario.
B) Because, with the exception of México and (at times) the US, the remaining CONCACAF teams are so weak that CONMEBOL sees no point in adding them to the Copa América. There are a LOT of minnows in CONCACAF, and a substantial qualifying structure is needed to winnow the minnows. CONMEBOL has no such problem. While there are teams that routinely underperform others (Venezuela, for example), none of them is so bad as to be completely uncompetitive. It is instructive that CONMEBOL sends half its members (usually) to the World Cup, whereas CONCACAF is lucky if it sends four (it has only been guaranteed three, usually).
So, TL&DR: the Americas are two continents with two championships, and “North America” is so bad at soccer (with one exception) that South America sees no point to a conjoint championship.
Maybe? 538 says that Germany has a better chance of making it to the quarters than the US or France (the US makes sense, I guess, since we haven’t played our third game, but France has):
I’m not sure why that would be, other than the competition in the round of 16. They have Brazil and Spain essentially equally good.
So it turns out watching the Scotland women’s team is exactly like watching the men’s. Also VAR can fuck off and die.
Is it VAR you object to, or the seemingly insanely harsh penalty kick retake rules? Because the penalty call itself seemed 100% correct. I’d MUCH rather have some delays but calls like that gotten right (and vastly less incentive to dive).
The “foot one inch off the line = retake” rule does certain feel unfair, although it does seem to be being applied fairly and equally.
The penalty is arguable - does it no longer matter if the ball is taken first? Seems so. But if a VAR decision takes seven minutes then it surely, surely must be added on as injury time. Neither side tonight wanted the game ended like that. That was bad refereeing - but it’s a new system, and basically no refs in this tournament have a great deal of experience with it.
That new rule goes against all the instincts and training of goalkeepers. Rigid application of it makes a penalty even more stacked in favour of the penalty-taker.
I should add that throwing away a three-goal lead is purely down to Scotland though!