Women's world cup 2019

The Game Room
161

What are you even talking about? Did we KNOW that a 13th goal would matter? We did not. And it was never particularly likely. But… we didn’t know it would NOT matter, either. It is clearly correct if you want to win the WWC to score as many goals as possible in all opening round games, barring an unlikely situation like a third round game in which no outcome can change your placing in the group. Furthermore, that’s only one of several reasons why it was entirely reasonable to score as many as possible against Thailand.

I just have no idea why so many people are so determined to find a reason why the US was in the wrong in the Thailand game. Vaguely tacky celebration? Sure. Whatever. But people are going so far beyond that in their criticisms.

162

Hindsight is 20/20. The move that makes sense is to make sure you don’t have to look back and say we shouldn’t have pulled back.

163

So, two matches in for all teams, I think the biggest surprise this WWC has been… the near-total lack of surprises.

Only two results have been at all not what would expect just based on FIFA rankings: Italy over Australia, and Japan drawing with Argentina. In both cases, the “better” team has bounced back and put in a solid performance after that.

Examining the standings, there’s a very weird situation in group B. Hard to see Germany not getting at least a draw vs Jamaica, so they win the group. Spain and China each have three points, and four points is a lock to get through even in third place. Spain has the edge in goal differential. But… second place in group B faces the winner of group F in the round of 16. And the winner of group F is likely to be… the USA. So, it may well be that both Spain and China have an incentive to try to lose by exactly 1, ending up with three points, but goal differential of +0 or +1, likely enough to still get them into the knockout round, but as the third place finisher rather than second. But three points with 0 GD isn’t a LOCK to advance, in case Chile-Thailand or NZ-Cameroon ends in a rout.

In group A, presumably France and Norway dispatch Nigeria and South Korea, respectively, and advance.

In group C, we assume Australia beats Jamaica to end up at 6 points. Then if Italy and Brazil draw, all three of them advance. And if Brazil beats Italy, all three advance. Brazil currently has +2 goal differential, so if Italy crushes them, they could be out. So Brazil vs. Italy certainly has some drama.

In group D, Japan and England are through, so playing for standing position. Argentina and Scotland are both still alive (although Scotland would have to win big). Both are out with a draw, so that should be a hotly contested match.

Groups E and F are both basically locked up, with matches of 2-0 teams to determine the group winner (Canada vs Netherlands and USA vs Sweden).

(Is it in the US’s interest to lose the group? Ignoring the psychological element, going purely on standings, almost certainly not. If everything stays as is and all favorites win, we’re currently looking at Spain (possibly China) in the round of 16 and the match of the tournament vs France in the round of 8. Not easy matchups. But if we lose, we’re looking at Netherlands/Canda in the round of 16, and then likely Germany in the round of 8. Basically, our placement in the elimination bracket is just plain tough. Nothing like an easy matchup either way, and our round of 8 matchup is almost certainly against one of the two teams most likely to beat us. On the other hand, we did have a quite easy draw in the group stages, so…)

164

Very cool. Now predict the stock market! (Is that post an example of post hoc ergo propter hoc?)

Anyway, agreed about the Chilean goalie – she was fantastic. This game could have been almost as bad as the Thai game if it weren’t for her epic goal keeping.

165

“After hoc, therefore something else hoc.”

But it wasn’t. Post hoc ergo propter hoc would have been if DS had claimed that the large goal differential in the U.S.-Thailand match had caused the score of the Sweden-Thailand match.

166

Ah, thanks. Seems like some sort of logic or temporal fallacy anyway.

167

Did you all notice Carli Lloyd politely golf-clapping after her first goal? I snerked a little.

168

Watching Nigeria/France, France is clearly dominant but neither team looks great. I don’t see anything like the skills and discipline of Team USA. Maybe that’s because USA hasn’t played anyone as good as Nigeria yet? I guess we’ll find out more on Thursday.

169

China 0-0 Spain, both teams advance.

170

538 has Chile and Thailand as the 2nd and 3rd worst teams in the tournament and with significantly lower “SPI rating” than Nigeria.

I think you’re probably correct. Not a lot you can tell about a team from games with that large of a disparity.

171

Also, Nigeria seems to be fouling the heck out of France, which is making the game really choppy.

172

Just out of curiosity, how often do goalies come off their line on a PK?

Another WC question – how do they decide who plays the four wildcard teams? That is, the four teams that come in third?

173

The rule that requires the goalie to keep a foot on the line until the ball is kicked in a penalty shot is stupid and unfair. It’s already incredibly lopsided towards the penalty taker, which is understandable, it’s a penalty. But EVERYONE employs a strategy of coming at the ball in a staggered manner in an attempt to trick the goalie into moving one way or another.

There should be some leeway.

174

I think the rule should just be that if the kicker “balks” or stutter steps, or in any way doesn’t make a smooth and predictable approach to the ball, then the come-off-the-line doesn’t matter.

Otherwise it’s just pure upside for the kicker to dick around and try to pull the goalie off the line, because then if they make the kick, it’s good, and if they miss it, they get a re-kick, so why wouldn’t you?
Definitely seemed like a BS call in this case, but I like the idea that it will be called consistently and fairly.

175

According to this:

If the US wins Group F, the play Spain. I don’t understand why the runners up end up playing each other, and it’s set in advance, not based on their records or point differential (for example, Runners-up Group A vs Runners-up Group C). Is that so you don’t play the same team again in the second or third round? Seems ridiculous that Germany, for example, is playing a third place team, while whoever wins Group F is playing a runner-up.

176

My WAG is about 20-30% of the time. One of the most notorious cases of this was Scurry, the American keeper, in the 1999 Women’s World Cup final. She was almost halfway to the midpoint (betwixt goal line and ball) when the Chinese shooter kicked. Not penalized for it.
Another infamous case is Lee Wong-Jae, the South Korean keeper, getting off his line to block Joaquin’s shot in the 2002 World Cup semifinals against Spain. Again not penalized.

177

I have no idea why, for instance, the winner of Group D gets an at-large team, while the winner of Group F plays the runner-up from Group B. That seems to have been set in advance. But no first-place winner plays another first-place winner in the opening round of the knockout. The fact that two runners-up play each other is simply mathematics: there are 6 group winners and 8 first-round knockout games. Thus, there will always be 2 first-round games featuring 2 runners-up.

But I agree that there should be some seeding to determine who gets to play the at-large (3rd place) teams versus who plays a runner-up.

178

There are two basically-reasonable benefits to the current system:
(1) It mostly assures that any two teams that played during the opening round will end up on opposite sides of the draw. It would certainly be anticlimactic for USA vs Sweden to be both the final game of the group and the first game of round-of-16
(2) Can make some effort to equalize rest days, without having to have a huge gap between final day of group play and first round-of-16 matches.

That said, it’s certainly not ideal. And if there was seeding to play for beyond just winning the group, it would give teams a reason to continue to play hard during final group matches, etc.

179

As Max the Vool points out, the two usual considerations are:

  1. Teams from the same group should not play until as late in the knockouts as can be arranged.

The set-up being used for this year’s WWC is essentially identical to the set-up used by the World Cup in 1986, 1990, and 1994. In all three of those editions of the men’s championship, there were 6 groups of 4 teams, so there were 6 group winners, 6 second-placers, and the best 4 third-placers. And in each case, 2nd A played 2nd C, and 2nd B played 2nd F.

The way the knockouts are seeded, for groups with three teams going through, two of the teams are in the same half of the draw, but cannot meet until the semi-finals; the third team is in the other half of the draw and cannot be played until the final. However, it’s not consistent which of the group members gets exiled to the other half, sometimes it’s the first-place team, sometimes the second-place team, sometimes the third-place team. For groups with only two teams going through, the teams can be in the same half of the draw, but cannot meet until the semis, or they can be in opposite halves and not meet until the finals.

  1. The schedule is set up so that eventually teams have roughly similar numbers of rest days. However, with this schedule of the four best-third place teams, that’s not always possible. So you will notice that some teams will play which have a difference of two rest days (for example, Spain (B2) playing either Sweden or the US (F1). One of the arguments against the 24-team world cup format when the men used it was exactly this potential. With the 32-team set-up, the winner from A plays runner-up from B, and vice versa, and since each group played its final games the same day, there’s no advantage. Sadly, I expect that FIFA will expand the women’s tournament to 32 teams relatively soon, if for no other reason than to score political points with the continental associations other than CONMEBOL and UEFA. :frowning:

For what it is worth, the seeding of the group finishers is known before the draw of teams is made, so once that draw happens, everyone knows exactly what they face. And outside of the US, international sports seem to worry much less about trying to equalize knockouts, let alone follow the typical US practice of high v low. Indeed, most cup tournaments in soccer are complete random draws all the way to the semi-finals.

180

Man, can you imagine the disparities between the top 4 or 5 teams and the bottom 8 teams if they expanded to 32? There are still teams being called on foul throw-ins. It would be more competitive if the US could send in some high school club teams.