Thus repeating the recent pattern of the defending champ going out in the group stages (Spain in 2014, Italy in 2010). You have to go back to Brazil in 2006 for the old champ to make it out of the group.
Belgium haven’t played yet, but this looks to be a wide open World Cup. No team seems particularly sharp yet, but first games are not the best judge. I had to miss the Germany game (ironically, due to a Father’s Day thing), but Spain and Brazil looked the most dangerous to me (of the contenders). France won but looked pretty bad. I didn’t realize that Switzerland is #6 in FIFA rankings. It won’t be easy for Brazil. Keylor Navas is always tough to score on and Serbia is another big European team full of Top European league talent.
Those who predicted that Germany would be the only European team with a loss as of this point in the tournament…go out RIGHT NOW and buy a dozen lottery tickets.
Wonder what kind of odds you could’ve had on that slightly weird bet a week ago.
Switzerland ranked far higher than I thought. Thought they’d be around 28#.
There were 9 European teams with games. If, on average, you had a 1/3rd chance of getting each game correct you’d have a a roughly 1:20,000 chance of that happened. Only 1:512 if you have a 50% chance for each outcome. 538 had odds for each outcome, but I don’t know what they were.
As someone that’s not familiar with sports betting, is that a bet you likely could make at a legal sports book?
Was it nine games? I hadn’t counted. Sounds about right. If you assume equal odds of win, tie, or loss in every game involving a European team (obviously not correct but it’s a good starting point) then the odds of exactly this situation happening are actually quite a bit greater than your back of the envelope calculations:
2/3 chance of Denmark winning or tying x 2/3 chance of Iceland winning or tying x (four more teams doing that) x 1/3 chance of Germany losing x 1/3 chance of the Spain-Portugal game ending in a tie
Comes out to 64 in 6561 or roughly one in a hundred. Of course that’s still pretty unlikely.
Of course the individual games’ odds can change that enormously. I would think that Germany would have been given a much smaller than 1 in 3 chance of losing, while Iceland and Switzerland at least would have been assigned a much greater chance of losing…that would make the odds against this much longer.
As for whether you could find someone to place this bet…no idea. But it would be kind of cool.
You have to remember that football has a long history, and a built in almost certainty, of throwing up results that don’t fit the predictions. Over the course of a full season the best team comes out on top. Any sort of round-robin set-up will do the same (but with more surprises) and a straight knock-out leaves plenty of room for strange things to happen. It is a very, very difficult sport to predict individual match results.
Mexico are no mugs, that they beat a badly underperforming Germany in the first group match is no weirder than any other result so far. They are ranked top 15 and perfectly good enough to do well against any team that stumbles in form.
Eventual winners Spain were beaten 1-0 by Switzerland in their first game in 2010, such things happen with great regularity and only after the group games will we know who is on form.
Any bookie in the UK would probably create that as an accumulator bet for you.
i.e. for those nine matches involving European teams so far you would have been quoted the odds for the 8 specific matches to win or draw, and then the odds of Germany to lose.
Each of those would then “accumulate” as results come in.
e.g. put down £10 on Russia to win or draw at 1:2, you get £15 back
£15 on Spain to win or draw at evens, you get £30 back
£30 on Iceland to win or draw at 4:1, you get £150 back
£150 on Denmark to win or draw at 1:2, you get £225 back
I don’t know what the actual odds are for those games but you can see how such a bet quickly adds up. Of course the downside is that if you get just one result wrong you lose the whole thing.
With Sweden having won against South Korea, the coming match Germany-Sweden is a must win for the world champions (a draw, and a Mexico win over South Korea - or even a draw - means Sweden and Mexico can “agree” to a draw in the final game and eliminate Germany). Ask the Italians how difficult it is to beat the Swedes…
In not sure they would agree to draw because the second place team likely would play Brazil in the round of 16.
Yes, you can do a sports bet called a “parlay.” It involves having to bet that a string of game outcomes ALL go your way - i.e., “I bet that Mexico, Sweden, Russia, and Serbia will ALL win their opening games at this World Cup.” The disadvantage of a parlay is that it’s exceptionally unlikely to go your way, due to low probability, but the upside is that if you do win, the monetary payoff is usually enormous (proportionally speaking.)
And here in Panama the country is going bonkers as they start their first-ever World Cup match against Belgium.
The Belgians have a very interesting attacking formation and only 3 in the back. They look vulnerable to counterattack. There will be goals today.
Panama and CONCACAF are showing the haters that we can play with anyone. Parity makes for better World Cups.
Get past the quarter finals at least one time and we’ll talk.
Only 13 clubs and two confederations have gotten past the quarters; Czechoslovakia no longer exists, Uruguay hasn’t done it since 50 and England since 66.
I don’t think a region necessarily has to get to the semis to announce that they have arrived as serious WC contenders.
By “done it” do you mean made it past the quarters? Because both England and Uruguay have made the semis more recently than that. Not a huge point.
apart from the fact that Panama look dreadful…yes.
You are correct. I forgot about the Suarez moment against Ghana and England 4th place finish in 1990 and the amazing semifinal match against Germany. Its old age 
Yeah, the city is pretty quiet at the moment. I guess the game with Tunisia is Panama’s best shot at getting it’s first World Cup win.