The Battle of Santiago:
2002 Brazil.
R16: Beat Belgium 2-0
QF: England 2:1
SF:Turkey 1:0
Final: Germany 2:0
Went 3-0 in the group stages as well. Since 1970 both France (2018) and Argentina (1986) have won the WC without being pushed into ET or penalties, but both drew a group game and in 1982, the Italians were also undefeated, and didn’t need ET, but they drew three games, all in the first group stage, and infact they only won 4 out of 7 matches.
Any last minute predictions for the elimination rounds?
If we look ahead to semifinalists, the easiest call is definitely Brazil (who have Korea, Japan, Croatia in their section of the draw).
France is presumably favored over England in a presumed quarterfinal matchup, but that should be epic.
Anyone have any strong feeling about Spain/Portugal/Morocco/Switzerland?
And of course I’d love to see the USA beat the Netherlands, but I’d have to assume Argentina is favored out of USA/Netherlands/Argentina/Australia.
Any hot round of 16 upsets a-brewing?
Brazil v Argentina,Spain v France, would be the obvious SF.
This tournament has been crazy so maybe not. It might be US v Japan and Morocco v Portugal. In the final, Pulasic scores a 95th minute winner versus Portugal.
The dream final matchup would be Messi v Ronaldo.
So the last 16 are:
Netherlands, England, Poland, France, Spain, Croacia, Swizzerland, Portugal from Europe (8 out 13 who started).
Senegal, Marroco from Africa (two out of 4)
USA from North America/CONCACAF (1 out of 3)
Argentina and Brasil from South America (2 out of 5)
Australia from Oceania (1 out of 1)
South Korea and Japan from Asia (2 out of 4, counting Qatar and Saudi Arabia as Asia).
So the group that did statistically worse, losing two out of three contestants, was the group where the next WC will take place. Twenty years after organizing the WC both Japan and South Korea advanced to the next stage without referee scandals so far*, that may be a consolation for Mexico and Canada.
Europe, with a 61.5% qualification rate, did best.
Of course the numbers are too small to be statistically relevant.
*Japan’s goal against Spain was not a scandal, seems to be the consensus. It is only Germany’s problem, and they are busy debating whether to start real reforms, not blaming others for them not qualifying for the last 16.
I don’t like writing the name, but Goikoetxea crushed his ancle, tore his ligaments and sent him to the hospital for a year. He was not even booked! Some say that this one year of inactivity and boredom is when he started the habit of sniffing cocaine, it is plausible.
I like to read that, but if you root for the USA and would like the Netherlands to win the tournament you will be diagnosed a spilt personality this afternoon. I also like the Netherlands (because of Rinus Michels and Johann Cruyff, mainly), one of my first memories of football is being sad in 1974 when they lost to Germany. I was in Germany that summer at my grandparent’s place and I remember that it rained.
Ah, that was one of the prime examples of defenders of old I called bone-crushers, but I couldn’t remember the name. Thanks!
It’s good to forget that name, like the name of Lennon’s murderer (whose name I will not write). Damantio memoriae is the latin expression for that. Sorry I wrote the other one, but I saw no way around that.
For the purpose of World Cup qualification Australia are Asian. Nobody from Oceania made it.
I wondered if they counted a South American, as they had to beat Peru (I think?) in a last round. OK, that makes Asia’s qualification rate for the last 16 3/5, 60%. Second best, close to Europe’s.
Also I think you’re counting Costa Rica as South America. There were 4 NA (US Canada Mexico and Costa Rica) and 4 SA (Brazil Argentina Uruguay and Ecuador)
When I read this, I thought perhaps you were talking about Sergio Goycochea, who was my favorite goalie growing up (despite me being a Brasil fan) and a national team teammate of Maradona’s. It would have been scandalous in Argentina, if that had happened in a league game or something. Thanks for the article. Unfortunately in the US, we had no exposure to European and South American League games, so my international soccer experience is basically all World Cup until TNT started broadcasting the Champion’s League in the 90’s.
As for the RO16, here are my picks to advance:
1- USA (this one may be wishful thinking, but I just don’t see Netherlands being that good. Will find out shortly.
2- Argentina
3- Japan (just based on their victories so far)
4- Brasil
5- England
6- France
7- Spain (had the urge to pick Morocco here, but changed my mind)
8- Switzerland
So, I got three upsets: US, Japan and Switzerland
What time is the NLD-USA match? I think I heard it was 0900 Eastern / 0600 Pacific?
10am EST
Yeah it’s confusing because Fox keeps running promos that imply that the pregame program is the game itself. “Tune in at 1pm for USA vs X” when kickoff is at 2pm.
In 103 minutes (but who’s counting? :))
Yes, I did, my statistics are all over the place then. So Costa Rica is North America? Good, then North America 25% (only the USA), South America 50% (Brazil and Argentina) success rate. And Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Australia are Asia, so 2 out of 5 is 40% (Japan and South Corea).
Don’t remind me of the horrible times 20 years ago or more where me living in Germany could not watch any Spanish match, not even in the Campions League, not even when the Spanish team shared a group with the German team; they only reported and showed that German match. If I wanted to see Barça I could only hope that they would share a group with a German team, then I would see those two matches. And they called that “television without borders”! (And the Council Directive 89/552/EEC means it was the 552nd directive of the year 1989, go figure). Today you can at least watch on You Tube the most interesting scenes from any match immediately after it finishes! That would have been a dream back then.
Concerning the name Goicoechea, now often spelled Goykoetxea because it is more Basque that way, it is a fairly common name in the Basque Countries. Here you have a webpage (in Spanish) that explains that it means something like “from the house uphill”.
3 out of 5. Aussies as well.
But I did have my tea this morning! Still, somethig is not right with my reasoning today, sorry for the mess.
Well, CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football.)
Oh crap, I was looking forward to watching US-NL, but only now realized that I can’t watch because it’s one of two round of 16 games that are exclusively broadcast in Germany on Magenta TV which I haven’t subscribed to. Please keep me updated, guys.