FIFA World Cup 2006

[Laney]

last night's game between Netherlands vs Ivory Coast was pretty awesome. it was really tense because the ivory coast got sooooo close to scoring a second goal so many times, meanwhile the Netherlands couldn't seem to get the ball anywhere near their goal for the second half of the game. i would have like to have seen a draw because the Ivory Coast really tried!! meanwhile, there were yellow cards flying all over the place last night because of a lot of dirty playing which was great to watch

[Laney]

i dunno what the deal is with next week, but it looks as if instead of playing one game at a time over in germany so we get live coverage, next week 2 games are going to be on at the same time, so our coverage is going to be later than it usually is. from the calender i saw, it looked as if this was happening all next week.

[Mythor]

A couple of matches have been on delay already but the schedule changed so they weren't at the same time for later matches and blahhhh, I don't know. So long as the Australian games keep being live I'm happy.

GO HARD OR GO HOME FELLAS! *flails socceroos scarf* Only 3 hours left!

[hails]

hello. i'm hails and i'm a soccer n00b.

i just have a question for people more soccer-knowledgeable than i - how the hell did an arsey team like australia end up in a draw with team of awesomeness brazil? how does the group system dooby thingy work exactly?

[Mythor]

haha Sam Newman asked the same thing on the footy show spectacular thingy.

The way it worked was the top X seeded teams (8? I think?) got seperated out to be the start of each group, to give the really good teams the best chance at all making it through to the second round (because that's what the fans want to see blahblahwankwank).
Then they had little ping pong balls with country names on them in buckets and they drew a ping pong ball out for each group to select the remaining teams in the groups.
I think I missed a step or two, but yeah. Basically the answer to your question is that the system was rigged in favour of the top teams by putting them all in seperate groups. Since two teams from each group advance to the second round, that essentially means the team that was automatically put in a group plus one of the 3 remainders get to go through.

Make sense? Vaguely?

This is why it's important for Australia to try and pull out a draw tonight. Currently Australia is actually LEADING Group F, by virtue of us scoring 3 goals to win our game against Japan. Brazil only scored 1 goal in their win over Croatia.
If we can pull out a DRAW tonight, we'll be on 4 points total, as will Brazil. We'll still be top of the table, since we'll have the advantage in goals scored.
If we LOSE we'll stay on 3 points, Brazil will be on 6 points and the clear leaders.
If we WIN we'll advance to 6 points, Brazil will be stuck on 3 points and the BEST Brazil can do is to also end up on 6 points - and they'd have to maul Japan by a decent margin, since we'd still have the points advantage if we lose to Croatia. If we win and then pull out a draw against Croatia, we're through to the second round. I think.

I don't know. Lots of possibilities. We need to win this game tonight for our absolute best chance at qualifying for the second round. We could still make it if things go our way, but we'd probably need to beat Croatia then, and possibly by a decent margin.
Who knows.

Standings and points and goals for and against table thingy is here if anyone would like to check it out.

[hails]

ahhhh right, that makes sense. i mean, it's not the greatest idea to rig in favour of awesome teams, but i get why they do that and i don't suppose there's a better idea, short of getting everyone to play everyone else, chopping off the losers and doing it all again. that would suck, because it would greatly reduce the awesome documentaries and foreign films that are normally in this sbs timeslot



yay draw! points in soccer are confusing :/ but yay for draw if that's what works for australia.

[Mythor]

There's a lot of possibilities still at the moment. Need to wait and see the result of Croatia v Japan to find out how important it is for us to at least get a draw tonight.
It's still 0-0 at the moment, which is probably good.

[hails]

so if japan beats croatia, we won't have to beat croatia as hard? *tries to catch on*

[Mythor]

If Japan beats Croatia, that will put Japan on 3 points. Japan are unlikely to beat Brazil, so they're likely to remain on 3 points. We then need only DRAW with Croatia to get 4 points, assuming we lose to Brazil. If we LOSE to both Brazil and Croatia, that would put Brazil on 6 points and the rest of us on 3 points a piece. Which would put it to who scored the most goals - (minus) who had the most goals scored against them, which would hopefully be us.
Complicatedness only increases the more you think about possible outcomes of the matches.

[hails]

the most complicated stuff for me is the actual scoring of goals influencing how good you are *rubs brain* isn't it enough that you win? *pathetic*

[Mythor]

The goals scored stuff only comes into play if the points for wins/draws are equal at the end of the first round. I heard something about the "point spread" so I assume they work it out by subtracting the goals against a team from the goals they scored, highest total wins. But I'm not sure.

Croatia and Japan just had a 0-0 draw. Still can't work out if that was the best result for Australia.

[hails]

ahahahahaha you can tell the place is packed with australians just by the national anthem - out of time, and the first word was pronounced OSS STRAY YA *rolls eyes* australians are nothing if not sport-religious and filled with beer

[hails]

oh dear. i think i'm starting to understand why people like this game - the anticipation of it all! >.<

[Playm8]

Curse you Brazil!

[Leishpod]

yes, damn you and your well-waxed women to hellllll :P