I think I’m guaranteed 1in the final four. I could have 2 more, but those are both long shots.
I have six in the quarters, three guaranteed to be in the semis, and one guaranteed to be in the final.
I’ll have the new standings up in about 15 minutes. Unfortunately almost every pool has been decided after the first knockout round. :(
Here are the latest standings: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1upheBSjU4W-yQajry_p6LBWX_2MGMupDDnx8oi7mbVU/edit#gid=757666040
Please check your teams to make sure I didn’t screw up some of the math.
Congratulations to:
Summary
@Dissensus for winning Pool 1
@Dave_Perkins for winning Pool 2 - We shouldn’t have told him this was a math game.
@Lantz for winning Pool 5
Pools 3 and 4 still have teams that haven’t been mathematically eliminated yet.
Well that’s disappointing, but not surprising. It’s been fun doing this regardless.
Thank you again for running this thing, Chris. It’s given us some really great moments.
-xtien
Damn them Murakami boys! When Brazil takes the whole thing, I’m making a comeback, baby!
So if I have this straight, Armando needs Brazil to win the tournament, plus France and England to win their quarter finals. And no more than one of those 5 matches can go to extra time.
On the other hand it made the group stage great fun. Thanks for putting it together!
Yes, thank you for putting this together! It was a lot of fun.
I kind of like that I’m in dead last, even taking into account all 5 pools. That’s what you get when you make your picks based on a mixture of passion (underdog teams) and inevitability (picking Germany).
Agreed, Thank you for running this!
It was my pleasure to do this. If anyone has any suggestions for improvement, I am happy to listen. A few things that I thought could be changed:
One thing that I should have done is move Spain and France into Group A and Belgium and Portugal into group B. That might have allowed for a little more pick diversity. To that end, next time I would probably fine tune a few more of the groups a little bit.
Another thing that I could have done is give two points instead of three for a win. That would bunch everyone up a lot more.
My intent is to run this again in 2022.
Thanks for running this Marquac! That was fun!
Congrats to Perkins for the high score overall, and congrats to Lantz for beating the hive mind in our group!
I’ll add to the choir of those thanking @marquac.
I’ll offer up some possibly helpful suggestions:
Perhaps it might be better to use the World Football Elo Ratings to make the groupings rather than the FIFA rankings? While Elo ratings aren’t perfect either, they are generally better than FIFA ones since the latter are easily gamed and notoriously poor at correlating with head-to-head results. For example, this time Group A would have included Brazil, Germany, France, and Spain, which I think would have led to more diverse picks. Also, per your thought, Belgium and Portugal would have naturally been in Group B.
How about double points in the knockout rounds to keep the game interesting late? You could argue that since there are fewer matches overall, an increase in points payout is justified. Although, I’m pretty sure I would have lost my group if that were the case since Brazil look to go all the way.
My kid just informed me that Cavani has a hamstring injury.
-xtien
NOOOOO!!! I feel super bad for him and Uruguay. I think they are the best team left so to lose Cavani is awful :(
Yeah, that sucks. Like James Rodrigez for Columbia, I feel Cavani was a difference maker for Uruguay. Not as big of a factor as James for Columbia, but a big one.