2018 World Cup running thread

Reseeding would be a cluster. What measures do you use to seed teams? If you use rankings, then your spot in the knockout round now has nothing to do with what you did in the World Cup. You can't do points because there are so few games.

 

Of course after saying Belgium is a top 5 team, they are shitting the bed now.

 

You inherently would have the problem regardless of when the game was played. Groups A and B play their last matches on a Monday (let's say). Groups G and H play Thursday. Knockouts start Saturday. Someone either has 5 days rest vs 2 for their opponent or someone doesn't play for 10 days to allow the other team to catch up. If you start adjusting to accommodate extremes in rest advantage, it ruins the matches for everyone else. Or you delay the world cup but you are still left with the same problem

 

great second goal

 

Holy crap Japan is taking it to Belgium.

 

I suppose, but it would take even more planning and there would likely be imbalance in the schedule, either a lot of days off or not many. Right now there is a one day break from the end of group to the first knock out game. Maybe it doesn't matter but it could be messy. The best way overall would just to be to seed the groups.

 

And they were lucky Japan wasn't ahead in the first half.

 

This World Cup is making me feel like I don't understand anything about football anymore.

 

Crazy goal, looked like a dig in volleyball.

 

Belgium with a bit of luck!

 

I think he absolutely meant to do that.

 

That one was sweet though.