More World Cup Thoughts

Well, the first round finished, with all matches going roughly as predicted. I was surprised Paraguay and Japan came down to penalty kicks (the worst way ever to break a deadlock, I think). And Paraguay is now up to 326 minutes without allowing a goal in World Cup play; only 130 minutes or so from the record.

But I started looking back yesterday, and was interested to note a few things. Theoretically, the world rankings should be fairly indicative of talent, so we'd expect the top thirty-two teams to make it.

Surprises coming in
Missed out		Made it in
Rank	Name	Rank	Name
10	Croatia	34	Slovakia
11	Russia	36	Denmark
12	Egypt	38	Honduras
22	Norway	45	Japan
23	Ukraine	47	South Korea
26	Israel	78	New Zealand
28	Romania	83	South Africa
29	Turkey	105	North Korea

And, of course, #9 France only made it on a handball goal.

Getting out of the group stage, there were more surprises:

Group Stage
Missed out		Made it in
Rank	Name	Rank	Name
5	Italy	17	Mexico
9	France	18	Chile
13	Greece	31	Paraguay
15	Serbia	32	Ghana
		34	Slovakia
		45	Japan
		47	South Korea

And moving to the round of eight, we've got:

Group Stage
Missed out		Made it in
Rank	Name	Rank	Name
3	Portugal	16	Uruguay
8	England	31	Paraguay
		32	Ghana

So what does all this tell us?

Not a whole lot, I think, but it's interesting to see how these things play out. That is why they play the games, of course.

So who do I like, going forward? I'm picking Uruguay, Argentina, Netherlands, and Spain to move on.

And man, what about all the blown calls in the latest round? Spain and Argentina score while offsides, and England loses a legitimate goal. I've got to think that that's a record for most blown calls in one round. Portugal, in particular, was really hosed by that, given that that was the decisive goal.

And I love FIFA's reaction: we won't show the replay on the jumbotron in the stadium. Some people will never learn. How about something like, "We're not going to change the rules in the middle of a tournament, but we'll look in to reasonable changes to prevent this happening again once the Cup has been awarded." Is that just too easy?