FIFA 2014 World Cup - Official Discussion Thread

[minionofmidas]

Germany will go out with the intention of ripping the opposition to shreds. End of story.

Germany will not play for a draw. They'll want to win the group without much heartbreak, and for that they need a lead going into the final minutes of the game.

[minionofmidas]

538 now has the U.S. probability of advancing to the knockout stage at 76%, up from 64% this morning.

Wtf? This is plain idiotic. Any serious metric is going to show 40ish, maybe 50ish. I mean, whatever their possibility that the US wins yesterday and thus goes through automatically, is out of the equation now.

And no, nobody is going to play for second place. It's plausible - but less than 50% likely - that somebody will play so bad that conspiracy theories that they did will surface, though.

Portugal are still screwed though. That late equalizer (super unlucky but deserved, all things considered. A draw was the justest result for that game.) really helped noone except Ghana. And some of us in the tipping competition.

[minionofmidas]

538 now has the U.S. probability of advancing to the knockout stage at 76%, up from 64% this morning.

Wtf? This is plain idiotic. Any serious metric is going to show 40ish, maybe 50ish. I mean, whatever their possibility that the US wins yesterday and thus goes through automatically, is out of the equation now.

And no, nobody is going to play for second place. It's plausible - but less than 50% likely - that somebody will play so bad that conspiracy theories that they did will surface, though.

Portugal are still screwed though. That late equalizer (super unlucky but deserved, all things considered. A draw was the justest result for that game.) really helped noone except Ghana. And some of us in the tipping competition.

About a 3/4ths chance does make sense.

14% chance of a win (Qualified)
22% chance of a draw (Qualified)
64% chance of a loss:
- 39% chance of a Portugal win (Qualified unless the US loses a +5 GD against Ghana)
- 29% chance of a Portugal-Ghana draw (Qualified)
- 32% chance of a Ghana win (Probably don't quality, would depend on GD, would have to hope for a 1 goal loss against Germany and a 1 goal Ghana win, US would qualify on scoring the most goals)

64%*32% = 20% of the US not qualifying (closer to 25% than 50-60%)

Now you could argue about the %'s of each thing happening, but I don't think his number is that off. The US has a lot of options to get in.

Also I had 2-1 US, so I was not happy with that goal

What boggles the mind is the US' chances increasing with this draw. Remember that the earlier 64% figure already takes the Germany-Ghana game into account. Unless the model never believed in a US win against Portugal, this is pretty much mathematically impossible. (This actually makes sense, sort of: Any model based on past performance in all play or all competitive play is going to overestimate Portugal's chances of getting points after that 4-0 vis-a-vis conventional wisdom. Which knows very well that qualification results are not a good predictor of world cup performance, and that teams don't tend to successfully get back up from a 0-4. Conventional wisdom is also going to overestimate Ghana vis-a-vis models, since Ghana has shone at the last two world cups, with much the same core players, and really been rather sh!te otherwise.
But there's another thing going on here as well: The model's changing the possibilities of different outcomes, and is not applying the new percentages retroactively.)

[minionofmidas]

Quite the nonpretty game.

[minionofmidas]

This was a rather harsh red card. Which is something the tournament had so far avoided.

[minionofmidas]

He wants suspension from all competitive play for life.

Heck, he probably wants locking up in the closed ward (not for life) for his own protection.

[minionofmidas]

Was it definitely a bite?

Yes.

[minionofmidas]

Omg. I just remember.

The referee's nickname is "Dracula". They said so in the pregame.

[minionofmidas]

Don't get me wrong, this wasn't Tyson style. But neither was it exactly Tyson style the last time... what did he get there?

[minionofmidas]

Suarez is a legend.

Cantona was cooler.

[minionofmidas]

Was it definitely a bite? The British TV angle wasn't great.

No.

Pure Italian drama and a fake picture in the internets.

Lol.

(Wait... you are joking, right?)

[minionofmidas]

Anyways, anyone who would have liked to see Uruguay and Italy both eliminated should cheer...

they went into this match thinking the tournament would definitely be rid of 23 of them and hey presto, it's definitely rid of 24.

[minionofmidas]

Also now Italy and Spain are both out, Germany must be clear favorites.

Now that Italy, Spain and England are all out, it would be downright unsportsmanlike and lacking in solidarity for Germany to survive the group stage.

(Actually, Brazil were clear favorites ahead of Spain and Germany even before the start of the tournament, Italy were usually only mentioned in a "and you can never rule Italy out, of course" vein and England were never considered contenders. Not even in England. Oh, and reading the new replies is helpful: you editted that out without any prompting already. Please put it back in. I like my joke above re the Big Four leagues.)

[minionofmidas]

Maybe I was just seeing things that were never there re Lief listing England originally. If so, my apologies!

[minionofmidas]

The best (worst?) part of the bite is Suarez falling to the ground afterwards as if he's been shot.

His teeth were hurting like hell.

[minionofmidas]

In fairness Suarez is not like a normal sportsman.

Luis Suarez is a mentally ill person who needs to understand that he needs his head looking after (nonvoluntary therapies are worse than useless, that's why judges love them). He needs to be protected from people like Diego Lugano or Lief here.

[minionofmidas]

And I am perfectly ready to believe that Suarez doesn't remember biting Chiellini.

[minionofmidas]

Looks set to be Asia's worst tournament in quite some time, unless the South Koreans can win tomorrow.

So far:  P11 W0 D3 L8

Europe's record isn't exactly shiny either.

Shame about the Ivorians, but 60% of Africa progressing is still an option.

[minionofmidas]

Suarez banned for 9 international matches and banned from all play for four months. Oh, and fined 100k (Swiss Francs, FIFA's inhouse currency).

That's hardly toothless.

[minionofmidas]

Suarez banned for 9 international matches and banned from all play for four months. Oh, and fined 100k (Swiss Francs, FIFA's inhouse currency).

That's hardly toothless.

Nice choice of words.

Hoped someone would notice. -_-

[minionofmidas]

Question for those of you who follow football more regularly than I do.  When it's raining as it is in the Germany-US game, does that generally help the defense or the offense?

Neither. It helps a more athletic, less technical style of play, though.

I told you so. 0-0

No, you can tell the Germans and Americans are trying to score.

They were trying to but you could also see that both teams knew a draw would suit them fine. Germany certainly weren't playing at 100%.
Pretty dull match, as a result.

I'm told a lot of them don't have bank accounts in Ghana, which meant they couldn't wire it to them, or something like that.

Or only by paying a lot of it to bankers instead of players.

One should never count out their opponents, but we couldn't have gotten a more pleasent Round of 16 match!

Especially an opponent against whom you have deservedly lost every previous time you've played him despite being huge favorites each time*, just as you're this time, and who still have a score to settle with you over Gijon?
I smell an undeserved, ugly, narrow, partly referee-created German win coming up.

*they have only played each other twice.

[minionofmidas]

Exceptions for those doing the hardest labour - as well as for hugely pregnant women - are as old as Ramadan. Of course, many athletes do fast anyways (their right to do so has been the subject of labor litigation in Germany, btw.)

[minionofmidas]

At least Tabarez has admitted that Suarez needed to get a ban, he's just outraged at the length (and since it effectively works out as 21 matches, 9 for Uruguay and 12 for Liverpool, he kinda has a point there).

I wonder if they didn't give Suarez some matches / months extra for wasting their time with that "defence", actually.

[minionofmidas]

That is exactly what mainstream clerical opinion is arguing.

To clarify the discussion here: The decision not to fast in this situation is a personal one. Fasting anyways is certainly going to be viewed as more virtuous by the general public. Evidently, that creates pressure (the bit about the no drinking during the game being relevant here as happening in the public eye.) So I suppose most members of the team will fast, especially if they've done so during competitive play in previous years as well.

We have one statement from an Algerian player. Bentaleb has said he'll decide on the day of the match and that it'll depend on his physical condition.

[minionofmidas]

I'm pretty sure he just meant "controversial".