And if you're going to face Brazil in a WC, better in the round of 16 than a semi or final IMO.

The team who finishes second finishes second for a reason. Brazil have been ordinary and many are saying the worst Brazil team in a long time. I think Netherlands / Chile have more reason to fear Mexico / Croatia

LOL - I hadn't realised that. :oops: :lol:

Well, disregard this thread then.

Beat me to it.

Group B is at 2am, Group A at 6am

Group B play their games first anyway.

They do have simultaneous kickoff times for the last matches within a group (to avoid shenanigans like West Germany v Austria in '82), but not for cases like this.

To avoid this situation, they'd need to move the kickoff time for the Ned v Chi match to be the same as the Group A matches, but;
a) 3 simultaneous matches probably would get the TV networks to kick up a stink
and
b) Moving a kick off time at this late stage when everything has been scheduled months in advance would be a nightmare (TV, spectators, logistics, etc).

Edited by petszk: 19/6/2014 01:21:09 PM

probably won't happen due to TV rights but should they look at same time kickoff potetionally in the future or is it just a case of bad luck they are both through we do what we want.

Not football, but in the London Games a couple of years ago they disqualified the korean and chinese badminton teams for trying to lose to gain a better draw.

Yeah, I knew about that one, but that was a case of the two teams knowing a 1-0 result would send them both thru, so they got that scoreline and then basically played kickaround for the rest of the match.

This is a situation where both teams know that losing is (probably) the better result for their chances...

Something like that has happened before in a World CUp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germany_1%E2%80%930_Austria

If Mexico beat Croatia 3-0 and Brazil beat Cameroon 1-0 Mexico will go top as well.

If we were to say in the final matches for Group A that Brazil draws with Cameroon (unlikely, I know) and Mexico beats Croatia, Group A will finish with Mexico on top, and Brazil second.

That will mean that in the final Group B match between Netherlands and Chile, the teams will know that the winner will finish top of their group and have to play Brazil in the 2nd round, while the loser will finish 2nd and have to play Mexico in the 2nd round.

Could we then see some "tanking" (to steal an AFL term) in this match as Netherlands & Chile try to lose and thus avoid Brazil in the 2nd round?

Has happened before (not in the World Cup): http://www.snopes.com/sports/soccer/barbados.asp