Simple World Cup math: Win three group matches, advance to second round.

By Robert Wagman
SoccerTimes

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Wednesday, December 5, 2001) -- If the numbers don’t add up, then try again.

In an analysis I did following the 2002 World Cup draw, I said that in a four-team group in round-robin play, two victories for six points would get a team through to the second round, and a win and a draw, worth four points would earn at least a tie for second place in a first-round group, leaving advancement up to the tie-breakers, the first of which is goal differential.

I guess I should have said two wins will usually get a team through and four points will likely be good enough to at least tie for second. A number of sharp readers pointed out scenarios were six points will be only get enough for a ticket home and where four will not guarantee a tie for second.

Reader Jim Vaiana was quick to point out several instances where six points does not guarantee advancement, or where four points only guarantees a third place finish.

Use Group D as an example, with the United States, Portugal, Poland and South Korea. For the sake of this illustration, assume South Korea is the weak sister of the group and it loses each of its three matches. This means that the U.S., Poland, and Portugal each emerge from their South Korea matches with three points.

Then in their head-to-head contests, the U.S., Poland and Portugal each win one and lose one. That would mean that each would end up 2-1 with six points in a three-way tie for first. Starting with goal differential, various tie-breakers would be applied to determine which nation would be sent home. This is not a very likely scenario, but possible.

Equally unlikely, but again possible, is again the weak sister, South Korea, loses all three of its matches. Then Portugal beats the U.S., Portugal and Poland draws, and then the U.S. and Poland draw. That would leave Portugal at 2-0-1 with seven points, Poland at 1-0-2 with five and the U.S. at 1-1-1 with four and a quick trip home.

As I said neither of these scenarios is likely, but both are possible. So I stand corrected.

Actually, in any four-team round-robin such as the preliminary round of the World Cup or the Champions League, or even six-team round robins like the CONCACAF hexagonal, the keys are both how well the top team does and how poorly the bottom team fares.

If the best team runs the table and wins its three matches in a four-team group while the worst team plays to form and loses its three, then things are pretty clear cut and the key match is when the middle two teams meet. Where things become much more complicated is when four evenly-matched teams are grouped and each contest is a toss-up, or even when the best team is upset or the lowest team is able to steal a point or two from the others

Then the possibilities become so great it is almost pointless to speculate.

For instance, reader Tim Bawcombe postulates the following: Poland defeats South Korea and then defeats the Americans. The U.S., in turn defeats South Korea. Portugal, meanwhile, does not exactly live up to its advanced billing and draws both with Poland and the U.S. before defeating South Korea. This would leave Poland, Portugal and the U.S. with five points and someone would go home.

Could this happen? Sure. It is actually one of many ways the U.S, could be left high and dry with five points, if the best and the worst do not play to their respective expectations.

Then there are the almost silly considerations. For instance, all matches in a group are draws by the same score, leaving all four teams with three points each, all tie-breakers are even and the two teams who advance are decided in a series of coin flips. It’s never happened, likely never will, but it is possible.

In the recently completed CONCACAF final qualifying round which saw the U.S. finish third and make it to South Korea\Japan, the so-called "best" team, Mexico, started out playing miserably. At the same time, the worst team, Trinidad & Tobago did not do as well as the last-place team has done in recent years, gaining only one point in its first eight matches. Couple this with the fact that road team won matches much more often than usual and that there were far fewer draws than usual, and what was left was an unpredictable series.

The simple way to get through to the second round of the World Cup is to win all three group matches. That avoids all speculation.

Senior correspondent Robert Wagman's "It Seems To Me . . . " appears regularly on SoccerTimes. He can be e-mailed at bobwagman@soccertimes.com..