World Cup Scenarios

May 8, 2006 8:21 AM

2006 World Cup. Help me come up with some scenarios that show how the different scoring would work in Round 1 of the world cup!

I've built a spreadsheet to do a world cup pool at work. I'm now trying to test the darn thing. (Yes - I know there are spreadsheets on the web, but none of them quite do what I want, plus I wanted the challenge of doing it myself). In order to test it I want to come up with a bunch of scenarios that test the various scoring cirteria posted on the FIFA website. These are the criteria (copied from the website)

The ranking of each team in each group will be determined as follows:
a) greatest number of points obtained in all group matches;
b) goal difference in all group matches;
c) greatest number of goals scored in all group matches.
If two or more teams are equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings will be determined as follows:
d) greatest number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
e) goal difference resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned;
f) greater number of goals scored in all group matches between the teams concerned;
g) drawing of lots by the Organising Committee for the FIFA World Cup.

Basically, I've come up with scenarios where criteria a - e determine the outcomes, but not one for f (obviously g doesn't matter).

[As an example for where (c) determines the outcome:
1)Germany / Costa Rica 4-2
2)Poland / Ecuador 1-2
3)Germany / Poland 0-0
4)Ecuador / Costa Rica 5-1
5)Ecuador / Germany 3-2
6)Costa Rica / Poland 1-3
Winner: Ecuador (Points -a) ; Runner Up: Germany (Goals -c)]

Are there any math / football geniuses that can help me do this?

posted by Mave_80 to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

Because the teams only play each other once, F can't apply between 2 teams, it'd only apply if 3 teams are equal with the above criteria.
posted by chrispy108 at 8:33 AM on May 8, 2006

Not sure if you saw this available download on FIFA's official World Cup site. It looks like it should do what you want. I plugged in your scores, and it gave the correct results...

Perhaps you can glean from its calculations something you can improve upon?
posted by brheavy at 10:45 AM on May 8, 2006

Having reread your question (and received a serious headache thinking about it), I also cannot come up with a scenario for 'f'. I simply cannot expend the logic at this moment to play out all the scenarios necessary to produce such a result, but it seems possible that if there was a three way tie between teams, that somehow and someway, FIFA decided that it could come down to the "greater number of goals scored in all group matches between the teams concerned," if the points were the same, and the differential were the same.

After a smoke, I might try to crunch it out a bit more.
posted by brheavy at 11:23 AM on May 8, 2006

How about this:

ECU 6 - 5 POL
GER 1 - 0 POL
COS 2 - 1 POL
GER 5 - 5 COS
GER 1 - 1 ECU
COS 0 - 0 ECU

GER - WXX (5 pts) 7 gf, 6 ga
COS - WXX (5 pts) 7 gf, 6 ga
ECU - WXX (5 pts) 7 gf, 6 ga
POL - LLL (0 pts) 6 gf, 9 ga

You end up with a three-way tie between Germany, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. It cannot be broken by Scenarios A, B, or C. Then, since the three teams drew against each other, whoever scored the most goals in those draws ends up on top.

In this case, Germany has scored 6 goals scored against Costa Rica and Ecuador, while Costa Rica has 5 GF and Ecuador 1 GF within this three-team "group".

So, Germany and Costa Rica advance.
posted by sellout at 5:20 PM on May 8, 2006

sellout: Excellent. That was driving me fucking nuts. I think your scenario answers mave_80's question perfectly. It has to be decided by 'f', because both Costa Rica and Germany have the same "points obtained" (2) and "goal difference (+5)... between the teams concerned." And so, as you wrote, because Germany have 6 goals, they get 1st position.

Good Luck, Mave_80.
posted by brheavy at 6:41 AM on May 9, 2006

Actually, scratch all that baloney about the goal differential - Germany, Costa Rica, and Ecuador all have a goal differential of "0" in those matches, and so it goes straight to f): greater number of goals.
posted by brheavy at 6:58 AM on May 9, 2006