Comments on: FIFA World Cup Tie Breaker Rules

By: SoccerMOM

SoccerMOM — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 14:28:10 +0000

see if u guys can figure this one out—my son team was in the State cup–the schedule was—11 teams, 3 brackets of 4-4-3, with the semi-final as one winner from each bracket–includes a wildcard for the second best team. which is my son’s team. they were in the wildcard for a week while waiting for bracket C to come out with the winner. Well, it was a tie on 3 teams in C. exactly tie. So what did the official do? they took the wildcard team off –claimed that it was a mistake. It should not ever be a wildcard. and put the winner of bracket C in the final—-FINAL. NO semi-final from bracket C. Pleas e post your thought on this–fair or unfair?

By: Rian

Rian — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 06:58:07 +0000

im suprised no one has talked head to head results. if 2 teams are tied, then the team that won out of those 2 teams deserves to go through.

By: Invi

Invi — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:07:36 +0000

How about making a world level poll to send the best team forward ?

By: Randy Cummings

Randy Cummings — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 04:27:00 +0000

Appears like Brazil easily handles Chile in World Cup action yet again! Poor Chile!

By: bk

bk — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:04:54 +0000

How about making a world level poll to send the best team forward ? Assuming the population of respective country is more or less equal….

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:55:40 +0000

To Michael

No, E and F are not superfluous. The first series of tiebreakers is for all four teams in the group. The next is only for the tied teams. So say team A had 9 points, B and C each had 4, and D had 0. A would be in, D is out. The next two tiebreakers for B and C are goals. If they are still tied, then compare B and C only, starting with head to head, then goals.

By: bitwabbly

bitwabbly — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:16:10 +0000

its very unlikely that at point, 6f the teams would be level but if they there is also this paragraph that follows the ranking rules.

“With the approval of the FIFA Organising Committee and should the
coordinated international match calendar allow, play-offs may be
played instead of drawing lots to decide ties within groups (cf. art. 17,
par. 6g). If any such play-off ends in a tie, extra time of two periods
of 15 minutes each will be played. If the score is level after extra time,
penalty kicks will be taken to determine the winner in accordance with
the procedure described in the Laws of the Game.”

any go Japan, Japan looking pretty hot this evening………

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:06:53 +0000

E and F aren’t superfluous if there are more than two teams tied. If three teams were tied then there would be scenarios were rule D wouldn’t settle the issue, but E or F would.

By: cpbm

cpbm — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:21:25 +0000

The only way that rules e and f can come into play is if three teams end up on equal points. In this case, the other team and games involving them are struck from the table and the winners are recalculated. Furthermore, rule d is not used if all four teams are drawn after rules a,b and c are applied.

Whatever rules precede drawing lots, they have to match up with FIFA’s philosophy. That is: the best performers in the group go through; there are allowed to be ties in group games; the world cup must be as fair as possible to all 32 teams; world cup team performances are judged rather than style, coincidence, referee ability and longer term history.

So these ideas are obviously ruled out: shoot outs; goal speed; attacking/defensive stats (other than goals); possession; penalties and cards; FIFA ranking; qualification (Australia has won qualification matches 22-0 and 31-0); extra games; extra extra game time and unfortunately paper, scissors, rock and multiball.

An even chance draw does seem fairest with these restrictions. I would like to see yellow and red cards play a role if referee standards and objectivity were increased and subject to review. I like the fact that ties are allowed in the world’s biggest sporting competition, otherwise golden points and shoot outs would be fine. I don’t see any other way around it.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 04:52:48 +0000

Am I reading something wrong or are rules E and F totally superfluous? If rule D doesn’t settle it, that means the two teams tied in their head-to-head meeting, in which case goal differential will be nil for both… I don’t get it. Seems like these rules are for double-round robins….