World Cup chatter thread.

[Brian Fein]

False.  There are no ties.

When a game goes to overtime, each team gets 1 point.  They continue playing until one team wins.  The winning team gets one additional point. 

Every game has a winner and a loser.

[Spider-Dan]

You cannot have a tie in a knockout round! The tie has to be broken somehow.

You can break a tie in the knockout round with tiebreakers, exactly as you do in group play.  They choose not to, because they'd rather use PKs.  (And there is no sort of logical requirement that tiebreakers only be applied in a round robin phase.)

The English Premier League decides their freaking championship on tiebreakers.  You're telling me you cannot decide a tournament match on tiebreakers?

[Spider-Dan]

On a side note, if there were an award for Best Hair of the World Cup, Belgium would surely win.  Every one of them is like a hair model.

[Pappy13]

You can break a tie in the knockout round with tiebreakers, exactly as you do in group play. 

I never said that you couldn't break ties in group play, I said you don't HAVE to. You HAVE to break ties in knockout rounds. How can you have a game in the knockout round end in a tie? 2 teams move on together?

(And there is no sort of logical requirement that tiebreakers only be applied in a round robin phase.)

I never said there was. I said you HAVE to break ties in the knockout phase. You don't HAVE to in the round robin play. Prove me wrong. They choose NOT to break them in the round robin play because there's nothing wrong with a tie. They HAVE to break ties in the knockout round so they choose to do it with overtime and then a shootout, not because there's anything wrong with a tie, but because in the knockout stage you HAVE to have a winner. The game CANNOT end in a tie. It's impossible or it wouldn't be called a knockout round.

Somebody please explain this Spider. I can't.

[Pappy13]

False.  There are no ties.

When a game goes to overtime, each team gets 1 point

For the tie. One team then gets another point for winning the overtime portion of the game. I don't consider that a loss for the team that didn't win, I consider that a tie for them.

[Spider-Dan]

I never said that you couldn't break ties in group play, I said you don't HAVE to. You HAVE to break ties in knockout rounds. How can you have a game in the knockout round end in a tie?

Are you familiar with the concept of tiebreakers?  You clearly understand that a team that neither wins nor loses a game in group play can still be eliminated from the tournament based on tiebreakers, right?  So what logical reason is there that a team in the knockout phase cannot be eliminated based on tiebreakers?

They COULD use tiebreakers to advance teams in the knockout phase if they wanted to.  They CHOOSE not to.

For the tie. One team then gets another point for winning the overtime portion of the game. I don't consider that a loss for the team that didn't win, I consider that a tie for them.

With all due respect, you are simply wrong.  That is an overtime loss, according to the NHL.  (I'm not sure how you could arrive at the conclusion that a team "tied" a game that their opponent won.)

The NHL has no option in the standings for "ties."  It is Wins/Losses/Overtime Losses.

[Pappy13]

Are you familiar with the concept of tiebreakers?  You clearly understand that a team that neither wins nor loses a game in group play can still be eliminated from the tournament based on tiebreakers, right?

Tie breakers have 1 purpose, to break ties. Since the result of a match cannot be a tie in the knockout stage of a tournament, tie breakers MUST be used. Since ties in the group stage have no such requirement, tiebreakers are not used. In soccer there are 3 possible outcomes to a match. A win, a loss or a tie. A win is superior to a tie, but a tie is superior to a loss. There is no reason that a match cannot end in a tie. It's a perfectly good outcome. In fact I would argue that in soccer a tie is preferred to using tiebreakers. It's this reason and this reason alone that tie breakers are used in the knockout stage of a soccer tournament and why they are not used in group play.

I've made my position perfectly clear. I won't argue it any further because it's pointless.

I concede the argument on hockey games.

[Spider-Dan]

Tie breakers have 1 purpose, to break ties. Since the result of a match cannot be a tie in the knockout stage of a tournament, tie breakers MUST be used. Since ties in the group stage have no such requirement, ties are allowed.

You are talking about two different kinds of ties.

One is the final score of a game.  There is no reason than any individual game cannot end in a tie score, and "tiebreakers" are not used to decide the outcome of an individual game.  For example, penalty kicks are not a "tiebreaker" because the FINAL result of the game was not a TIE; whichever team won on PK won the game.  Referring to penalty kicks as a "tiebreaker" would be like referring to overtime in the NFL as a "tiebreaker," which I doubt you have ever done.

The other kind of "tie" is a a tie in standing.  This is the kind of tie that "tiebreakers" are used to resolve (a fact which you are clearly already familiar with).  When teams have the same record, tiebreakers are other factors used to determine who moves on.

So to address your statement: tie games are permitted in the group stage, but ties in standing are NOT permitted; even if every team in a group finishes with 3 tied games, only two teams can advance.  Since we can see that FIFA is perfectly fine with using other factors to determine which team moves on in the group stage, there is no logical reason that they cannot use similar factors to determine which team would move on in the knockout stage, provided the game ENDED (<--- this word is important) in a tie.

[Phishfan]

"tiebreakers" are not used to decide the outcome of an individual game. 

Yet you keep saying tiebreakers could be used for knockout games which are individual games at that stage.

[Spider-Dan]

No, I am not.

I am saying that the final score of the game would be a tie, and then (exactly as they do in group play) FIFA would look at whatever other statistics they deem relevant (i.e. tiebreakers) and decide which of those two teams moves on to the next round of the tournament.

If you can tolerate games with tied scores in one part of the tournament because you can just look at other statistics to determine who moves on, why does that somehow become unpalatable in the next phase?

[Phishfan]

No, I am not.

I am saying that the final score of the game would be a tie, and then (exactly as they do in group play) FIFA would look at whatever other statistics they deem relevant (i.e. tiebreakers) and decide which of those two teams moves on to the next round of the tournament.

So basically semantics.

Regardless, FIFA isn't changing the rules for the once every four years viewers when the dedicated fans across the globe don't have issue with it.

[Spider-Dan]

None of this is a demand for FIFA to change anything.  But it's silly for people to say "Why do you soccer haters complain so much about ties?" at the same time they're saying "OF COURSE there can't be a tie!  How else would we know who is supposed to move on?"

[CF DolFan]

Anyone want to talk actual soccer? How about our German-Americans scoring 3 of our 5 goals? Let's hear it for our military giving us real soccer players!!

[Phishfan]

Now that we are eliminated, who are your second teams? I always root for Italy (this goes back to when I had an Italian coach making us be Italy during our World Cup tournament at camp in my youth) but they didn't get out of group play. I really don't have any connections to any teams left.

[Fau Teixeira]

I root for Portugal .. because i'm Portuguese .. but since their gone .. and the USA is out as well i think i'll have to root for Columbia .. simply because they have 4 current and former players from my club team (FC Porto) on their squad.

The most notable of them is James Rodriguez (former FC Porto player) .. he's playing fantastic .. also Jackson Martinez (current FC Porto player) is doing well.

i hate Argentina since they have 3 current or former Benfica (FC Porto rivals) on their team .. therefore .. i want them to lose at everything in life ..

I also kinda like brazil as they boast 2 former Porto players that i still like (most notably) Hulk .. who has the best name ever!