Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2018 June 17

= June 17 =

How many World Cup teams reached the knockout stage after losing to the group leader of a [3|3|0|0] group?
Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:34, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I assume you mean when a 4-team group has points [3|3|0|0] at some time before completion where a team has already lost a match to the group leader at the time. Before people consider looking through old World Cups they may want to know whether you really want what you ask for. Tournament structures have changed and I suspect you actually want something else.


 * 1) Do you want all sports, or only football World Cups, or only football World Cups for seniors, or only the FIFA World Cup for seniors men?
 * 2) Do you also want [3|3|0|0] when World Cups gave two points for a win (possible after three total matches), or do you want [2|2|0|0] for that?
 * 3) Do you really want them to reach the knockout stage or do you allow if they advanced from the first group stage to a second group stage?
 * 4) Do you allow cases where they advanced as one of the 3rd placed teams in 4-team groups?
 * 5) Do you allow cases where they came second but only one team advanced from the group?
 * 6) Do you allow both teams with 0 points in a [3|3|0|0] group, or only the team which lost to the group leader based on goal score? If the latter then do you allow both teams if the goal score is the same?
 * PrimeHunter (talk) 16:28, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Only the FIFA® World Cup® for seniors men after they changed to 8 group cups of 4 teams each with the top half of the groups advancing and 3 points for a win. And actually perhaps it should be the 4th place team losing to the 2nd place team since that's probably a little harder of a comeback on average. Do the 40 groups with the current rules show 4th place teams of 3|3|0|0 groups having a better chance if the loss was to the leader? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:43, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The 4th placed team of a 3|3|0|0 group has the worst goal score so the team which beat it has the best goal score. This can only be the leader. We only have to examine five World Cups: 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014. Your scenario only has a chance in groups where an advancing team has a loss and it was in the first round. Turkey in 2002 and Ghana in 2006 advanced from 3|3|0|0 but they were 3rd and not 4th on goal score. Ukraine in 2006 overcame a 4th place after a 0-4 loss (with a 5-point gap in the end!) but it was a 3|1|1|0 group. Spain in 2010 was tied 3rd after two 1-0 matches in the group. Greece and Uruguay in 2014 satisfy all your conditions. No other teams do according to my check. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:48, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * After the points and the goal difference, the next tiebreaker is the number of goals scored. So if the opening two matches produce the same winning margin but different scorelines, it's now a [3|3|0|0] group where the 1st beat the 3rd and the 2nd beat the 4th, just like Group C right now. Moreover, fair play points or some other ranking systems are often used as even further tiebreakers. --Theurgist (talk) 21:18, 17 June 2018 (UTC)