So basically, if we lose by 1 goal vs Germany, we advance with

[Sutterkane]

a tie between Ghana/Portugal (we'd have more group points)
Portugal win by less than 4 (we'd win on the goal differential tiebreaker)
Ghana wins by 1 and scores the same amount of goals(or less) when they play Portugal as we do when we play Germany (we'd win on either the goals scored or head to head tiebreaker).

I like our chances of advancing. Basically just avoid a blowout or get a tie.

 

[Drebin]

a tie between Ghana/Portugal (we'd have more group points)
Portugal win by less than 4 (we'd win on the goal differential tiebreaker)
Ghana wins by 1 and scores the same amount of goals(or less) when they play Portugal as we do when we play Germany (we'd win on either the goals scored or head to head tiebreaker).

I like our chances of advancing. Basically just avoid a blowout or get a tie.

Odds of advancing:

Germany: 99%
USA: 75%
Ghana: 14%
Portugal: 5%

 

[Rog.sixpack]

View attachment 814

 

[patdog]

That's pretty close to what this website calculates. It also has a good write-up on the ways the USA can advance. BTW, this site had the US-Portugal game predicted pretty much 33-33-33 win-lose-draw for the US.

Link to write-up of ways to advance

Link to odds of advancing for each team

 

[aTotal360]

40%

 

[dickiedawg]

538 has been great.

 

[FQDawg]

I may be overly pessimistic...

but I think we're done.

Portugal is not playing well at all and Ghana will beat them 3-0 or 3-1.

We'll lost to Germany 2-0 (maybe worse) and then Ghana will advance on goal differential.

As with all of my predictions, I really hope I'm wrong.

 

[jack daniels dog]

We would be lucky to tie Ghana. We had no chance of staying on the field with Portugal. At this point we would only have 1 point if lucky.

Yesterday we were fifteen seconds from making the round of sixteen before we even squared off with Germany. We may lose, may get blown out, may win, may draw, at this point anything can happen. However, I'm far from pessimistic of anything regarding this team.

 

[bulldogcountry1]

19.83%

 

[RebelAlumnus]

I agree with you. This is my general outlook.

Though a draw in the other match allows us and Germany to advance, no matter how bad we lose. Or a draw for us and we advance. I honestly feel if we get to about the 75th minute and it's a draw, both teams will shut down attacking and look to play the last 15 even as Germany will advance as the top in the group (what they desire) and USA will advance period (what we desire).

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

How in the hell is head to head not the first tiebreaker? This is another thing that I just don't get about the rules of soccer.

 

[seshomoru]

Group play is about 270 minutes of play against the same opponents.

The three points are bonuses that you get for winning a 90 minute section against the another team. Get enough bonus points and you go through. Tied on bonus points... then it's how well you did in the entirety of the 270 minutes. It's a completely fair way to judge the best teams over equal competition. So, when we beat Ghana, we got credit for that win already with the three points, and we also gained another advantage with a +1 differential versus their -1. Now lets say they have tied Germany and beat Portugal while we tied Portugal and lose to Germany. Who really played the better 270 minutes of soccer? We played a better 90 minutes against them, but if they win today and we lose, you could say they played the other 180 minutes better than we did... and that's why goal differential and goals scored come into play. It's hard to comprehend for us fans of football. Where you play one game against a team at their place but others in your conference play them at home... and you don't even have the same common opponents as every one in your division. Head to head is the easy fall back there when the full 480 minutes of conference play in SEC football is across wildly different competition levels and locations.

 

[johnson86-1]

The three points are bonuses that you get for winning a 90 minute section against the another team. Get enough bonus points and you go through. Tied on bonus points... then it's how well you did in the entirety of the 270 minutes. It's a completely fair way to judge the best teams over equal competition. So, when we beat Ghana, we got credit for that win already with the three points, and we also gained another advantage with a +1 differential versus their -1. Now lets say they have tied Germany and beat Portugal while we tied Portugal and lose to Germany. Who really played the better 270 minutes of soccer? We played a better 90 minutes against them, but if they win today and we lose, you could say they played the other 180 minutes better than we did... and that's why goal differential and goals scored come into play. It's hard to comprehend for us fans of football. Where you play one game against a team at their place but others in your conference play them at home... and you don't even have the same common opponents as every one in your division. Head to head is the easy fall back there when the full 480 minutes of conference play in SEC football is across wildly different competition levels and locations.

^^^^^Communist^^^^^

 

[Cousin Jeffrey]

It's a completely fair way to judge the best teams over equal competition.

Except it's not exactly equal competition. Let's say we end up on equal points with Ghana.

Ghana's opponents: Germany, Portugal, USA
USA's opponents: Germany, Portugal, Ghana

Those aren't the same opponents. If you wanted to compare equal competition, you would drop the head-to-head result and only consider the other matches because those other matches are the only ones that each of the tied teams have in common. But breaking a tie between two teams and not considering the actual game they played would be ridiculous.

That should leave head-to-head as the only reasonable first tie-breaker. It's entirely reasonable to go to overall goal differential after that if their game ended in a draw.

 

[seshomoru]

But we already have the three points for the win.

Along with the goal differential boost, that's our advantage for the win. We're up three, and get a boost for the first tie breaker already. There's enough importance placed on it already. Head to head as a first tie breaker just minimizes how you played for the other 180 minutes against common opponents. And goal differential is the only reason there is any reason to put any effort into the Germany game for us. If head to head were the tie breaker we could lose by any insane number and ghana could win by any insane number and we'd advance. Portugal could win and us lose by less than a total of 5... or 5 and we end up with more goals, and we'd still advance. We could have wrapped it up with two wins... 6 points and a +2. Instead.. we gotta play and actually cheer for Portugal. It's awesome.

 

[godlluB]

Your move Deutschland

I had a McRib at a McDonald's at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin today. I think that should pretty much guarantee U.S. superiority tomorrow.

 

[Dawgzilla]

How in the hell is head to head not the first tiebreaker? This is another thing that I just don't get about the rules of soccer.

The tiebreakers are designed to promote scoring. Remember back in the 90s when most World Cup games ended 0-0, or 1-0 at best? No matter how much the soccer purists claimed those were great matches, they were really boring. I think they first changed the point system so you get 3 points for a win instead of just 2 points, so that way teams were not satisfied to just accept a draw late in the match. Then they came up with putting a premium on goal differentials and goals scored. That way, teams have an incentive to keep scoring, rather than just protecting a 1-0 lead.

Germany did not have to beat Portugal by 4 goals, but they had an incentive to increase their goal differential. Tomorrow, the US might be able to afford to just stay within 1 goal of Germany, but Ghana and Portugal will both be trying to score as many goals as possible.

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

I don't like any scoring system like NASCAR, FedEx Cup, etc. where they try to weigh by overall performance vs results. You can play horribly for 89 minutes and play a great 1 minute and score 2 goals and win a game 2-1. Doesn't matter that the other team played better than you for most of the time. All that matters is the outcome. The best team does not always win in an actual sporting event. 3 wins and 7 missed cuts is way better than 10 2nd place finishes in my book. Head-to-head is the one true tiebreaker.