World Cup Group Play Tie-Breaking Rules
With more than a few groups likely to be decided during the final group play matches, it is worth taking a look at the tie-breaking rules that could decide which teams advance to the round of 16 and which teams get an early flight home from Germany. From the excerpt here, Article 31-5 of the FIFA rule book:
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.
This all seems well and good, but personally I’d like to see more weight given to head-to-head results. If two teams finish with the same number of points but one team has beaten the other, I think the winning team deserves to go through. It should be as simple as that.
While I don’t expect it to happen this year, the final tie breaker involving the drawing of lots sure would be dramatic. I only hope that Heidi Klum is standing by to be the official lottery ball selector.
What do you think? Is this a fair system for breaking first round ties?
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Comments
By Prashanth | June 18th, 2006 at 10:03 am 
err…when two teams are tied..the winner does go through.
greatest number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned; —what else could this mean!
Posted from 
India
By Dinu | June 18th, 2006 at 10:36 am Prashanth, I think Bob is saying that he’d like the head-to-head record to be the first tiebreaker, not way down the list.
That’s usually the case here in North American sports. I don’t mind goal differential being the first tiebreaker, but think that head to head is more important than total goals scored
Posted from 
Canada
By dirk | June 18th, 2006 at 11:02 am FIFA is an incompetent decision maker
Posted from 
United States
By Bobbio | June 18th, 2006 at 11:16 am If Sweden just happens to lose to England 0-2 and Trinidad beats Paraguay 1-0, then things may go down to drawing lots.
Posted from 
Netherlands
By stacy-marie | June 18th, 2006 at 12:14 pm Bobbio - I know, it’s nailbiting. And Bob, in that case - since we’ve drawn with Sweden, by your criteria - we’re still stuck!
Posted from 
United Kingdom
By Dave Hamilton | June 18th, 2006 at 12:22 pm Head-to-head should decide all “ties” after the points gained in each group. That is about as decisive as it gets!
Dave hamildav@yahoo.com
Posted from 
Germany
By paul | June 19th, 2006 at 10:25 pm go korea!!!
By Coyote | June 20th, 2006 at 6:09 am Without a doubt, head-to-head winner should be the #1 tiebreaker. Can you imagine Italy over the Czechs and the US over Ghana on Thursday ending with the US tied with the Czechs and advancing on goal differential? Not even us Americans would feel good about that.
Decide it on the field first.
By Tim | June 20th, 2006 at 4:28 pm Coyote: if the US wins and the Czechs lose, the US will have 4 points, the Czechs merely 3.
If the US wins and the Czechs tie, however it would come down to goal differential. Right now the US is -3 and the Czechs are +1. I do not see the US defeating Ghana 4-0.
Posted from United States
By Mircea | June 20th, 2006 at 5:45 pm There is no “fair” way of deciding who goes through. I think it’s better not to have the direct games decide.
Remember what happened in Euro 2004 when Denmark and Sweden needed a 2-2 draw to make sure they both go through, and guess what..it happened.
The exact same situation is avoided now in group G.
Posted from United States
By Greg | June 21st, 2006 at 4:05 pm I think the tiebreakers in group play are all fine and good.
What I get upset about is the penalty kicks overtime. There is no way that the World Cup Final, or any knockout stage match for that matter, should be decided on a shootout. I say play Golden Goal until 7AM if you have to….
Posted from United States
By David Caldarelli | June 21st, 2006 at 4:16 pm Absolutely. Head to head should be right after (a).
In addition to avoiding the awful case where two teams are tied in points, and the loser of their head-to-head goes through (obviously not fair), by using goal difference first, you encourage injury-prone desperation at all times during the match, even if one team has a comfortable lead and would like to rest their good players, or players recovering from injury.
The Denmark-Sweden case mentioned above is an interesting point (if it’s true that the head-head rule allowed that to happen), but Italy (who didn’t make it because of that tie) is ultimately responsible for their own fate - if they were deserving that year, they should have won more of their games, and not lost/tied to two other teams who then could advance by tying eachother.
And I am an Italy supporter, who was furious at the obvious collusion there! But head-head is still superior for tiebreaking.
David
Posted from Canada
By The Federalism Project | Supreme Court Update | June 21st, 2006 at 8:47 pm [...] We’ve been puzzling out the various tie-breakers all week and here is what we’ve got: if the USA beats Ghana, and the adjacent tribuatary over the berm loses to or ties the naviagable-in-fact water, then the Roberts concurrence faces the Corps of Engineers in a winner-take-all penalty kickoff. Otherwise, the Scalia plurality holds. Sometimes. Sometimes, we’ll use the Stevens or Breyer dissent just for kicks. Not always. The Court has decided that we aren’t sure yet and might not be sure for some time. [...]
Posted from United States
By mark | June 21st, 2006 at 9:23 pm I don’t like this system. Drawing lots should never be used as a tiebreaker. There must be some way to decide based upon performance on the field, even if you have to compare shots on goal, time of possession, or fewest cards/fouls.
None of these would be great ways to determine which team advances, but certainly better than random chance, in my opinion.
Posted from United States
By Patrick | June 22nd, 2006 at 7:57 pm Group G
If:
SUI - KOR; 0 - 0
FRA - TOG; 2 - 1
Then:
SUI: 5 pts, +2 GD
KOR: 5 pts, +1 GD, 3 GF
FRA: 5 pts, +1 GD, 3 GF
Switzerland advances, South Korea and France draw lots to determine who advances! That’s just wrong!
Posted from United States
By gigi | July 9th, 2006 at 9:22 pm How many subs are you allowed per game????
Posted from United States
By Mike | July 15th, 2006 at 10:41 pm 3
Posted from United States
By Bogdan | July 19th, 2006 at 7:13 pm We should not resort to drawing of lots to determine who gets through. If all base stats are the same for two or more teams, decision should be based on fair play performance (red&yellow cards and number of fauls called), then on ball possession time and then on current FIFA ranking, if necessary. Don’t go random! Human error introduced by the referees and the fact that in the 21st century FIFA still can not resort to video review of the most critical moments in game (goals, off sides, penalties) introduces enough random factor.
Posted from United States
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