The knock-out phase is upon us, and this World Cup seems more open then any I can remember. Of the remaining teams only Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan seem utterly hopeless, which leaves us with 12 contenders, of whom Belgium, Brazil, France and Spain look the most likely. If James is fit, then maybe Colombia has a chance, and who would write off Uruguay? The [FT has some useful stats](https://www.ft.com/content/e0883dfa-7abd-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475) ….
{ 17 comments }
Lidl Janus 06.30.18 at 10:02 am
“Subscribe to the FT to read”
An excellent point, succinctly made.
John Trippe 06.30.18 at 2:10 pm
Yes, I had to comment about that: a link to a site that asks for money?
Chris Bertram 06.30.18 at 2:16 pm
Usually the FT allows non-subscribers to view a few pages. As a subscriber it is hard for me to see what non-subscribers can and can’t view.
William Uspal 06.30.18 at 2:18 pm
Rumor has it that if you Google the title of an FT article — in this case, “World Cup: the story so far in five charts” — you can access the article for free..
Jacob Christensen 06.30.18 at 2:25 pm
Just for the record, Chris: Dennis Rommedahl is retired ;-)
Chris Bertram 06.30.18 at 2:59 pm
But who is his successor as the Tyrannosaurus Rex of world football?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6956867.stm
John Trippe 06.30.18 at 5:23 pm
“Rumor has it that if you Google the title of an FT article — in this case, “World Cup: the story so far in five charts†— you can access the article for free..”
That’s usually what I do, but in this case the title was not shown.
Bill Murray 06.30.18 at 6:12 pm
Kylian Mbappe looked like the Usain Bolt of World Football today. Well assuming Bolt doesn’t sign for ManU.
Does Rob Green count as a World Footballer. His short arming in 2010 World Cup was pretty T Rex like
P O'Neill 06.30.18 at 8:18 pm
The rumor works with the subtitle.
Ronan(rf) 06.30.18 at 9:47 pm
‘Yes, I had to comment about that: a link to a site that asks for money?’
If you go through google you can usually get access. It seems to have changed recently but I still get access 70% of the time(including this time – google the title ‘World Cup: the story so far in five charts‘ and you should get around the firewall)
Ronan 06.30.18 at 9:48 pm
‘Yes, I had to comment about that: a link to a site that asks for money?’
If you go through google you can usually get access. It seems to have changed recently but I still get access 70% of the time(including this time – google the title ‘World Cup: the story so far in five charts‘ and it should get around the firewall)
Whirrlaway 07.01.18 at 1:49 am
No shoutout for El Tri, our hometown boys?
Lupita 07.01.18 at 1:54 am
¡MÉ-XI-CO!
hix 07.02.18 at 5:14 am
The statistical approach in the article (yes, putting the article into google works) should be distorted massivly by do or die games. Germany basically had two of those. For example the two Korean goals against Germany are just about meaningless when it comes to assessing defense strength. Wundering if the new more artistic style Germany started to play is just in general more volatile in outcomes resulting in both big wins and horrible defeats. A second aspect is that maybe the players in those ever more extreme times are starting to become more vulnurable to psychological breakdowns of different extends.
And last, i hope Russia finaly gets kicked out, as its almost a certainity the entire team is doped. I am rather pessimistic about what at least individual players do in all teams, but in the Russian case its a certainity at this point that everyone on the team is cheating on government orders.
Lupita 07.02.18 at 5:32 am
¡Viva López Obrador!
¡Viva Chicharito!
Dipper 07.02.18 at 4:28 pm
The one blot on the world cup so far is, again, penalty shoot-outs.
The penalty shoot-out incentivises slightly inferior teams to aim for a draw in the hope of winning the shoot-out. This produces boring games and degrades the competition when inferior teams progress.
Finding an alternative is tricky , but my proposal is that in knock-out stages if there are no goals after extra time then the penalty shoot out stands but were that team to go through and ultimately win the competition then they could not be named winners or presented with the trophy in the final as they had failed to do enough to win in normal play on the way through, and the world cup would be unawarded.
tom_slee 07.04.18 at 5:04 pm
The penalty shoot-out incentivises slightly inferior teams to aim for a draw in the hope of winning the shoot-out. This produces boring games and degrades the competition when inferior teams progress.
On the other hand…
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