World Cup Fever

We've been watching the World Cup soccer games here. I hope that Keithen will pick up how the players work together, which is something his teams never seem to get until the end of their season.

I really enjoyed watching Mexico and Iran yesterday. The goal Omar Bravo scored when Iran's goalie messed up was pretty sweet. Seeing the England and Paraguay match end 1-0 with the only point being an own goal was something. It's gotta stink to be Carlos Gamarra right now. I'm hoping to catch at least some of the USA vs.the Czech Republic match today.

Being complete and total Americans, we had to search for something online to explain how the World Cup works. So, for anyone else out there wondering how the teams will be eliminated to find a champion, here you go -

The current finals tournament features 32 national teams competing over a month in the host nation(s). There are two stages, a group stage and a knockout stage.

In the first stage (the group stage), teams are drawn into eight groups of four. Eight teams are seeded at the draw (based on both current FIFA World Rankings and recent World Cups), and assigned a group. The other teams are drawn at random. Since 1998, constraints have applied to the draw to ensure that no group contains more than two European teams or more than one team from any other confederation. Each group plays a round-robin tournament, guaranteeing that every team will play at least three matches. The last round of matches of each group is held simultaneously to prevent collusion between nations. Since 1994, three points have been awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss (prior to this, winners only received two points). The top two teams from each group advance to the second stage (the knockout stage). If two or more teams finish level on points, tie-breakers are used: first is goal difference, then total goals scored, then head-to-head results, and finally drawing of lots.

The second round, or knockout stage, is a single-elimination round in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner. It begins with the round of 16 (or last 16) in which the winner of each group (from the group stage) plays against the runner-up from another group. This is followed by quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final. The losing semi-finalists contest a third place match.