04/18/24
June 27, 2018
SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
At one point last night, NESN posted a stat saying Mookie Betts had an OPS this year against the Angels* of 2.200 (it's dropped all the way to 2.100 since), which was the highest for any Red Sox player against one opponent "since at least 1908". For some reason that struck me funny, like if they just had splits back through the whole Deadball Era we would see some season Tris Speaker was averaging a triple every other at bat against the Browns.
* Small sample size alert!
posted by yerfatma at 10:28 AM on June 27, 2018
POTENTIAL CRAZY SPORTS MOMENT ALERT!
So, after the results from today, we may have a weird situation in the England/Belgium match tomorrow.
The winner of the match wins their group, and the loser finishes second.
The winner has a knockout round path of:
- Round of 16: 2nd place among Sengal/Japan/Colombia
- Quarter-finals: Mexico/Brazil winner
- Semi-finals: Uruguay/Portugal/France/Argentina winner
The loser has a knockout round path of:
- Round of 16: 1st place among Sengal/Japan/Colombia
- Quarter-finals: Sweden/Switzerland winner
- Semi-finals: Spain/Russia/Croatia/Denmark winner
I think I like the "loser" path MUCH more than the "winner" path.
Are we looking at a possible double-tank scenario here?
But wait, there's more!
What if they end up with a draw?
Then, because Belgium/England have the exact same record, exact same goal differential, and the exact same goals scored/allowed, it would come down to "fair play" points.
yellow cards = -1
indirect red card (as a result of a second yellow card) = -3
direct red card = -4
yellow card and direct red = -5
Right now, Belgium has a score of -3, England is at -2. The team with the better score (higher is better) would finish higher in the standings.
So if the game is going to look like a draw, then it might be in England's best interest to draw a late yellow card (to even up the fair play points). If the teams are tied at the end of the game in score AND fair play points, then it comes to a draw of lots.
Maybe England will try to draw extra yellow cards to make sure they don't lose by lots.
But then maybe Belgium will try to draw extra yellow cards to maintain the fair play points standings to ensure their 2nd place finish.
Are we going to be looking at two teams deliberately fouling each other at the end of the match (but intelligently so certain players don't accumulate 2nd yellows or draw a straight red)?
posted by grum@work at 04:33 PM on June 27, 2018
I believe FIFA has said that this kind of deliberate yellow card behavior would result in a one match suspension, not sure how many players want to miss a game for this especially when it might be for naught anyway.
posted by billsaysthis at 12:22 PM on June 28, 2018
Hast though considered The Fellani? Laws do not apply to it.
posted by yerfatma at 02:23 PM on June 28, 2018
#rootforchaos in Group F this morning!