The World Cup is in full swing now, and the final round of group matches begin on Monday. Over today and tomorrow we will go over each group, and explain what each team needs to do in order to qualify for the knockout rounds.
So, without further ado, here's the current situation for groups A-D:
Matches:
Group A: Cameroon vs. Brazil, Croatia vs. Mexico
Group B: Australia vs. Spain, Netherlands vs. Chile
Group C: Greece vs. Ivory Coast, Japan vs. Colombia
Group D: Costa Rica vs. England, Italy vs. Uruguay
Standings:
Group A:
| Group B:
| Group C:
| Group D:
|
In cases such as that in Group A where wins for Croatia and Cameroon leave Brazil and Mexico tied on points, but with goal difference to come into play, we will simply assign a 50% chance of each team progressing in that scenario - this is not quite realistic, but working out the true probabilities is too complicated to be worth the effort.
Group A: Brazil: 99.9% Mexico: 57.1% Croatia: 43.2% Cameroon: zero | Group B: Netherlands: certain Chile: certain Australia: zero Spain: zero | Group C: Colombia: certain Ivory Coast: 76.3% Greece: 17.5% Japan: 6.2% | Group D: Costa Rica: certain Italy: 66.7% Uruguay: 33.3% England: zero |
We can see that the matches of most interest, where there is the most doubt about which side will progress, are Mexico vs. Croatia, Ivory Coast vs. Greece and Italy vs. Uruguay.
Join us tomorrow for the permutations for Groups E-H!