This weekends matches make an even bigger joke of the world cup groups. The winner of the group containing Eng, Jap and Arg more than likely playing Wales for a place in the semi final. Meanwhile, two of Ireland, SA, NZ and France getting eliminated and Scot potentially not even reaching the quarters. Joke
There’s flaws in the WC system no doubt. But here. Soccer has an almost egalitarian qualifying and seeding system for its WCs and it routinely throws up groups of death, and produces both subjectively and clearly easier and tougher paths to the final.
Short of an entirely objective AI, fed with all the data on form, talent and injury reports intervening the week before a finals to split everyone fairly, no perfect system is possible. Such an AI doesn’t exist. And even if it was possible, coaches and teams would then game that AI to the point that we would end up not much different to what’s currently ordained.
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It’s a bit like the early years of the All Ireland qualifiers. One year the media would leap on the back door as not providing stiff enough competition for a team that follows that route to the last 4, to be suitably prepared for the level needed. The next year the same pundits would then tell you that teams coming out of the back door were better prepared for same challenge, by virtue of having played more games.
People see what they want to see. Championships though, they rarely produce an undeserved winner.
