The FIFA WC- Broken down for beginners by Yours Truly
[Note: This would make a lot more sense to you if you knew that I'd actually written and published this on my blog.com blog at the start of the World Cup, but when I switched sites, I decided I just couldn't leave it behind! :)]
With the World Cup under way, I had a couple of people coming up to me and asking me to educate them about football, which in truth is some serious bizz. No doubt the worldwide hype about the World Cup has (rightfully) lured even those who know absolutely nothing about the Beautiful Game into its clutches. So I thought, hey! Why not write a little explanation on all things World Cup to include even the least knowledgeable of football folk in the month-long buzz?!
Now, the World Cup, as you may or may not know (if you didn’t know this, you’re a hopeless case and you might as well click that little red cross at the top right corner as this is not for you! Only joking) is held in Brazil this year, from Thursday, June 12 through Sunday, July 13. The World Cup comes around every 4 years and is held in a different country every time, and it is literally the most exciting football tournament you can ever hope to witness. The World Cup (WC for short) consists of 32 countries from every continent battling it out for this beautifully-made piece of alloy.
Now before we get into the depths of the WC, I would like to point out that it is called the “FIFA World Cup” or just the “World Cup”, and not “FIFA”. FIFA is the name of the international football fed, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the federation which is itself in charge of all things football. Call the World Cup “FIFA” and I’ll pound you into a Cheerio.
On to the system of the good ol’ WC… Now, the tournament is divided into:
1. The group stage.
2. Round of 16.
3. Quarter-finals.
4. Semi-finals.
5. The Final.
We’ll start off with the group stage, eh?
1. THE GROUP STAGE
The group stage consists of 8 groups, each consisting of 4 teams.
What happens is that each team plays the other 3 teams in its group. Every match won is worth 3 points, every match drawn is worth 1 point, and every match lost is worth 0 points (Hoorah!). At the end of the group stages, which end on the 26th of June, unless I’m mistaken, the top 2 teams with the most points from each group move on to the next stage, the Round of 16, and the other 2 teams can kiss their World Cup dreams farewell.
But what happens if 2 teams have the same number of points? Who qualifies then?
According to FIFA’s official rules, tiebreaking procedures are in place if needed. In the event that two teams are tied, a distinction will be made based on goal differential (basically, this is calculated by subtracting the total number of goals conceded in all group stage matches from the number of goals scored. The team with greatest goal difference goes through!) followed by total goals.
In the unlikely event that a tie still exists, it will then come down to the head-to-head result between those two teams. If they are still tied after that, then the FIFA Organizing Committee will hold a random draw to determine who advances (but I don’t think this has ever happened in the history of football).
There are usually 3 matches everyday during group stages, one at 8 pm UAE time (minus 3 hours for GMT), one at 11 pm and one at 2 am (but I think timings and the number of matches per day vary). You can check the schedule on:http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/
So basically, at the end of group stages, we will have 16 teams, two from each of the 8 groups, moving onto the Round of 16!
So far (as of Thursday the 19th of June), the following group stage matches have taken place:
Brazil 3 – 1 Croatia: In which Brazil, in all honesty, could have played better.
Mexico 1 – 0 Cameroon
Spain 1 – 5 Netherlands: A SHOCKING MATCH! Spain, 2010’s World Cup champions, got hammered 1-5 by the Netherlands (also known as Holland, in case you didn’t know). Holland was last World Cup’s runner-up.
Chile 3 – 1 Australia
Colombia 3 – 0 Greece
Uruguay 1 – 3 Costa Rica
England 1 – 2 Italy: In which Joe Hart got hella ticked off!!!
Côte d’Ivoire 2 – 1 Japan
Switzerland 2 – 1 Ecuador
France 3 – 0 Honduras
Argentina 2 – 1 Bosnia-Herzegovina: In which I almost died of happiness when Messi scored!
Germany 4 – 0 Portugal: ALSO A BIT SHOCKING! We all expected Germany to win, but not by such a large goal margin (I mean, 4 goals?!!! Siriusly, Portugal?)
Iran 0 – 0 Nigeria
Ghana 1 – 2 USA
Belgium 2 – 1 Algeria: In which all us Arabs were sad that Algeria, the only Arab nation in the WC, got defeated after being 1-0 up. Granted, their goal was a penalty, but Belgium really is a good team…
Brazil 0 – 0 Mexico: In which Brazil played like grandmas and Mexico’s goalie played like A BAWS!!!
Russia 1 – 1 South Korea
Netherlands 3-2 Australia
Chile 2-0 Spain: THE MOST JAW-DROPPING MATCH IN THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL!!!!!!! WITH THIS RESULT, SPAIN, REIGNING WORLD CUP CHAMPIONS, ARE NOW OUT OF THE WORLD CUP AFTER ONLY 2 MATCHES!!!
Croatia 4-0 Cameroon
On to the Round of 16…
2. THE ROUND OF 16
As the name suggests, the round of 16 consists of 16 teams. Here’s how it works:
| Match |
Team 1
|
Team 2
|
| 1 |
Winner A
|
Runner-up B
|
| 2 |
Winner B
|
Runner-up A
|
| 3 |
Winner C
|
Runner-up D
|
| 4 |
Winner D
|
Runner-up C
|
| 5 |
Winner E
|
Runner-up F
|
| 6 |
Winner F
|
Runner-up E
|
| 7 |
Winner G
|
Runner-up H
|
| 8 |
Winner H
|
Runner-up G
|
So basically, 1st place from Group A plays 2nd place from Group B, and 1stplace from Group B plays 2nd place from Group A, and so on. This is why there’s a lot of pressure on teams in the group stage to actually top the group; anyone would rather play second place from another group instead of first place.
Now, in the round of 16, there are no ties. It’s either win or lose, seeing as one team must knock out the other in order to proceed into the quarter finals. So, if a match ends in a tie, we move on to 30 minutes of beautiful extra time (beautiful for us fans, mind, who are sitting at home on the couch with a packet of crisps, maybe even Orange Aero, in hand. Not for the players, who have been running around for 90 full minutes and must now run around for another 30!!). Now, extra time can get a bit frustrating, and if a team you really like is playing, you may just want to pull your hair out. Beautiful game, football!
And if no one scores during extra time, then guess what happens? Penalties, everyone’s fave (not really)!!
For how penalty shootouts work, see “Procedure” in the following link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_shoot-out_(association_football)
And if you think that extra time is nerve-racking, then you ain’t seen nothin’ yet…
3. QUARTER-FINALS
I assume you know how quarter-finals work…
| Match |
Team 1
|
Team 2
|
| A |
Winner 1
|
Winner 3
|
| B |
Winner 2
|
Winner 4
|
| C |
Winner 5
|
Winner 7
|
| D |
Winner 6
|
Winner 8
|
4. SEMI-FINALS
Winners of the quarter-finals move onto semi-finals.
| Match |
Team 1
|
Team 2
|
| 1 |
Winner A
|
Winner C
|
| 2 |
Winner B
|
Winner D
|
Despite the fact that the semi-final losers will have their World Cup dreams shattered (*sobs*), they won’t be sent home yet. A third-place game will take place as consolation, just to determine who gets third place and who gets fourth.
5. THE FINAL (DUN DUN DUUUUN!!!)
And before you know it, we’re at the final, the most exciting excitement you can ever excite yourself about (just trying to emphasize my excitement)!!!
Do note that the quarter-finals, semi-finals, the third-place game, and the final all follow the same rules of the round of 16, and that in the case of a tie, we move onto extra time and penalties as well. All these rounds are all referred to as “knock-out stages”, cause, yano, you get knocked out.
So that’s the system of the World Cup for ya… Obviously, every year there are different favourites to win. This year, everyone had their money on Brazil. But I’ll be frank, Brazil has been playing like sissies so far (sorry Brazil, you know I love you), and I’d say Netherlands is actually quite likely to win, seeing as they totally throttled Spain during the group stage. I’m rooting for Argentina though, so that the haters can back off of Messi (spelled with an ‘i’, my dear beginners).
And being the totally awesome person that I am (shokhi), I’m going to give you a little list of which players to look out for during this year’s World Cup:
Neymar (Brazil) [Neymar’s a young 22 year old lad whose got everyone’s eyes glued onto him after his ah-maaazing performance during last year’s Confederation’s Cup (Ma Shaa Allah)], Lionel Messi (Argentina), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Arjen Robben (the Netherlands), Robin van Persie/ RVP (the Netherlands), Luis Suarez (Uruguay), Thomas Müller (Germany), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Mario Balotelli (Italy), Wayne Rooney (England), and of course, Guillermo Ochoa (Mexico).
Really, there are many, many more, but these are the main ones who I’m watching closely this WC.
So, yes, that’s basically how the World Cup works, the good old, beautiful, unpredictable World Cup, and if you’re still asking yourself why you can’t see Barcelona or Real Madrid in any of the above groups, then the red cross option is still available.
I hope you’ve actually learnt something from all this, and if you’d like any concept about football in general clarified, please do feel free to ask.
But for now, this is me, Malak slash Malek, signing off.
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