Belgian teams stop playing and shake hands on a draw before final whistle: Players fined, captains suspended, manager sacked.
- Thread starter V.O.
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There's a chance it could return in the next World Cup and the new 48 team format. 12 groups of 4, top 2 go through plus 8 best 3rd place sides.
If a group looks like this ahead of the last group stage game and the final fixtures are 1st vs 4th, 2nd vs 3rd, a draw between 2nd and 3rd may very well see them both go through.
1st. P2 W2 D0 L0 Pts 6
2nd P2 W1 D0 L1 Pts 3
3rd P2 W1 D0 L1 Pts 3
4th P2 W0 D0 L2 Pts 0
If it's one of the last few groups to be decided they'll know for sure either way.
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Was just about to say that
Not the same thing at all. There's a difference between being strategic and holding what you have, and actively stopping play in a manner that suggests there might have been a pre-agreement.
QPR stopped playing in 2012 as well when they figured out they were safe and weren’t going to be relegated, allowing City win the league.
In any league system, there will be situations where they know they'll go through if they can get the right results, but 4-team groups with simultaneous matches is 1000% times better than FIFA's idiotic 3-team group idea.
Let's be honest, when 66% of teams are getting through the group phase, and there are 3 more teams from Asia, 4 more teams from Africa, 3 more teams from North America, etc, the stronger European and South American nations are going to be using the group phase as little more than a warm up anyway.
And to be honest there is nothing wrong with that. CAF/AFC need more spots to grow the sport, and there is 5 knock-out games after the group phase for the winners to take seriously
Undoubtedly it's better than the 3 team-group idea they originally planned, and does cut out a huge chunk of the possibilities of collusion that would be present if that's what they went with. Still, the possibillites are still there much more than there would be with a 32 team or even a 64 team tournament so not ideal from that perspective.
The best they could have done I suppose while extending the tournament to an awkward number of teams. It's usually one team knowing what they need, but with this sort of format there can be more cases of both knowing a draw is good enough.
The same thing could happen in the expanded Euros now too. Just looking at the last one, Austria beat Ukraine in the final group stage game when the group was poised exactly how I mentioned. Ukraine went through with 3 points anyway, and because it was one of the earlier groups to be decided I don't think they'd have known ahead of time that a point would have been enough for both. Can't quite work out the maths on that one!
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I don't know if it's been mentioned but when it comes to Belgium in particular, the optics will be about gambling. It's one of the countries that has been in the middle of big cases in the last decades.
Did i say there were the same things?
I personally think they have every right to do this. It’s stupid to risk losing that late in the game with so much on the line. If they did it from the first whistle then it’s a different story.
Italia '90Jesus Christ. You can do an Ireland/Holland from 88 without making it so feckin obvious
Draw would have put us through in '88. The spin on the ball from Kieft's header down on to the pitch
If they don’t make it look obvious then they get away with it. A few teams have done it over the past where they stop playing and both sides are happy with the draw.
This is thrilling, creative attacking football according to Van Gaal.The whole thing is here, played at double speed and set to Benny Hill.
The "You're next, Messi!" banner aged well
I think that the reaction is extremely dishonest (and/or naive), given that this has happened on too many occasions to count. Yes, the presentation was problematic, but it doesnt prove that they had a pre-agreement. What I see as more likely is that both sides were aware that neither has any incentive to attack.
Playing differently when you have a result that suits you is a part of the game. Remember all those forwards running towards the corner flag rather than try to score ? It sucks, but what can you do.
The only difference in this case is that both teams are happy with the result.
Playing differently when you have a result that suits you is a part of the game. Remember all those forwards running towards the corner flag rather than try to score ? It sucks, but what can you do.
The only difference in this case is that both teams are happy with the result.
Pretty much how City first won the premier league.
You may not have, but many others in here did
I'm struggling to see the difference between that and how our current defence advance the ball.
fair enough
I see what you did there
