thnik again!

Denmark barely made it to the second stage, the elimination tournament, but beat Argentina 3-2 to become the Champion!

England  beat Portugal 4-2 to capture bronze (it was 2-2 after 90 minutes).

Here is the function that determined how many goals a team scored in a game.

Function goals()

Select Case Rnd()

Case Is < 0.3

goals = 0

Case Is < 0.5

goals = 1

Case Is < 0.8

goals = 2

Case Is < 0.9

goals = 3

Case Else

goals = 4

End Select

End Function

The first three rounds are done.  Slovenia was the only team who managed three wins. Switzerland beat USA and eliminated them from the tournament.

I have changed the initial rules a bit. A fourth round will not be played. The best 16 teams will now play an elimination tournament. In the eighth finals team 1 meets team 16, Slovenia vs England, teams 2 vs team 15, and so on.

Round 2 ended with four teams with full score and Japan at the top. Two rounds remain before the elimination part.  Round 3 will be played in a few days.

The other day I suggested an alternative way of arranging the World Cup matches in soccer. Please have a look at Reflections.

The surprise is that Round 1 has been played in the alternative World Cup thanks to a spreadsheet and a healthy random function. Greece beat Uruguay surprisingly 4-0 and have taken the lead. In Round 2 they will meet Switzerland who beat Australia convincingly 3-0. In order not to repeat matches Germany was moved down one position and so on.

Round 2 will be played as soon as the weather permits. Remember there are only four rounds before the knock-out part with 2, 4, or 8 teams takes place. Strong teams like Spain and Italy started with a loss and have to play extremely well to have a chance to reach the second stage.