If Results Hold
But will they?
In the ‘round-robin’ group stage of the World Cup, the top two teams in each group of four advance to the knockout rounds of the tournament. The third and final matches of group play are conducted simultaneously so that no team has an unfair strategic advantage. While some teams are assured (dis)qualification prior the third match, most are playing to stay alive in the tournament.
So: four teams compete in two concurrent matches, the results of which affect one-another. The spectacle is uniquely dramatic, and the set potential outcomes is generally too complex to maintain in one’s head.
To assist us, broadcasters summarize the current state of affairs in a small onscreen graphic titled: If Results Hold.
It’s a terrific widget, but as a fan, it often feels a bit jinxy. It’s 100% accurate in the moment, yet reeks of pre-hatch chicken accounting. And so I wondered: for a given pair of matches, at what minute-mark is the combined result indeed likely to Hold?
When Results Hold is a terrific widget, but as a fan, it often feels a bit jinxy.
In the 2014 tournament, the 78th minute was the median time to finalize third-match results. Anecdotally: we’re accustomed to seeing the TV screen graphic significantly earlier (in the Germany-USA match, it appears in the 54th minute). Thus the jinxy feeling; the win-draw-loss scenario is likely to change after the graphic comes up.
Anybody up for re-watching each match and recording instances of the If Scores Hold graphic?
Group E’s third-match results held earliest (Switzerland, 6') and Group C left it latest (Greece, 93'). Every group saw a goal in their last-round fixtures. Surprisingly, no team that went behind in the third match ever assumed the lead — we saw equalizers, but no lead changes.
This analysis gets a bit wrong, too. Because we’re visualizing only who’s leading, we obscure scoring margin and therefore discount goal difference (the first tiebreaker after points earned, and the way USA progressed over Portugal). It’s not a complete view of the matches, but it’s an interesting new one.
What a thrilling competition so far. Here’s hoping the result holds.
This manually-assembled graphic was produced with manually-transcribed data from ESPN while eating meat pancakes and sampling Anchor IPA. So there may be errors. Please holler if you see one.
See also: the New York Times Interactive team produced a very nice second-screen If Results Hold graphic.
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