re: World Cup Daily Thread - Wed., June 24

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Sorry if this was discussed yesterday, but can someone explain to me why it wasn’t a penalty against England at the end of their match yesterday? Video of said incident below, thought it was odd in real time that it wasn’t stopped and reviewed

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I could see where the VAR team felt that the Ghanian was going down from the initial contact right before the defender's leg made contact and decided they weren't rewarding that, but that's being extremely generous

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Fox better not frick up the easy decision of putting Darke and Donovan on the call.

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You WOULD like Donovan calling games.

I could use a break from John Strong’s calls

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We really need a winner between Qatar and Bosnia

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Both will be eliminated with a draw today so if it's tied late someone will do something desperate and they'll be a winner.

Whoever goes down 1-0 first essentially has to score 2 goals minimum to advance.

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I read an SI article that says we could face the best 3rd place team from groups B/E/F/I/J

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It's not the "best", but the specific order/combo of who the 3rd place teams are

For example, if the 3rd place teams come from groups E-L then we would get 3I, which is currently Senegal

If 3rd place comes from C-J, we get 3J, which would be Algeria

But if the 3rd place teams include one from group B, which is Bosnia/Qatar, then we get that team

All possible combos are laid out below.

The % is high for Bosnia/Qatar because a winner there gets 4 points, which is almost surely going to be top 8 3rd place, and for the US the largest number of possibilties is the Group B team

Wiki Link explaining all the comobs

Here's a simulator for every match and knockout LINK

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I've given up trying to figure it out.

All I know is that the BBC live bracket has us playing Algeria right now, if so, inject that into my veins and Fox better not frick up the easy decision of putting Darke and Donovan on the call.

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I am pretty sure people are overcomplicating this, and the guys who want views are leaving the simple things unsaid.

So we are 58% to play Bosnia and 18% to play Qatar, and then I think 8% to play Senegal. So, what does that tell us?

I think it says we play the winner of that game regardless and the oddsmakers have Bosnia at a 58% favorite, Qatar at 18% to win, and a draw is a 24% chance. Only if they draw and both wind up on 2 points do we then get Senegal but only if they win against Iraq because they are sitting on 0 points like Iraq, hell it could be Iraq if the win, but the have a - 6 goal difference, so they might have to win large etc. etc.

Sems like we get the Bosnia vs. Qatar winner tbh. Its that simple. If Bosnia and Qatar draw and if Iraq and Senegal draw, we would move on to another 3rd place team.

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John Strong and Sexy Stu is Fox’s A team and will call all of the US matches.

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I get that, but special circumstances have to apply for certain matches.

If you have USA playing Algeria and you have a broadcast duo that is responsible for the best call in USMNT history from one of the best goals in USMNT history, both of which came from that match, you have to do the right thing.

Darke wasn't even the lead USA voice for ESPN in that 2010 World Cup, it was Martin Tyler, but they also had him assigned to England matches and since England was playing at the same time, Darke was on the USA call that day... and he stole the job from Tyler that morning.

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Ian Darke was #1 in 2014

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Right, because of the Donovan goal call.

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The only thing ESPN does really well was soccer so of course the worst sports broadcaster won the rights to soccer.

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The 2014 setup they had on Copacabana Beach with Tirico and the Men in Blazers was a thing of beauty.

Meanwhile, Fox won the rights and immediately tried to make Gus Johnson a soccer broadcaster.

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Donovan has a terrible monotone, but he does say some meaningful shite from time to time. You know who also has a terrible monotone, but says meaningful shite? Thierry Henry in studio.

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Studio vs broadcast are two completely different things though. I don’t care about monotone if the analysis is good for a studio guy. Broadcast guys should have a somewhat pleasant voice to listen to.