If two teams are just completely knotted up, FIFA will draw lots. That’s right — they’ll pick balls out of a hat or something.
MOSCOW — The World Cup permits ties in matches in the group stage, but at some point this week, FIFA may have to break a couple in the standings.
Nearly a dozen teams entered their third group game tied with a rival in the standings, and contemplating the possibility that a tiebreaker will come into play — either to decide who wins a group, or potentially who makes the knockout round and who goes home.
And since FIFA is a century-old sports organization based in Switzerland, there are, of course, voluminous rules in place for all of this. The first few tiebreakers are easy, and understandable even by the novice fan:
■ Total points in the group.
■ Goal difference.
■ Goals scored.
After that, it gets a bit more complicated, with an ever-more-specific set of criteria that assesses, in order: points head to head among the teams concerned; goal difference in the group matches between the teams concerned; goals scored in all group matches between the teams concerned.
After that it’s so-called fair play points: a calculation based on a team’s number of yellow cards and red cards in group matches. Fans and officials of at least six teams currently tied atop their groups with the same goal difference — including Spain, Portugal, England, Belgium, Japan and Senegal — are already doing this math in case it comes into play.
While it seems a strange way to break ties, it could have serious consequences. Belgium and England, for example, are tied atop Group G after winning their first two games. But Belgium has three yellows to England’s two, so — unless that changes — it would finish second if the teams tie in Kaliningrad on Thursday.
Winning the group, though, might not be the best thing, since it likely drops that team into a quadrant with Brazil and Germany in the knockouts. (The second-place team would probably play one of Mexico, Switzerland or perhaps Serbia.) That led at least a few people on social media to suggest England might have been wise to pick up a couple yellows if they can.
In a worst-case situation, if all the earlier criteria fail to sort the teams, a tie will be broken by the drawing of lots. This has happened only once in World Cup history, in Italy in 1990, but that was to determine position in a group, not whether one team stayed and another went home.
Confused yet? FIFA has published some guidance on tiebreakers on the World Cup’s website, but sometimes it’s less helpful than FIFA thinks it is. Take this sentence, for example:
“If three teams are equal on the basis of criteria d) and e) and teams A and B are equal in criterion f) whilst team C scored fewer goals in the concerned group matches, team C is ranked lower than teams A & B.”
Huh?
Let’s hope the teams just settle it on the field.
