An extremely stupid crabbringer will be used if England draws with Belgium

England equalized its Belgian rival after defeating Panama this morning, giving each national team six points to qualify for the final game of the group stage. Not only Belgium and England have the same number of points, but they also have exactly eight goals and two goals against. This creates a delicate situation if the teams can not break the stalemate in their face-to-face match on Thursday.

Here is the order of the tiebreakers for the World Cup group stage (that 's me highlighting):

1. The greatest number of points

2. Goal difference in all group matches

3. Goals scored in all group matches

4. The highest number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned

5. Difference in goals resulting from group matches between the teams concerned

6. Largest number of goals scored in all group matches between the teams concerned

7. Highest number of fair play points (yellow cards = -1, indirect red card (result of a second yellow card) = -3, direct red card = -4, yellow card and red card direct = -5, with only one of the deductions applied to a player in a single match)

8. Draw by FIFA

As you can see, any form of draw between England and Belgium on the last day would continue to keep them exactly in the first six categories, leaving the tiebreaker up to the concept ridiculous of "fair play". has three yellow cards to both of England, so unless they can make up this ground, an extremely arbitrary points system will keep the English at the top of the table.

But there is an extra layer of strangeness. On the basis of the expected results of the group stage, the winner of Group G will likely be placed in the same quadrant as Brazil and Germany, while the second finalist of the group will probably get a quarter-final match. final. with either Mexico or Switzerland. No offense to one or the other of these last two teams, but everyone in the world would prefer to play the winner of this game instead of Brazil or Germany. This match-making requires looking beyond the knockout stages, but the winner of Group G will probably not win at all.

It is difficult to imagine that either side will adopt the kind of losing mentality that would see them chasing ejections just to avoid a more difficult quarterfinal. But if a player manages to catch a red referee – or even better, a yellow and then a red – do not expect fans to be very disappointed. We might as well go with the draw.