Quantity over Quality

On Sunday, the US pulled off one of the most imponderable results in international competitive soccer by defeating Egypt 3-0 and taking advantage of a 3-0 Italian defeat at the hands of the Brazilian national team to advance to the semi finals of the Confederations Cup.

At the end of the day, Italy and the US ended up tied in points (3) and goal difference (-2). So how did the US manage to pass through to the next stage?

According to FIFA tiebreak rules in the group stage are as follows: 1) Goal difference in all group matches  2) Greatest number of goals scored in all group matches 3) Greatest number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned.

Sound iffy to anyone? What this is saying, setting aside the individual results of this tournament, is that the fact that the US scored one more goal is more important in determining which is a better team than the fact that Italy beat the US 3-1 less than a week before.

How is a head-to-head encounter not the best way to judge which of two teams is better?

In the current case, there’s a sense of redemption since it was an unfair red card in that early game that allowed Italy to take such a strong lead and probably to take a lead to begin with against the US.

Aside from ‘fairness’ and logic  there is another problem with this form of judgment. This tiebreaker gives preference to a style of play.

Without a doubt, and as made clear in this tournament. The importance placed on goals scored gives preference to offensive teams while hindering teams, like Italy that play a defensive style of play.

It seems natural that FIFA would give preference to il jogo bonito of Brazil. Maybe this is a reaction to Italy’s win in 2006 in which everyone was willing to criticize Italy for winning with its defensive, rough and lets admit unattractive style of play while mourning the demise of Brazil’s jogo bonito in the quarters.

Yet, the commentators admitted that while the Brazilians played pretty they did not play well and while the Italians played horrible style football they got the results they needed.

For now, FIFA’s strategy has backfired. The viewership and attendance that an Italy v. Spain semifinal would have garnered would have been infinitely better than a US. v. Spain semifinal.

The only game that had sold out in the group stage was the Italy v. Brazil game. Hopefully this gets Blatter to reassess the FIFA rules and bring some logic and fairness back to the game.