THE MATHEMATICS OF GROUPS

The World Cup has 8 groups of 4 teams each. Each team plays against the other three teams in its group, and the top two teams go through to the last 16, where it is knock-out all the way to the final.

Sounds simple? What is interesting is in fact how complicated the groups can become mathematically after each team has played just two matches. I watched the Group B Nigeria-South Korea match this evening, rather than the Argentina-Greece game (played at the same time), which I judged would be technical and a bit dull. Since Argentina had already won their first two matches, the big question was who would be the other country to go through. When Nigeria scored first, it was going to be Greece. When South Korea equalised and went ahead 2-1, it was going to be them. When Nigeria equalised to 2-2, it was still going to be South Korea. But then Argentina went 1-0 up against Greece, at which point it would - rather miraculously - be Nigeria, if they scored a third goal. If Maartins hadn't missed an absolute sitter with ten minutes to go, then they would have done it. As it was, Argentina won 2-0, the other game was 2-2, and Argentina and South Korea went through.

As it happens, it was even possible for Argentina not to go through. That would have required Greece to beat them by a certain amount and South Korea to beat Nigeria by a certain amount. Unlikely; but possible.

A number of the other groups finishing this week have equally complex possible permutations. All I know is that England have to beat Slovenia tomorrow to go through, and that on current form, I don't think that they'll do it.

Walter Blotscher