Gray Qualifies Fourth Team but Rachel Leads

We knew things were going to be exciting today because seven out of the eight teams that played  still had a chance to qualify for the next stage of the tournament.  The stakes were high for us BISERGSers as well, since advancing teams is crucial for success in the game.  Rachel, Rick and Gray were the only BISERGSers with a chance to get four teams through and that all depended on the two early games today.  Here is how it went down, Gray's Swedes scored a huge win against Mexico, meaning he got four teams through to the next round.  Sweden's victory made it impossible for South Korea to advance, so Rachel was out, but she didn't go down without taking out her father-in-laws BISERGS dreams, as her South Koreans scored a shocking win over Germany.  That result meant that Mexico gets to continue despite losing heavily today.  South Korea's win means that Rachel's round 3 is her highest tally yet.  Bill suffered a double loss with both of those upsets as he held favorites Germany and Mexico.  Germany were the first selection of Cookie, Dough, Carol, Bill and Rick, so their defeat is a heavy blow to them.  Carol is always a huge BISERGS favorite, but Germany's loss leaves her with only one team remaining.  Very few people saw Sweden's success coming, but Evan can puff out his chest a bit, since he took a risk on his ancestral homeland and used his first pick to make sure he had them.  James, Katee, Dawn and Gray also benefited from Sweden's excellent bounce back game after they completely collapsed against Germany in their previous outing.  

In the later games Brazil was facing the possibility of eliminations if things went very badly for them today, but they took care of business despite coming under a lot of Serbian pressure in the second half.  That's good news for Levi, Josh, Arlan, Annika and Katee who used their high position in the draft to take the favorites.  Katee who also saw Sweden win earlier today made a remarkable jump from 24th place to 9th.  Switzerland and Costa Rica played an entertaining 2 - 2 game, but once it was clear that Serbia were going to lose, the result in this match didn't matter for next rounds placement.  It did matter to the BISERGS though, and the owners of both teams would have liked to pick up more than the 1.5 points they got through this result.  The Serbia loss made this a truly disastrous day for Rick who started the day hoping to see four teams go through but had two teams eliminated.  Cookie  also had the same two teams go out today.

Tomorrow is the last round of the group stage.  Belgium and England are already through, but Senegal, Colombia and Japan all have ambitions of advancing.  It is unlikely anyone will catch Rachel with tomorrows results, but there is bound to be more movement on the BISERGS table as we get ready for the knockout stage.

By the way, we went over 3000 page views today.  Is this the best World Cup ever?