And Then There Were Eight

And just like that, the World Cup field has shrunk from sixteen down to eight.  Today England and Sweden sent Colombia and Switzerland packing in games that could have gone either way.  The BISERGS field has also shrunk from 37 to 27 over the past four days.  Today it was Cookie, Matt R, Vera, Allie and DJ that say goodbye.  The farewell was especially harsh for Allie and DJ who started the round with three teams only to see all three of them lose.  

On the field, Sweden and Switzerland played a more cautious game than we saw yesterday.  Both teams seemed more interested in limiting their opponents chances than creating attacking opportunities of their own.  In the end, it was Sweden that benefited from a very fortunate deflection on a shot that the Swiss goal keeper would have handled easily.  Unfortunately for the Swiss, the ball hit a defenders foot and arched slowly into the corner of their net for the only goal of the match.

England celebrate a penalty shootout victory.  They had lost
their previous 5 penalty shootouts in major competitions
dating back to 1996 when their current manager, Gareth
Southgate missed his attempt against Germany.

The second game (disclaimer, I didn't see most of this one) was the most violent of the World Cup so far.  You never want the referee to be the talking point of the match, but apparently the American official struggled to get the game under control and it was mostly the Colombians who took advantage by upping their aggression a notch every few minutes.  England was finally awarded a penalty, which the converted, and seemed to be cruising into the quarterfinals when they let down at the very end of regulation and let Colombia score from a corner kick.  In the first extra period, Colombia seemed buoyed by their late equalizer and nearly scored on many occasions.  In the second extra period, it was England who had the upper hand and should have scored to put it away.  Since neither team could score a goal, it went to penalty kicks.  Penalties are always nervy occasions but the English had slightly more composure as Colombia hit the crossbar on one attempt and had their last attempt saved by English keeper Jordan Pickford.

The BISERGS race has tightened up considerably at the top.  Rachel maintains her lead by the narrowest of margins over Gray who rallied bravely after losing his first two games of the round.  Levi was a couple of penalty kicks away from being in first place with three teams remaining, but instead finds him self just off the pace in third.  Kelley is less than a point behind Levi in fourth place.  This year's BISERGS is all the more exciting because all of the top 10 have a different two teams remaining.  In fact, you have to go all the way down to 12th place Arlan to find two competitors with the same two remaining teams.  Arlan and his niece Annika both have Brazil and Russia. That is really remarkable and means that there is going to be a lot of twists and turns in the next round. 13 players have two teams remaining.  That is the current top 12, plus James who is down in 21st place but has both Russia and Sweden.  Two teams remaining at this stage is a huge advantage, but as DJ and Allie will tell you, they can be taken away in an instant.  Even with some unexpected results, the members of the top 10 didn't change at all over the last eight games and movement within the top 10 was minimal.  The biggest mover of the round was James who jumped from 30th to 21st.  After James it was his dad Arlan and Krista who each moved up four places.  Remember, games in the next round are worth 1 1/2 times the games we've played so far.  That counts for both positive and negative points, so we are expecting more turbulence in the rankings during the 1/4 finals.  With that in mind, enjoy the two day break, have a safe and happy Fourth of July and then buckle your seat belts and get ready for a bumpy ride.

Check out the bracket link to see what path lies ahead for your teams in the next rounds of the World Cup.

Bracket Link