Rick Wins the BISERGS!

What a wonderful summer of international football it has been in Russia. I'm so glad we got to share it all together through this silly invention of the BISERGS.  Many long time soccer lovers have said that this was the best World Cup that they can remember and I have to agree with them.  There have been 64 games, 169 goals, 219 yellow cards, 49,651 successful passes, and 1252.68 total points in the BISERGS.  The best memory of all for me was watching Mexico beat Germany with Sharleen, Emilie and Annika at a restaurant in Abu Dhabi.  It was the first game we got to see and we had a table right next to the outdoor big screen television. Behind us were dozens of Germans that were as upset as we were happy.  Mexico played so well and the result was so shocking that I knew we were in for a great summer.

Rick getting BISERGS tips from 3 time winner Sharleen
last January during his worldwide BISERGS scouting trip.

Of the 1252.68 total BISERGS points, 73.25 belong to Rick Samuelson. That was more than anyone else, so he is officially the Biggest International Soccer Expert Related to Greg Samuelson for 2018.  Winning the BISERGS with 37 participants is impressive enough, but Rick's accomplishment is all the more astounding because his first pick was Germany, who were a huge disappointment this summer.  Despite picking a team that flopped, Rick's 2nd (France) and 3rd (Croatia) picks made it to the final and he was undefeated in the knockout stage until Croatia finally lost.  Rick spent most of the competition between 5th and 11th place but he hit his stride when the matches were worth more and more BISERGS points and used France's 4 goals in the final to pull away from Kelley, who entered the last day ahead of Rick but needed a Croatia victory to win.

The final didn't feature the best soccer of the summer, but six goals made it very entertaining.  There was some controversy. France's first two goals both depended on questionable referee's decisions and VAR.  The first goal went in off the head of a Croatian player into his own net for the first own goal ever in A championship match.  There was some great team work by Croatia for their first goal.  There was a huge mistake. Croatia's second goal was from an absolute brain freeze by French Goalie, Hugo Lloris.  And there was joy.  When Kylian Mbappe and Paul Pogba scored their goals and showed their huge smiles, you couldn’t help but be happy for them.  Croatia are the second smallest country ever to play in a World Cup final and their amazing heart, effort and team work endeared them to the whole planet.  They lost with great dignity despite their heartbreak.  France is a very young team and I bet they will be the top choice of most BISERGSers when the Men's World Cup comes back around in 2022 and they may very well still be favorites when the World Cup comes to North America in 2026.

Rick, Dawn, Lindsay, Krista and Sharleen all picked up a huge 13.5 points from the French victory.  That landed them in 1st, 2nd, 5th, 7th and 8th place respectively.  Croatia had kept their owners at the top of the leader board all summer, but Rick was the only Croatia owner that celebrated their final result.  Kelley, Rachel, Levi and Lisa all had hoped for one more bit of magic but in the end had to settle for 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 10th places.  Gray was the only member of the top 10 that didn't have one of the finalists.  You may remember that he had all four of his teams advance to the knockout stage, but when they started to fall away, he could only hold on for an 8th place tie with Sharleen.

Rick will be presented with his prize, The Encyclopedia Blazertannica, when I see him in Monroe later on this month.  Photos from the gala event will be posted here.  There will be a couple more posts here this week, including the unveiling of the new BISERGS World Rankings and a change to future BISERGSes, so don't delete this bookmark quite yet.