Japan through on the new Fair Play tiebreaker.

[Ron Obvious]

I was watching Senegal - Colombia instead, so I didn't see Japan - Poland, but apparently it was similar to Austria-Germany '82 in the final 15 minutes because Japan didn't want to pick up a yellow card.

The fair play table tiebreaker is new for this world cup and surely it's better than drawing lots, but is it the best way to do this? Maybe we could use corner count first, which would at least tend to reward attacking teams.

All African teams are out for the first time since that '82 WC, where the obvious pact between Germany and Austria eliminated a surprising Algeria team. At least it resulted in the rule that final group stage games were to be played simultaneously.

No pity for Senegal, though. They had it completely in hand and failed to take their chances against an awful Colombia side.

[Renew Deal]

1. Fair play is actually a tiebreaker at the youth levels

It’s kind of surprising that it was adopted to the World Cup