Tuesday, June 23, 1998 http://www.HWCI.com/wc98 Issue # 18.1.14 "Six minutes..." 1998 HWCI WORLD CUP TOURNAMENT POOL =================================== AUSTRIA IS UNLUCKY AND CHILE IS LUCKY FOR ONCE NORWAY SNARES VICTORY OVER BRAZIL AND ROUND OF 16 BERTH FROM MOROCCO Pool standings shuffle on first big day of action EL SEGUNDO, CA (smt)- Christian Vieri (4th goal) and Roberto Baggio duplicated their effort in their first match by scoring both of Italy's goals to clinch the Group B title, beating Austria, 2-1. Austria, for the third straight match, scored in the final minutes of extra time but this time couldn't overcome a 2-0 deficit, thanks to Baggio's goal in the 89th minute. Chile finally got some luck holding on to a 1-1 tie with Cameroon to advance to the Round of 16. Actually, Chile was somewhat unlucky as Cameroon tied the game while down a man. Chile advances by tying all three matches. It looked like this: Morocco just scored its 3rd goal of the match and Brazil was beating Norway late in their match. Even if Norway tied their match, Morocco was going to the Round of 16. Then, Tore Andre Flo scores in the 83rd minute; then Kjetil Rekdal scores on a penalty kick (that replays apparently showed wasn't warranted- but what else is new? It was bothersome that it was an American referee, Esse Baharmast (who's refereed nearly every soccer league including the MISL, MLS, CISL, NPSL, USISL, A-League), who made the controversal call) in the 89th minute. Final score: Norway 2, Brazil 1. Just like that, Morocco (who beat Scotland, 3-0) was out and a very disappointing Norway team was back in. Having already clinched the Group A title, Brazil may not have put in their best effort, but Norway still had to score twice in six minutes. GROUP A W-L-T PT GF/A GROUP B W-L-T PT GF/A ---------------------- ---------------------- yx-Brazil 2-1-0 6 6/3 yx-Italy 2-0-1 7 7/3 x-Norway 1-0-2 5 5/4 x-Chile 0-0-3 3 4/4 Morocco 1-1-1 4 5/5 Austria 0-1-2 2 3/4 Scotland 0-2-1 1 2/6 Cameroon 0-1-2 2 2/5 x-Advances to Round of 16 y-Wins group title Sat., 6/27: #49(1). 1A-Brazil vs. 2B-Chile, Noon (PDT) #50(2). 1B-Italy vs 2A-Norway, 7:30 am (PDT) Group B: Everyone picked Italy but five did not pick Chile. MLSBOB maintained his one point lead over four others while NAW'DEEN and BIG BRI'S GOING DOWN took big hits to go from tied for 2nd to tied for 10th. Three people also did not pick Italy to beat Austria. Group A: Three people (CANTONA, TOM FUNG, and FLASHER) had their chance to climb back into the race taken away by Norway's penalty kick. They had picked MOR to qualify instead of NOR. Everyone missed the BRA-NOR match and only 6 picked MOR over SCO. After getting the first 18 non-tied matches correct, MLSBOB has lost 4 of the past 6 matches, including both today, but still remains in first with 32 points. Fourteen predictors are within four points of MLSBOB. Meanwhile, the gap between first and last widened to 10 points. Fourteen people have gotten all four of the teams into the Round of 16 while everyone has gotten at least two. Group C gets the early set of matches tomorrow. A win or draw will clinch first place for France (2-0). South Africa (0-1-1) needs to beat Saudi Arabia (0-2), have Denmark (1-0-1) lose to France, and overcome a 3 goal differential between themselves and the Danish to displace Denmark in the Round of 16. Nigeria (2-0) has already clinched the Group of Death (D) title which may be good news to Paraguay (0-0-2) who is in a position to advance. Top seed Spain (0-1-1) is in danger of not qualifying, needing to tie or beat Bulgaria (0-1-1) and have Paraguay falter. Bulgaria needs to win and have Paraguay falter to advance. What a game!... Scott HW -----------------------------------------\\ || /\ || // ___ Scott M Tamashiro, HWCI Engineering \\||//\\||// /o-o\\ \ \ ` WC98 Pool Administrator \ / \ / (o-o-o)) ) > > > Email: scott@hwci.com || || \`o'// / / , Updates: http://www.HWCI.com/wc98 || || WORLD CUP ---------------------------------------------------- POOL 1998