Technology tested early (6/16)

The only thing missing was a water break in terms of new twists that have been added the past few years.  The first goal confirmed by goal line technology (via ref's watch) happened in the 81' giving C1-France the goal ahead goal off a shot off the crossbar that bounced just inside white line.  Interesting that they gave the minute of the goal when the ref confirmed the goal line technology and not when the ball actually crossed the line.  In that same match, the new VAR (Video Assistant Referee) review system was used to determine that there was a penalty in the box and FRA was awarded a penalty kick that they converted for the first score.  C2-Australia battled back with their own PK but in the end, France held on 2-1 (Edit -- FRA's goal was changed to an own goal the next morning after another review -- the website called it an own goal, the official match report had it as a goal for more than 12 hours after the match).

In the surprise of the tourney, tiny D2-Iceland may not have much possession but they never panicked and even tried
to counter when they should be holding a 10-man defensive line.  D1-Argentina came out and scored early but a rebound opportunity gave Iceland the tying goal.  Everyone was looking to Messi in the second half and late in the half, a PK was awarded to Argentina.  Messi calmly went up and hit it but the GK guessed correctly and made the save in 71'.  Messi also had two free kick opportunities including the last one as stoppage time was ending and he hit it into the wall.   This reminded me of the 2009's Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) final where LA's Marta had a poor match but had an opportunity for redemption on a free kick as time expired and missed.  The tie is a great achievement for a team that was ranked in triple digits a few years ago before their Euro run in 2016.

C3-Peru missed a PK as C4-Denmark held on to a 1-0 win while D4-Nigeria didn't show up as D3-Croatia came away winners, 2-0.

No red cards yet which is refreshing.  Europe is undefeated thus far (4-0-3) while Africa is 0-3.

Just six picked the ARG-ISL tie that moved Ilvecchio into first that he held at the end of the day (8-0).  All 79 got FRA while the majority picked DEN (34) and CRO (54).  Bobby Cee Racer is alone in last with 2 pts.

Ties
The POR-ESP match was picked to be tied the most (30) with ENG-BEL (28) and POL-COL (26) also tough to pick a winner.  FRA-AUS was the only match with no ties picked and actually, all 79 picked FRA.  BEL-PAN (77 for BEL), BRA-CRC (77 for BRA), BEL-TUN (78 for BEL) were picked to be tied just once each.  Nine entries opted to pick a winner in each match while Soccerhorn and Krispy Kremer picked a high 18 ties each.  Overall, 527 ties were picked for an average of 6.7 per entry (of 48 matches - 13.9% of matches).

Tiebreaker
Soccerhorn is predicting boring or defensive 3rd place and Final matches choosing 0.5 goals for his tiebreaker. Argh, Binh, and TroJen are expecting low-scoring affairs as well, each choosing 1.5 goals.  On the flip side, All in Archilla and Dagger are expecting high-scoring matches, choosing 13 and 10 goals, respectively.  Overall the average was 5.7 total goals per entry.

No Love
Six teams had no one predicting they would win.  AUS (vFRA), KSA (vURU), MAR (vPOR), SWE (vGER), TUN (vBEL), and MAR (vESP) got zero votes.  Overall, KSA was picked to just win 10 times over 3 matches but two did pick them to make the Round of 16 (two also picked IRN and KOR).  TUN and MAR were the only teams no one picked to make the Round of 16