Not for Us (11/20)

HOME - A country can buy and pay for the World Cup but they can't buy passion or talent.  The fun team that produced good results during fake qualifying and the Gold Cup hit the main stage and faltered.  Host 1A-Qatar got a reprieve a few minutes in when VAR suddenly intervened (well, a semi-automatic review) to call a technically correct 1B-Ecuardorian offside that no one would have noticed but in the 15', QAT's shaky GK tripped a player resulting in a PK goal in the 16'.  

ECU dominated but if you look at the stats, you'd never know.  Shots:  ECU 6-5.  Possession ECU 53-47%, Fouls 15-15.  ECU only managed to add one more goal (Enner Valencia scored both) to beat QAT 2-0, the first time a host nation has lost in their opening match (South Africa tied in 2010).  

Even more embarrassing was that a good number of Qatar fans among the 67,372 fans didn't come back after halftime.  Soccer is just not part of the culture (yet).  Considering just 11% of teams who lose their first game make the Round of 16, it is very likely QAT will join RSA as the only hosts to not make it out of the Group Stage.  

As for our 7th HWCI World Cup pool, we unofficially have 109 entries (shattering the 2018 record of 79) which may go down depending on payments.  56 got ECU right.  29 did pick ECU to make the Round of 16 and 84% who win their first match make the R16.  13 (including both of mine) have QAT in the R16.  Sigh.

You can now view the standings, results, team distribution, your picks, and who's who in the pool.