Sportswashing’s Melbourne City are currently making hard work of trying to top their very generous group.
76 minutes in and they are at 0-0 against the Pathum United side they can overtake by beating.
Melbourne City play the bottom team in the last game, too. They’re going to have a nervous wait to see how the other second-placed teams go. Their best hope, in my opinion, is to win their game and hope BG Pathum United lose to Jeonnam Dragons. That would mean they finish top and can avoid the second-placed scenario, which doesn’t look too rosy for them.
Its a bit more complex than that because games against last place dont count to balance the groups because of Shanghai Port dropping out.
Currently City have played 4 games against the other 2 teams for 6 points and 1 + GD. According to wiki this has them just scraping through (as not all second placed teams progress).
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So we are already mathematically fucked then? Win our remaining games and somehow scrape second place in the group, we’d still only have those 4 points against Jeonbuk to count for these purposes, right?
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people still have hope???
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It’s too difficult for me to work out, but it’s more complicated than that. E.g., if the second-placed team changes in those above groups, and the new teams have worse results against the other top-3 sides, then the points needed for third place might be lower (I think).
The boffins at Wikipedia still have us listed as “Cannot win group, may still advance as one of best runners-up” so I assume someone has worked through the permutations.
Edit: Actually, Jeonbuk would be the team we are knocking out of that current top 3, so 4 points might be enough anyway.
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Presume Ulsan would have us covered on GD though.
They’re on 0, we’re on -4. So we’d need whatever we beat Jeonbuk by + whatever they get beaten by to make up that 4 goal difference.
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That’s exactly why I said City have a nervous wait. If they finish second, their result in the last game is irrelevant. Their opponents are finishing fourth in the group, no matter what.
So let me get this straight. People are clinging onto hope despite us needing to win both games, Jeonbuk to lose both of theirs, and to overturn a 6 GD against them in the process. Then Kitchee have to score no more than one point, which could only be workable for us against Changrai. Then there has to somehow not be a result between Johor vs Ulsan (eg. no points given to either team).
Come on, guys. We’re well and truly out. Stop doing this to yourselves!
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I think the only people actually clinging to hope (named Steven & Kosta) have been found and quoted by club socials.
Not really, more interested in whether the result tonight will have any impact.
Your calculations are a bit off. Within a group, rankings are by head-to-head, so if we win both games and Jeonbuk lose both, we finish ahead of them, 4 points to 1.
I also don’t get the Johor vs Ulsan thing. If Johor wins, Ulsan remains on 4 points against the top 3 teams (same as us), and as above, we could beat them on goal difference. If Kitchee draws with Chiangrai, that would leave their GD on 0, and so we’d need to win by 4+ tonight (lol). That would also mean that we’d beat Ulsan’s GD (theirs must be negative if they lose to Johor).
I think.
I was merely discussing the second-placed scenario, where we’re only ranked against the other second-placed teams.
I absolutely don’t see Kawasaki dropping points against a team that has scored none and conceded 23 in 5 games, but I guess life can throw up the most odd thing sometimes. So we can probably forget about trying to beat whoever finishes second in the Ulsan/Johor/Kawasaki group.
Since there are already two second-placed teams who have scored more points than Sydney FC can get (after all, if we finish second, one of Jeonbuk or HAGL must finish last, and their result will not count in the second-placed points tally), I’d say that’s it.
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Ah yeah I hadn’t thought about Kawasaki vs Guangzhou. You’re right, as far as I can work out, if Kawasaki wins we definitely can’t beat 2nd place in that group, regardless of the other result.
And looks like Melbourne City are also stuffed unless there is an upset or draw and MC like on the goals and they get top of group.
They are 1w, 3d against the others in the Top 3 which is settled in their group.
Wow, City failing to get out of that group would be a bigger failure than any of ours.
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Absolutely. That draw was a gift for them.
… but we’re not done yet. We’re still mathematically in it and no numerical naysayer on this forum will convince me otherwise.
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Sure. We just have to wait until the other 38 teams are excluded.
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I suppose a Covid outbreak could still force the withdrawal of Marinos, Jeonbuk and HAGL.