If you’re looking at the World Cup schedule on Tuesday and over the next few days, you’ll notice something quirky: Each of the groups are having their final games on at the same time.
USA and Iran will play at 2 PM ET … as will Wales and England, and both are Group B matchups.
Tunisa-France and Australia-Denmark are on tomorrow at 10 AM ET, and they’re all in Group D.
What’s the deal here?
It’s simple: You don’t want one game being affected by the outcome of the other. If one game was played hours before the other and the result meant the second game in the group didn’t matter … well, you wouldn’t watch or care.
Instead, here, you get competitive games all the way through and not what was known a “The Disgrace of Gijon.”
From The Athletic:
[In 1982] West Germany and Austria met in the final game of Group 2 at the Spain World Cup and that match came a day after Algeria and Chile completed their group-stage campaigns.
Heading into the final match, Algeria were second in the group and on course to qualify for the knockouts, just as long as Austria — who were top of the group — avoided defeat. Although, both teams knew that a win for West Germany by a margin of one or two goals would send both of them through at the expense of the African side.
So, as you have probably guessed, the match finished 1-0 in favour of the Germans with Horst Hrubesch scoring the game’s only goal in the 10th minute.
80 minutes of passing between the defence and kicking the odd ball up the field ensued with supporters in the stadium and around the world disgusted at what they were watching. But, no FIFA rules were officially broken as the set up of the matches allowed for such a ludicrous scenario.
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