Thursday, October 12, 2017

Sounds like we have match-fixing in the COMNEBOL qualifiers too -- more common variety here.

Brian Tuohy tends to find good sources of match-fixing and the like, and found this from someone else's Twitter:
The South American (COMNEBOL) qualifiers for the World Cup are less complicated than most other continents. Since there are only 10 member countries, there is only one group, and all teams play each other twice in an about one-year or so span. Four teams qualify directly, a fifth goes to an interconfederational playoff.

As with the other confederations, the last day of play was this week.

And the rough table looks as follows:

Brazil wins the group and is qualified
Uruguay is second, but with a +10 goal differential, the odds of then not qualifying are about zero.
Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela are out.

It's five teams for 2 1/2 spots.

Chile and Colombia both have 26 points and a +2 goal differential, but Chile is third on more goals scored.
Peru has 25 points and a +1 goal differential.
Argentina was in major trouble of crashing out at the same situation, but fewer goals scored.
Paraguay had 24 points and -5 goal differential.

Brazil-Chile
Ecuador-Argentina
Paraguay -Venezuela

and the one you see in the Tweet, Peru-Colombia -- are the four relevant matches.

Falcao of Colombia is appearing, in this video, to talk to the Peruvian players, explaining to them that a draw is probably enough to qualify both sides for the World Cup, or at least for the playoff.

This is match-fixing.  But it's so common, it has an Italian term for it in the soccer world:  A biscotto.  An effective pre-arranged result that benefits both sides in such a situation.

And an own goal got exactly that result -- a 1-1 draw.  (COL 27 points, +2; Peru 26 points, +1)

Brazil eliminated Chile by defeating them 3-0.  (CHI 26 points, -1)

Venezuela stunned Paraguay at home 0-1 to eliminate them with 24 points.

Argentina won 1-3 at Ecuador to take one automatic spot.  Colombia took the other.  The biscotto actually fails, as Peru now has to go to the playoff with New Zealand (the half-spot Oceania now gets with Australia playing in the Asian confederation).

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