Let the World Decide

Image: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office,
via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

I have three FA Cup ties at unvisited Step 4 grounds from which to choose randomishly for Saturday 4 September.

Basingstoke Town take on Bridgwater United. Corinthian are at home to Folkestone Invicta. Runcorn Linnets are welcoming Liversedge.

There are a number of World Cup 2022 Qualifiers taking place today. I can manufacture three groups of five international sides using a strained alphabetic link. The key stat will be the TOTAL number of goals scored by the five teams (not including their opponents).

I will go to the FA Cup tie linked to the biggest total.

In the event of a tie, either two- or three-way, I will look at the official times of the goals scored in the games (as conventionally reported such as 37, 90+1 etc) and it will be the group that reached their final total FIRST that will be declared the winner. It is highly unlikely that a second tie-break would be needed, but it would be something similar by countback to a penultimate goal.

A small number of other sides had already completed their game prior to this list being devised in the early afternoon on Thursday so they weren’t included. I also seemed to overlook the existence of Bulgaria (though it would have made no difference).

It’s randomish. Not strictly perfectly random as the outcomes are not of equal probability. However, it is a genuine unknown for me and that will suffice. The African games will be followed by the Asian and European zones and then my hopping fate will be decided by events in South America, with a final result around midnight. Thank you for your interest and/or bemusement.

What happened?

Dieumerci Mbokani's goal for DR Congo was the first of the session, getting Corinthian off the mark just before 4pm UK time. Norwich City fans will remember him. Three more games kicked off at 5pm. By the end of these African games, B for Basingstoke had a 3-2 lead over C for Corinthian, including a goal for Steve Mounié (lately of Huddersfield Town). All three B goals were scored against R for Runcorn sides, and it was already likely that they would need a hatful from at least one of Romania, Armenia or Ecuador.

At half-time across Europe it was clear that meanwhile in Australia, China were not going to contribute much, if anything, for C for Corinthian, even with a goal through the Czech Republic, they were falling further behind B for Basingstoke due to a Belgian brace in Estonia. Neither Romania nor Armenia were on the scoresheet for R for Runcorn, so we stand at 5-3-0 for B,C and R respectively. As of 9pm it now looked as if Bolivia v Colombia would be the key game for the final total.

This game kicked off in La Paz as the second half was starting around Europe. Belgium added their third (Romelo Lukaku's second) and Romania scored to finally put something in Runcorn's column. B for Basingstoke's lead, however, was strengthened by Belgium's fourth and fifth goals in Tallinn. A second for Romania but a blank for Armenia means that the scores were 8-3-2 with only South America still in action. No goals for Belarus proved to be relatively unimportant for B for Basingstoke. With Bolivia-Colombia looking to be a low-scoring game approaching half-time, it now seemed that C for Corinthian would be defeated and only an unlikely and exceptional avalanche of goals for Ecuador could turn things around in favour of R for Runcorn.

I fell asleep at this point but woke to the news that there had been a 1-1 draw in Bolivia and Ecuador had scored twice. So the final scores are now summarised in the table below and I am randomishly off to Basingstoke on Saturday.

FA Cup Home Side	Linked International Sides	Goals Scored	Group Total
Basingstoke Town	Benin v Madagascar (A)	Mounié	9
	Burkina Faso v Niger (A)	Konaté, Traoré (pen)
	Belgium v Estonia (A)	Vanaken, Lukaku 2, Witsel, Foket
	Belarus v Czech Republic (A)	-
	Bolivia v Colombia (H)	Saucedo
Corinthian	China v Australia (A)	-	4
	Czech Republic v Belarus (H)	Barák
	DR Congo v Tanzania (H)	Mbokani
	Congo v Namibia (A)	Hambira (og)
	Colombia v Bolivia (A)	Martinez
Runcorn Linnets	Romania v Iceland (A)	Man, Stanciu	4
	ARmenia v North Macedonia (A)	-
	EcuadoR v Paraguay (H)	Torres, Estrada
	MadagascaR v Benin (H)	-
	NigeR v Burkina Faso (H)	-

Bring more randomish decison-making into your life. It's stress-free. People will think you are crazy, but it's a small price to pay ;)