The Round of 16 is done, which means we’re down to eight teams and the bracket is starting to sort itself out. The leaderboard, on the other hand, has completely reshuffled.
The leaderboard has seen quite a shakeup in the knockout rounds. The current leader, clustercore, finished the group stage in seventh place; second place, BarbaraGJuve, was in 11th; and third, Fefu, was in dead last. On the other end of things, Haaandyvandy was fifth at the end of the group stage, but the knockouts have not been
kind to him as he now finds himself in last place. Dino1995 finds himself in a similar predicament, going from second overall to second to last.
Several people who were in the top half of the table at the end of the group stage managed to stay there after the Round of 16 — namely mmmCheese (third to fourth), Fawkey (fourth to fifth), LaMattonellaDiDelPiero (sixth in both), and rjr96 (first to seventh). Still, the knockouts have been full of turnover.
With point values jumping from 7–10 points in the group stage to 45 points in the Round of 32 and 90 points in the Round of 16, the big shifts are understandably tied to how accurately brackets predicted these specific advancements. For example, clustercore correctly predicted France, Mexico, Morocco, Spain, USA, Belgium, Brazil, Norway, England, Argentina, Switzerland, and Portugal to advance to the Round of 16 — earning 540 points, which is almost 50% more than the leader had after the group stages. From there, they also correctly predicted France, Morocco, Spain, Belgium, England, Argentina, and Switzerland to move on, securing another 630 points. Interestingly, not only did they predict seven of the eight quarterfinalists, but they correctly predicted three of the four matchups — only missing England against Norway (and even then, they correctly predicted Brazil would face Norway in the Round of 16!). It’s a shockingly accurate bracket through the Round of 16.
On that front, the group as a whole did quite well in the Round of 32, correctly predicting the teams that advanced over 70% of the time. Every bracket correctly predicted four teams to advance: England, France, Portugal, and Spain. Seventeen of the 18 brackets also correctly predicted Argentina to advance. Conversely, just three brackets predicted the Paraguayans to advance into the Round of 16, and just five brackets correctly predicted the Egyptians would too.
Every bracket also correctly predicted the Spanish would reach the quarterfinals. Seventeen of the 18 brackets had Argentina advancing. Most people also predicted France (83.3%) and England (77.8%) would advance, but that’s quite a drop-off from every bracket getting four teams right in the round before. You can see it reflected in the table above, as the group went from 70% accuracy in the Round of 32 to just 58% in the Round of 16. Just three participants predicted that Switzerland would reach the quarterfinals (interestingly, only clustercore predicted it among the top three in the table). Similarly, just five brackets predicted Belgium or Norway would get this far.
There are still seven matches left. Three brackets — clustercore, mmmCheese, and guarrangaa — have all 2,160 potential points remaining. All of their semifinalists, finalists, and ultimate winners are still in play. Three more —BarbaraGJuve, Fefu, and Fawkey — have 1,980 points remaining, missing just one quarterfinalist apiece. So far, only one person has been mathematically eliminated: LaMattonellaDiDelPiero has just 180 points remaining on the table, with only Morocco left in the quarterfinals. For everyone else, the title is still within reach and anything can happen over the final three rounds. Only time will tell who will finish on top!
