The Beautiful Pool

So, I have a question for you. VAR: Is it a good thing, or bad?

It interrupts the flow of the game and undermines the authority of the ref. But it makes sure that all important calls are made accurately. On balance, is it worth it?

The Bitter Truth

Here’s what we all got wrong: GER. Everyone picked GER to defeat PAR and everyone was wrong.

Here’s what we all got right: FRA, ENG, ESP and ARG. But COD and CPV made us all very nervous for a while.

Here’s what I think is really impressive: There were three of us who picked 15 of the 16 winners in the Round of 32 (obviously, GER made sure that nobody got all 16). Please recognize the uncanny skills of Rachel P, Sherman H, and Tony D.

Without further ado, here are the standings at the end of the Round of 32:

Rank	Name	Points
1	Jim R	114
2	Brianna W	113
2	Phil A	113
2	Richard H	113
2	Tony D	113
3	John N	112
3	Rachel P	112
3	Russ P	112
4	Adam LD	111
4	Donna M	111
4	Jim T	111
4	Stephen B	111
5	Theo L	110
⇣	⇣	⇣
21	Chris H	88
21	Tommy MH	88

You will notice that Cindy B has been dislodged from the basement by Chris H and Tommy MH. You might also remember that Chris H was expelled from the Beautiful Pool because he didn’t get his Knock-Out Round picks in by the deadline. He then filed an appeal, and we held a special meeting of the Rules Interpretation Tribunal, where Chris H was successful in arguing that he had submitted his picks, but sent them to the wrong email address. The Tribunal, which is me, voted to readmit him and he promptly dropped to the bottom of the rankings along with Tommy MH.

Here are the complete standings, so you can see if you have any hope of catching up. Note that I changed the format to show teams that have been eliminated in red. I think this makes it a little easier to read.

Newbie	Grizzled Vet	Prodigals
105.6	102.5	103.6

The Newbies expanded their lead to a full 2 points over the Prodigals, while the Grizzled Vets are turning in a pretty sad performance, falling behind the Prodigals by 1.1 points.

See you after the next Round.