Well I did say "if Italy beat them by 1 goal" and you've changed it to Italy beating them by 2 goals, so of course the results will be different.

So in the event of a tie on GD, does it go down to goals for? Only, with England on -2 and Costa RIca on +2, I assumed Italy beating them by 1, would take them down to +1, so England beating them by 3 goals would leave them on a tie?

Exactly.

If the results go the way we want them then the goal difference isn't actually that much of an issue.

The chance of all 3 results going the way we want them is the worrying part.

Knowing England I can see Italy beating both Uruguay and Costa Rica then we'll fluff it up against Costa Rica with a draw or loss!

Columbian fans will be praying the miracle comes off as much as the english fans

If Italy beat CR by 1 goal then we need to beat them by 2.
If Italy beat CR by 2 or more goals we only need to beat them by 1 goal.... so just a win!

So basically you're just saying the chance of getting one result we want is higher than getting all three chances we want? I don't think anyone is going to argue with that because it's just pointing out the bleedin obvious

I don't understand that. Costa Rica have +2 goal difference, England have -2. Italy beating Costa Rica by 1 goal would take CR goal difference down to +1, meaning we are 3 behind them. We'd need 3 goals just to tie with them on GD surely?!

Apparently a tie would see us through. I asked why, and whether it goes on goals for, but nobody's explained.

The chance of it happened is something around 18 percent.

So let's stop living in a dream world, take the red pill, and get ready for England is coming home, rather than 'football is coming home'

cr have +2 ,if they lose 1-0 tonight its +1, if england beat them one nil it is 0 and england move on to -1 - so not enough

obviously the extra italy goal would mean we are level, but CR go through on goals scored? not sure.

italy winning 2/3-0 would be best

Lol the chance of us beating costa rica alone would be about 18% if that

Ah yeah, duh. I'm hungover today

Yes, we need Italy to beat Costa Rica by 3 goals and England to beat Costa Rica by 2 goals. Or Italy by 2 and England by 3. Or Italy by 1 and England by 4. Or Italy by 4 and England by 1.

Wasn't that based on some totally subjective percentages based on how likely in one persons opinion, Italy was to win it's two games, and how likely England was to win Costa Rica and by the required margin?

I'd take those results with a pinch of salt if I were you

dont think thats case mate. if italy win by 3 costa rica will be -1

if we win by 1 they will be -2 and us -1

If Italy were to beat them 2-0 and we beat them 1-0 then our GF and GA would be the same (3-4) and I think it then goes on head to head which would mean we'd go through because we'll have just beat them 1-0.

I love the optimists! As far as I'm concerned we are already out of the WC.

Italy are not going to beat both Costa Rica and Uruguay, we have seen how limited they are already. We outplayed the Italians for large periods of the first game (but still managed to lose).

it appears that I made a mistake with my calculations.

hope your right, i thought maybe goals scored comes before H2H in world cups.

edit-just seen that GF would be same. i am happier now!

I thought that, but someone's explained it to me now. I was being a bit slow and forgetting to factor in that England scoring against Costa Rica obviously adds 1 to our goal difference, but just as crucially takes 1 from Costa RIca's. It's an easy-ish logical trap to fall into I guess.

So if Italy beat CR by 1 goal, we would in fact only need to beat CR by 2.

We can only hope Uruguay play like the side that was demolished by Costa Rica and erm, Costa Rica are as poor as people believed them to be before the competition started, I suppose. I agree it's a long shot, but hey, nothing wrong with being an optimist... until you fall flat on your face of course

Yes I realised my error.

It seems like a doable target now. Of course as long as Italy get the win today and Italy win Uruguay in their final match.

Yes, it's basically a 3 goal total swing against Costa Rica from both matches.

Yes Because it's still hard to gauge these matches at the moment. In the first match was it because Uruguay were so poor, or because Costa Rica were outstanding, or a mix of both? And equally, when England played Italy was it because we were both poor so it made Italy look better than they were?
Things can be so deceptive.

Yeah and Italy needing to do more of the work to get England through is quite funny. I mean, we only have to win one match. We need them to win two. They play better for England than England does, effectively speaking

That was tongue in cheek before anyone jumps on it

That's what I meant by saying getting the results was the thing to worry about as the goal difference will almost sort itself from the right teams winning (Italy for their 2 games and England in their last game)!.

Yeah, sorry about that Steve