Talk:Group of death

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History[edit]

The claim that the term "group of death" was coined by the Uruguay manager in 1986 is very questionable. I remember that when I was a child in 1982 everybody in Italy talked about "il gruppo della morte" when referring to the second phase group of Brasil, Argentina and Italy. I am sure that if one has one issue of "La Gazzetta" of those days it would be easy to prove that the denomination is much older than stated in the article. Unfortunatley I cannot prove this myself.


Groups of Death in 2006[edit]

This was discussed in Talk:2006 FIFA World Cup, where a consensus was reached that both groups C and E should be mentioned as groups of death in the 2006 cup. While many think that group E has the stronger claim; Wikipedia should bow to press coverage, which has identified both groups E and C as such. --EngineerScotty 20:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed this claim:

However, group C has failed to live up to the title, advancing the Netherlands and Argentina after just four out of six matches. Group E lived up to its billing as a group of death with one of two lower ranked teams advancing.

Which seems to assume that a "Group of Death" is (a) one where nothing is decide till the last matches and (b) one where a UEFA/CONMEBOL team loses out to a "lower" team. That is not any of the interpretations listed earlier in the article. The consensus is that Ivory Coast were unlucky to be in such a tough group and only lost their games narrowly. That said, something general might be said about retropspective withdrawal of "group of death" status. jnestorius(talk) 13:38, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merge[edit]

I've merged to this article from the Group of Death article. Apologies if I've trodden on any toes in my editing... happy to be put right. It was interesting to see how much material existed on each page that wasn't on the other. Hopefully, the composite is a much better article than either of the originals was. --Dweller 09:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Group of Life"[edit]

I'm really, really tempted to delete the "Group of Life" reference, but just because I've never heard of it, doesn't mean it's something made up in school one day. I'm happy to assume good faith but the unpleasant "nonce" reference (now deleted) made me even more suspicious.

I'd appreciate some consensus here before I wade in with my big feet. --Dweller 09:47, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto, I have never heard of the term... perhaps we could remove it until citable evidence of its use can be provided. Budgiekiller 09:51, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would say exactly the same for Group of Sleep. Delete or at most redirect it here. jnestorius(talk) 13:06, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm... of course, I've heard of the Group of Sleep (I started the article) so I'm not sure. I'll start a parallel consensus request on that talk page. --Dweller 13:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And how is "nonce" unpleasant? It reinforces exactly the point you make. jnestorius(talk) 13:08, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - I followed your link and was amazed. Not my understanding at all of what "nonce" means. --Dweller 13:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See the third entry in the nonce article. --Dweller 18:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've fallen foul of the same mistake for the same reasons, Dweller! You're not alone. Budgiekiller 18:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Informal wording[edit]

...or one or more of the 'underdog' teams could prove to be a 'banana skin' for the favourite (or favourites) to proceed.

Could someone rephrase the above sentence with more precise and less informal words? The meaning is not clear to me as a non-native english speaker, and the description is certainly not encyclopedic. Maybe even the whole sentence could be removed, since it doesn't add anything important to the definition. rbonvall 05:15, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll look at it with pleasure. --Dweller 09:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fifa WC 2006[edit]

From Fifa World Rankings, May 2006 (the last set produced before the World Cup).

  • USA- 5th
  • Italy - 13th
  • Czech Republic - 2nd
  • Ghana - 48th

Average (mean) ranking: 17th

  • Serbia and Montenegro - 44th
  • Argentina - 9th
  • Cote D'Ivoire - 32nd
  • Netherlands - 3rd

Average (mean) ranking: 22nd

--Dweller 10:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But the FIFA ranking is plain idiot :-/ Before the world cup, there where 2 north american team in the top five and no African team in the top 20. Basically, the best of a set of weak teams playing against each other will reach a high ranking.

In need of re-write[edit]

I don't know where to begin but how about with the fact that there are 3 groups of death listed for Euro 2004 (out of a possible 4 to boot. I would have expressed displeasure at 3 groups of death being listed in a World Cup tournament which has at least 8 to choose from in recent tournaments, but 3 from 4 is nonsensical). If say Turkey had qualified post their good run in 2002 and been in the draw in say Switzerland's place you could make an argument for that group too, and then what would it be, the "tournament of death"? I also feel that there is undue weight for the explanation of Italy's group as the group of death in the 2006 World Cup (the Argentina, Netherlands group is mentioned as an also-ran). It is irrelevant. This is a phrase that the media has essentially coined once the draws have been made. It is used extensively in the build-up / preview of the tournament. I am sure you can find significantly more references stating that the Argentina, Netherlands group laid claim to the group of death (press releases post drawing of lots). Please do not use FIFA Rankings to justify the Italy group as the real group of death unless you seriously believe that the United States had a greater chance of winning the tournament than Argentina and even Italy who went on to win for that matter, the FIFA rankings are derided extensively in the media. I'm sure if someone looked hard enough they could find bookie odds pre tournament draw and see where the US, Italy and Argentina stacked up on there. Also note how tight the groups were once the games had concluded have no relevance in my mind as there are tons of examples of "group of death" being used post-draw and pre-tournament but I have not seen it appleid retroactively in any context - as in this group should have been billed the group of death or said group turned out to be the group of death (so unless you can find a reference for which the above examples pertain I have issue with using the result to justify the group of death billing). This all leads to the biggest problem of all in this article. Perhaps you can make the case for multiple groups of death but this is a term coined by the media and hence any group cannot be one without at least one media source citing it as such and yet I cannot find any for the above controversial claims. I admit I am complaining alot and will be willing to help find references but am looking for acknowledgment first that the above problems do exist and are valid.

On further reading I also have issues with the intro. I have rarely if ever heard the term group of death applied to a group where the teams in the group where equally weak (as in all memebers were among the weakest in out of the pool and hence equally balanced) so I don't understand how the equal skill fits in the definition. I think specifically it deals with situations where you have expectations for certain teams to progress pre-drawing of lots and post-drawing a scenario has occurred where your expectations can't be realized becuase pairings have led to the inevitable death of one your expectatoins. Also once again I have not seen it used when a weaker team players better than expected. I am not debating that they have never been used in this context but are there references to back up such claims? 71.194.89.197 22:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had always assumed that a group of death was one in which three of the teams were top-class, with the fourth an underdog that was expected to lose badly in a clash of the titans (e.g. a group with Italy, Germany, Brazil, and the USA would be a Group of Death for the USA). But I agree that the article is very poor; the second half could easily be cut in its entirety. There only needs to be one or two classic examples from the history of football. As it stands, the examples are unsourced and all over the place. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 18:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, this article seems to be full of examples of personal opinions of what would have been a difficult group, often with no explanation backing up why. I could go through the list and say why I don't think it's a group of death, but that's almost as bad the other way.

Also, as you say, the term means to me an inevitable premature departure of a fancied team because of the way the groupings were drawn. I have never heard it used for weaker groups, such as the Greeks got in the World Cup qualifying, and also never when a strongers underperforms to such a degree that it gets knocked out prematurely by underdog, which to me appears the Spanish 1998 situation. The only group I can remember hearing given the term "Group of Death" in Euro 2004 was the Dutch, the German's and the Czech's, all teams which were expected to get past the first round. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryan86 (talk • contribs) 00:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Other tournments need to be mentioned too[edit]

I mean tournments like Copa America or African cup of nations need to be mentioned in this article, two examples for a Group of Death happened in the African Cup of Nations in 2006 when Egypt,Ivory Coast and Morrocco were placed in the same group along with Libya and that was Group A, also in Group D Ghana was with Senegal and Nigeria while Zimbabwe were the underdogs. I think these two exapmles need mentioning in this article. User:Miroa12004 (talk) 08:37, 1st of May 2009 —Preceding undated comment added 17:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Rewritten[edit]

I was hoping to have my rewrite in place in time for the 2010 World Cup draw; missed it by a couple of hours. Anyway, it's done. I don't see the point in listing the full group standings for any group. There may be some argument for mentioning how the teams "escaping the group of death" fared in later rounds, but I don't see much evidence that anybody takes this into account. jnestorius(talk) 20:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, FIFA's recent article Who's afraid of the Group of Death? seems to draw heavily on the previous version of this Wikipedia article; compare the World Cup tables listed in this version with FIFA's bold assertion "Of the ten sections which are generally accepted as the most difficult over the last 50 years, Argentina have featured on no less than five occasions." If only one could add a {{cn}} tag to FIFA webpages! jnestorius(talk) 23:43, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction[edit]

Hi Jnestorius, your latest changes to the group of death article leave uncited claims that a "group of death" must be a preliminary round in a tournament. The current citations don't specify which rounds can qualify as having groups of death. The definition of a group of death also sounds particularly imprecise as its discussion of the number of strong teams only specifies that the number of strong teams must be more than the number of places in the next round. In the case where 20 teams were in a group and there were 10 spots in the next round, your definition would dicate that 11 strong teams in the group would transform it into a group of death, whereas the examples would indicate that 14 or so teams would be required to earn that title. Owen214 (talk) 03:30, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • On reflection, I concede that "preliminary" is the wrong word. The intended point was that a final group can't be a "group of death" no matter how strong the teams are. In this sense any round other than the final is "preliminary", but it's usual for "preliminary round" to refer to the first round (or even the round before the "first round") so the word "preliminary" is misleading as used in the intro. I do think it's more common for "group of death" to be applied to earlier rounds when there are lots of groups; though as the article states, the label has been applied in cases where there are only two (semi-final) groups.
  • As to the precision of the definition, I can't agree with your point. As the article elaborates, there is no formal agreed definition of "group of death", so any attempt at precision in the intro would be misleading or downright incorrect. Your example of 20 teams with 10 to qualify is highly unrealistic as regards soccer. I'm not sure if you had any sport or game in mind for that example; if it was purely theoretical then I think it's not worth worrying about. jnestorius(talk) 20:09, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Outcomes and irrelevant details[edit]

A few times now I've removed sentences explaining the outcome of a particular group of death; in most cases, this is simply not relevant to the point being made. As the article states, the label is normally applied in advance of the tournament rather than in retrospect; it doesn't matter how it turns out. Where a group is named to illustrate a particular point, giving more detail about the group (including the results/standings) may be irrelevant to the point that is being made. Extra detail therefore obscures the point. If a reader wants the details, they can click the link to the article on the group in question. jnestorius(talk) 08:17, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Citation overdose[edit]

Do we really need fourteen citations for the claim that Group E in the 1994 World Cup was a Group of Death? Shouldn't one or two be sufficient? 108.254.160.23 (talk) 21:06, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fourteen citations is indeed too many for one fact. A general problem is that a reference to a newspaper article in which Jim Pundit states "Group X is the Group of Death" is only valid for Wikipedia for the statement 'Jim Pundit called Group X the Group of Death'; two similar such citations might allow Wikipedia to say 'some people called Group X the Group of Death'. For most groups in most tournaments, you could probably Google at least one pundit somewhere who called it the Group of Death, which ends up proving nothing. Ideally we need meta-citations, ie citations saying "everyone/lots of people are calling Group E the Group of Death", or "most people are calling Group X the Group of Death but some people thing it's Group Y". In other words, it should be the external reliable source that is doing the analysis; for Wikipedia to do it violates WP:SYNTH. jnestorius(talk) 12:28, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Merge Group of sleep[edit]

Group of life was merged some time ago; group of sleep is even less common. jnestorius(talk) 17:06, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done. jnestorius(talk) 20:41, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Groups of death in WC 2018[edit]

Wasn't Group D considered a group of death in the 2018 FIFA World Cup? NutteLarsson59 (talk) 20:41, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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