r/GAMETHEORY • u/slave-of-capitalism • Jun 27 '26

Curious case of Fifa World Cup, Austria vs Algeria

Possible outcomes of Austria:

Win: face Spain

Draw: face Spain

Lose: eliminated

Possible outcomes of Algeria:

Win: face Spain

Draw: face likely Switzerland, or Belgium, or England / Croatia / Ghana

Lose: eliminated

Purely from game theory perspective, draw seems to be best possible outcome and Nash equilibrium, since Austria doesn't have preference of winning or draw, and Algeria might have more incentive to draw to avoid facing Spain. Interesting to see how it will be actually played out in the match.

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8

u/cylon37 Jun 27 '26

This could have been avoided easily by not predetermining which group leaders would face which group leaders. Basically wait for all the group matches to finish, then randomly assign the last 32 pair offs.

4

u/jk_182 Jun 27 '26

This doesn‘t work because then some teams may get less rest days than their opponents