What if the World Cup was played like the F.A. Cup? – Round 1

I’m not sure if you read the article I posted last week on the back of FIFA proposing to expand the World Cup to 40 teams. Well that led me to have a brainwave and ask the question “What if the World Cup was played like the F.A. Cup? ”

The full article and 1st Round Draw can be found here

http://realfootballman.com/2015/12/03/what-if-the-world-cup-was-played-like-the-f-a-cup/

But at the end of article I said if I can find a way to simulate the matches then I would complete the tournament, the good news is I have!

I have used this sequence generator to do the draw https://www.random.org/sequences/

And this score generator for the results http://otj.awardspace.co.uk/match.php

Now the score generator is completely at random so it has no idea if Brazil or Belize are playing but surely is half the fun. That means we’ll be able to find out (unscientifically) who would win the World Cup if it was played like the F.A. Cup

For Round 1 the top 47 ranked FIFA nations have got a bye to the 2nd round, giving us 81 ties that those winners will then progress to the 2nd Round and meet the big guns. The draw has already done in the first link above, so without further ado here are the first round results (penalties in brackets)

		1ST	ROUND	RESULTS
59	Angola	2	vs	0	136	Chinese Taipei
98	Barbados	2	vs	1	162	Tonga
91	South Sudan	0	vs	1	146	Vanuatu
69	Mauritania	2	vs	0	97	St Lucia
48	Botswana	1	vs	2	158	Bahamas
143	Tahiti	0	vs	2	77	Bahrain
67	Chad	0 (3)	vs	(4) 0	10	Australia
145	Nepal	1	vs	2	62	Malawi
14	Slovenia	3	vs	0	60	Liberia
128	Mauritis	2	vs	1	133	Cambodia
135	Bangladesh	0 (4)	vs	(2) 0	153	Solomon Islands
64	Mozambique	1	vs	0	19	Nigeria
32	Cyprus	0	vs	1	13	Congo DR
86	Thailand	1	vs	2	70	Azerbaijan
124	Timor-Leste	0	vs	2	8	Jamaica
132	Indonesia	1	vs	2	52	El Salvador
111	Myanmar	2	vs	1	2	Trinidad & Tobago
43	Iraq	2	vs	0	134	New Caledonia
82	Kazakhstan	1	vs	0	20	Belarus
35	Antigua	0	vs	1	36	Venezuela
39	Qatar	0	vs	1	29	Gabon
99	Guinea-Bissau	3	vs	2	157	Anguilla
109	Sao Tome e Principe	0	vs	1	101	Tajikstan
79	Lithuania	2	vs	0	90	Hong Kong
83	Namibia	0	vs	2	116	Grenada
17	Panama	0	vs	4	74	St Kitts & Nevis
31	Benin	3	vs	1	147	Sri Lanka
44	Cuba	0	vs	1	96	St Vincent
141	Bhutan	1 (2)	vs	(4) 1	140	Monserrat
100	Vietnam	1 (4)	vs	(2) 1	9	Serbia
40	Jordan	0	vs	1	4	South Korea
46	Estonia	0	vs	1	155	Andorra
150	Turks & Caicos	0	vs	2	108	Moldova
102	Singapore	2	vs	1	115	Malta
7	Norway	1	vs	0	88	Palestine
126	Puerto Rico	1	vs	4	22	Israel
53	Niger	1	vs	0	87	Sudan
6	Japan	1	vs	0	78	Syria
42	Burkina Faso	2	vs	1	45	Nicaragua
152	British Virgin Islands	0	vs	1	37	China
142	Seychelles	3	vs	1	71	Sierra Leone
131	Laos	0	vs	1	25	South Africa
156	Papua New Guinea	1	vs	3	151	San Marino
55	Latvia	2	vs	1	50	Faroe Islands
56	Honduras	1	vs	0	5	Scotland
12	Cameroon	0	vs	2	160	Somalia
73	Ethopia	2	vs	1	122	Samoa
125	Comoros	0	vs	1	24	Bulgaria
161	Eritrea	1	vs	3	113	Maldives
58	North Korea	1 (2)	vs	(4) 1	94	Lebanon
121	American Samoa	2	vs	0	107	Dominican Republic
103	Afghanistan	2	vs	0	92	Kuwait
15	Mali	0	vs	1	30	Haiti
33	Saudi Arabia	1	vs	0	41	Canada
72	Turkmenistan	3	vs	2	159	Dijibouti
139	Fiji	2	vs	0	118	Liechtenstein
66	Central African Republic	1 (4)	vs	(2) 1	138	Brunei
68	Aruba	1	vs	0	3	Guinea
57	Oman	0	vs	2	76	Armenia
149	Cayman Islands	0	vs	2	81	Madagascar
26	Zambia	1	vs	2	84	Swaziland
89	Macedonia	1 (3)	vs	(4) 1	34	Libya
1	Congo	0 (4)	vs	(2) 0	63	Zimbabwe
49	Togo	1	vs	2	112	Bermuda
105	New Zealand	2 (4)	vs	(5) 2	127	Yemen
23	Equitorial Guinea	0 (4)	vs	(5) 0	110	Guam
27	Uzbekistan	1	vs	0	93	Philippines
104	Curacao	1	vs	0	144	Suriname
123	Malaysia	2	vs	4	95	Luxembourg
129	Dominica	0 (3)	vs	(2) 0	18	U.A.E
85	Tanzania	0 (4)	vs	(5) 0	28	Morocco
114	Guyana	3	vs	4	154	Mongolia
65	Burundi	2	vs	1	54	Rwanda
38	Montenegro	1	vs	2	75	Georgia
61	Krygyztan	0	vs	1	47	Guatemala
16	Uganda	1 (5)	vs	(4) 1	137	Pakistan
21	Bolivia	1 (2)	vs	(4) 1	148	Macau
119	India	0	vs	1	120	Cook Islands
11	Egypt	1	vs	0	117	Gambia
51	Kenya	1	vs	2	80	Belize
106	Lesotho	1	vs	0	130	US Virgin Islands

So more tournament misery for Scotland as they crash out at the first round with defeat to Honduras, Serbia have also slipped up while South Korea are safely through.

Drama in India as the Cook Islands progress to Round 2 and the game of the round has to be Mongolia’s 7 goal thriller in Guyana.

So the first round is in the books, what will the 2nd round draw bring up when the big nations join proceedings. Stay tuned to find out as we find out who would win an F.A. Cup style World Cup.