World Cup Team of the Tournament - Group Stage
When I graded each match in the 2014 World Cup, I used a weird, self-developed metric of pluses and minuses. While it worked, and I'm still happy with the results to this day, I thought I should make the grading metric a lot more straight forward (and, in turn, much easier to both analyse and understand). Then I thought back to the last thing I graded on a game-to-game basis: the Green Bay Packers. And what did I do for that? A normal, school-like GPA grading scale:
A+: 4.5; A: 4; A-: 3.67; B+: 3.33; B: 3; B-: 2.67; C+: 2.33; C: 2; C-: 1.67; D+: 1.33; D: 1; D-: 0.5; and F: 0
Anyone that simply passed high school in the U.S. can understand this grading scale. I reward near-perfect performance with an extra .22; hence the 4.5 for an A+, and I penalized a near-failure by taking away an extra .167, so a 0.5 for a D-. Easy, right? Now with that explained, let's get right into the World Cup Team of the Tournament:
FIRST TEAM
GK: Guillermo Ochoa - Mexico, 32, Standard Liege (Belgium) - 3.95 GPA
LB: Aleksandar Kolarov - Serbia, 32, Roma (Italy) - 3.22 GPA
CB: Yerry Mina - Colombia, 23, Barcelona (Spain) - 3.67 GPA
CB: Andreas Granqvist - Sweden, 33, Krasnodar (Russia) - 3.56 GPA
RB: Kieran Trippier - England, 27, Tottenham (England) - 3.5 GPA
MF: Carlos Sanchez - Uruguay, 33, Monterrey (Mexico) - 3.67 GPA
MF: Luka Modric - Croatia, 32, Real Madrid (Spain) - 3.64 GPA
MF: Keisuke Honda - Japan, 32, Pachuca (Mexico) - 3.5 GPA
FW: Harry Kane - England, 24, Tottenham (England) - 4.5 GPA
FW: Romelu Lukaku - Belgium, Manchester United (England) - 4.5 GPA
FW: Eden Hazard - Belgium, 27, Chelsea (England) - 4.08 GPA
SECOND TEAM:
GK: Kasper Schmeichel - Denmark, 31, Leicester (England) - 3.56 GPA
LB: Ludwig Augustinsson - Sweden, 24, Werder Bremen (Germany) - 3 GPA
CB: Jose Maria Gimenez - Uruguay, 23, Atletico Madrid (Spain) - 3.42 GPA
CB: John Stones - England, 24, Manchester City (England) - 3.28 GPA
RB: Birkir Saevarsson - Iceland, 33, Valur (Iceland) - 3.11 GPA
MF: Philippe Coutinho - Brazil, 26, Barcelona (Spain) - 3.45 GPA
MF: Aleksandr Golovin - Russia, 22, CSKA Moscow (Russia) - 3.33 GPA
MF: Juan Quintero - Colombia, 25, Porto (Portugal) - 3.33 GPA
FW: Diego Costa - Spain, 29, Atletico Madrid (Spain) - 3.82 GPA
FW: Denis Cheryshev - Russia, 27, Villarreal (Spain) - 3.7 GPA
FW: Dries Mertens - Belgium, Napoli (Italy) - 3.64 GPA
THIRD TEAM:
GK: Robin Olsen - Sweden, 28, Copenhagen (Denmark) - 3.5 GPA
LB: Lucas Hernandez - France, 22, Atletico Madrid (Spain) - 2.89 GPA
CB: Diego Godin - Uruguay, 32, Atletico Madrid (Spain) - 3.11 GPA
CB: Marcos Rojo - Argentina, 28, Manchester United (England) - 3.17 GPA
RB: Dani Carvajal - Spain, 26, Real Madrid - 3 GPA
MF: Ivan Rakitic - Croatia, 30, Barcelona (Spain) - 3.28 GPA
MF: Andres Iniesta - Spain, 34, Vissel Kobe (Japan) - 3.22 GPA
MF: Paul Pogba - France, 25, Manchester United (England) - 3.17 GPA
FW: Neymar - Brazil, 26, Paris SG (France) - 3.56 GPA
FW: Xherdan Shaqiri - Switzerland, 26, Stoke (England) - 3.5 GPA
FW: Wahbi Khazri - Tunisia, 27, Sunderland (England) - 3.5 GPA
HONORABLE MENTION (only including players with more matches to play):
David Ospina, GK, Colombia
Yuto Nagatomo, LB, Japan
Simon Kjaer, CB, Denmark
Carlos Salcedo, CB, Mexico
Mario Fernandes, RB, Russia
Kevin De Bruyne, AM, Belgium
Jesse Lingard, AM, England
Isco, AM, Spain
Cristiano Ronaldo, ST, Portugal
Carlos Vela, CF, Mexico
Takashi Inui, LW, Japan
