Group C at the World Cup has been chaos from start to finish, beginning with a Saudi Arabia upset over Argentina and now nearly ending with Poland advancing over Mexico thanks to the seldom-used fair-play system.
Previous group leader Poland ended up advancing in the tournament after a 2–0 loss to Argentina, edging Mexico on goal differential despite El Tri’s 2–1 win over Saudi Arabia. But up until Saudi Arabia’s stoppage-time goal, with gave Poland an edge on GD (0 to -1), the tiebreaker situation was going to be significantly more outrageous.
Had El Tri won 2–0, they would have tied Poland in points (4), goal differential (0) and goals scored (2), and all other tiebreaker rules would have been exhausted as well. Since Poland and Mexico would have been deadlocked in all criteria, the two squads would have been sent into rarely charted territory: effectively having their World Cup fate come down to discipline points for yellow and red cards.
