Notes
This tournament served as a pre-World Cup
1998 warm-up for the participating teams. The matches were played one after the other as doubleheaders.
England did not play France and Morocco did not
play Belgium.
Because each team played only two of the
other three teams, special rules were adopted to ensure there would be a winning team in
the tournament. Playing extra-time was ruled out;
the participating teams were two weeks away from the World Cup final tournament
in France, and in any event, it was too hot for extra-time in Morocco. One Reuters story aptly characterized
the tournament rules as "an idiosyncratic points-scoring system." As usual, three points were awarded for a win and one point for a draw. But
Belgium were awarded an extra tournament point in the draw with England for winning a
penalty kicks contest, 4-3, conducted at the end of regulation time. Similarly, Morocco
won an extra tournament point in the draw against France by winning a penalty kicks
contest, 6-5, at the end of 90 minutes of play. The penalty kick goals were included in
the goals for and goals against columns in the tournament table for purpose of breaking
deadlocks in the team standings. France were placed over England and won the tournament by
virtue of scoring a greater number of goals. Morocco were also placed above Belgium on the
basis of the goals figures.
Most of the traditional European football
sources ignored these special tournament rules in reporting the tournament table. Our
table was taken from the Morocco Sports Online website. Morocco staged the tournament, and
the Moroccans surely know best how the tournament was scored.
In any event, as
it turned out, the team standings would have been the same even had they
been determined by the usual method without resort to the penalty kicks
tie-breakers, per the table below.
|
Coupe Internationale Hassan II de Football
-
Final
Placings |
|
Team |
P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
GD |
Pts
|
|
France |
2 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
2 |
+1 |
4 |
|
England |
2 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
+1 |
4 |
|
Morocco |
2 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
-1 |
1 |
|
Belgium |
2 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
-1 |
1 |
Sources
Agence France Presse reports
Associated Press reports
Hoddle, Glenn with David Davies, Glenn
Hoddle: My 1998 World Cup Story, pp. 68-89 (Andre Deutsch, London, 1998)
London Daily Mail reports
London Daily Telegraph and London Sunday
Telegraph reports
London Times and London Sunday Times reports
Morocco Sports Online
Palmer, Mark, Lost in France: The Story
of England’s 1998 World Cup, pp. 91-96 (Fourth Estate Limited, London, 1998)
Press Association reports
Reuters reports
World Soccer, August, 1998, p.
74
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PY/CG
England
Football Online
