uh no they didn't...and its harder for the minnows to go through in this one than the past ones...because they have to beat at least one test side and one side similar to its own...and even then it wouldn't have happened if the "stronger" sides won its other matches...so if a "strong" side was strong it would lose to the minnows anyway and so its still the stronger sides out of the groups that went to the second round... and even then if you still going to call it minnow games then this world cup will have 24 minnows altogether where as the last one had 36 minnow games in the group stage alone.
Must be the heat, but all that just went over my head
The way I see it, in a best case scenario (from a minnow point of view), all they have to do to qualify for the next round is to win 2 games - 1 vs fellow minnow, and 1 vs strong team.
In the 2003 World Cup, again considering a best case scenario for the minnows, for a minnow to qualify, they would have needed to win at least 3 out of their 6 group games - 2 vs fellow minnows and 1 vs strong team.
Obviously it is easier to upset 1 strong team and beat 1 fellow minnow than to upset 1 strong team and beat 2 fellow minnows.
If you consider the worst case scenario for the minnow team, they would need to beat all 3 teams in their group in the present format to be sure of qualifying for the next round. ie 1 win vs fellow minnow and 2 upsets vs strong teams.
In the 2003 format, in a worst case scenario for the minnows, they would need to win 4-5 games out of 6 to be completely sure of qualifying for the next round.
Once again, the present format proves to be a surer bet for the minnows to make it to the next round.