A group stage (also known as pool play or the pool stage) is the round-robin stage of many sporting championships, particularly a sports' World Cup. The name implies that there is also a knock out stage to follow. For example in both the FIFA World Cup and Rugby World Cup the teams are split into groups (also known as pools) where they play each team in their group once under a round robin system. Points are earned during group play in order to rank the teams within a group. The top ranked teams (often the top two) from each group then proceed to the tournament's knock out phase. From there the tournament continues under a knock out system until the winner is found.
Read more about Group Stage: Association Football
Famous quotes containing the words group and/or stage:
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Boredom is not an end-product, is comparatively rather an early stage in life and art. You’ve got to go by or past or through boredom, as through a filter, before the clear product emerges.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)