just been checking history to get an idea of what makes a decent 3rd placed points tally.
i'll go into a bit more detail on this some time in the near future, but here's some quick info.
oddly, in the groups as late as 1990 it was still two points for a win, so i've ignored 1990 and earlier ones.
there have been some rather rum goals for and against numbers,
from 1994 to 2022 there were 62 groups (8 groups 7 times and 6 groups once (1994)) and a similar number of third placed teams.
goal figures ranged from 1-1 to 6-6 to 7-6 to 8-4 to 3-9.
possible points tallies are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. two teams came 3rd with 6 points in 1994 but none since.
so far:
pts
6: 2
4: 25
3: 27
2: 7
1: 1
since 8 of the 12 third place teams go into the knockout stage, it suggests that historically two-thirds of the highest 62 would have sufficient stats. i'll call it 41 of the 62. that'd include all 27 teams with 4 or more points and about half of the teams with 3 points.
of the 27 teams to get 3 points only two have had a positive goal difference.
another 8 have had zero goal difference.
6 more have had a minus one goal difference. so four would have been lucky and two unlucky.
while it appears that 3 points and a -1 goal difference is where the line perhaps should be drawn, i should mention that in 2022 seven of the eight third placed teams ended on four points, but in 2006, only one of the eight teams did.
for reference, these are the number of third placed teams on 6,4,3,2,1 points for each tournament:
2022,0,7,1,0,0
2018,0,2,6,0,0
2014,0,2,5,1,0
2010,0,5,3,0,0
2006,0,1,4,2,1
2002,0,4,3,1,0
1998,0,2,4,2,0
1994,2,2,1,1,0
anyone that can be bothered can turn that into a .csv file for whatever vile purposes might amuse you.
1994-2020,2,25,27,6,1
anyway, hope that all adds up. i might get round to summarising goal stats for each points tally in the next few days.