Friday 8 June 2012

European Championship Football

A while back at a Dutch championship we had a round inspired by the World Football Championship that had started that weekend, so I've written a few puzzles using the teams in each group. They're not very hard. One of them is a simple score deduction puzzle. The standings are purely fictional, nothing intended. The second is a logic puzzle, which includes the game scores. I hope you like my awesome drawing. The third is a path puzzle using the country names. The fourth is a Four Snails puzzle using the country names.

Group A: Final standings

Part of the final standings of group A are given. Fill out the rest and deduce the match results. For those not knowledgable of football, a win gives you 3 points, a tie gives you 1 point, a loss gives you 0 points.
G = Matches played, W = Matches won, T = Matches tied, L = Matches lost, P = points score, GF = Goals scored, GA = Goals conceded.


Click to enlarge
Group B: Logiquiz

Sunday 17th of June, 20:45. A Dutchman, German, Portugese and Dane have come together to watch their group's final matches. They're each wearing their countries shirt with a different number. They also brought another item to dress themselves up. Figure out who sat where, what number they had and what item they brought.
All clues are given in chronological order.


Click to enlarge

Group C: Country path

Draw a path from the first letter to the last letter of each country in order. The path doesn't rouch or cross itself. Different paths can't touch or cross eachother, except in a cell with a letter. If two paths both go through a cell with a letter they have to both go straight through it.


Click to enlarge
Group D: Four Snails

Write all countries in one of the four spirals. Write the letters in order from the opening inwards. No letter may repeat in any row or column.



11 comments:

  1. For B, how long is each half, and how long is halftime? Also, there are some grammar errors in the graphic and intro text.

    For D, the lower-right corner is ambiguous.

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    1. I'll rewrite B a bit. Halves are 45 minutes each. I don't think the length of halftime is relevant, but it's set at 15 minutes. I also realise I forgot to add that events were in chronological order.

      I've rechecked D a few times now, and I can't find the ambiguity. which letters can't you place uniquely?

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    2. Nothing wrong in D. I guess I was just tired and missed how France helped.

      Delete
  2. I like how several puzzles are linked in such a thematic way. Expect me to copy your idea someday :)

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  3. I have many doubts regarding the Group B puzzle:

    1. Is "facepaint" considered an "item"?

    2. > The man in the leftmost seat is cherishing the tie.
    In here does "tie" mean "draw" or "a business tie worn with a business shirt"? I know the fans are wearing their countries' football jersey ("shirt") but that doesn't rule out any of them carrying a business tie with them, which can be considered an "item to dress themselves up".

    3. > Their match has now had as many goals as their shirt #.
    Who are "their" here referring to, and with "their shirt #", does it mean the total sum of shirt # from two or more fans?

    4. Can we safely assume all 4 fans are male? (I presume "Dutchman" implies a Dutch male, but the "German" could be a female.) I know I can probably deduce this piece of information provided points 1-3 above are all clarified.

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    1. 1. Well I wrote this in Dutch and had some trouble formulating the idea in english and couldn't find a better word than item. So yeah, it's considered an item here. I meant it as an extra way to express their loyalty to their country.

      2. Yeah, it's a tie in the match, not one that is worn.

      3. It's badly formulated. There's a few things I translated badly from Dutch to English. I was a bit hasty translating. I should have taken a bit more time.
      His shirt# is equal to the amount of goals scored by both teams in the match of the country.

      4. Yeah, they're all male.

      I will rewrite it later, when I'm less tired as it would only lead to more bad English.

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    2. 4. For my own education. Does English have a way to differentiate between male and female anyway? I always though Dutchman was gender neutral as Dutchwoman isn't a word. Or is there another gender neautral way to indicate a Dutch person in a single word?

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    3. I think "Dutch" is good enough to refer to any person from the Netherlands. In fact to me "Dutchman" sounds a touch offensive, sort of like "Chinaman" etc.

      For me an adjective referring to what belongs to a country (e.g. Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese) should be applicable to describe both the people of that country as well as the language they use. Why make "Dutch" a special case?

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  4. Also thanks for the clarifications, but still some more ambiguities:

    5. > When the Dane cheers next, the time on the clock is the square of his shirt #.

    Here should we assume the Dane cheered because his team just scored a goal? Because he could cheer for something else (e.g. penalty saved).

    6. > He notices the time is a plural of his shirt #.

    Here I suppose "plural" means "plural multiple", i.e. the number multiplied by an integer larger than 1?

    7. I know that that in FIFA international matches each national team must have player shirt #s from 1 to 23 inclusive. So I suppose all 4 fans here also wear shirt #s within this range? (There might also be shirt #s outside this range for legendary players/coaches etc.)

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    1. PS: Too bad the actual Group B results didn't bode that well for the Dutch team. I wonder how different are they from the scenario of the Group B puzzle here (I might find out when I eventually solve the puzzle)...

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  5. Dear Para,

    Been almost a year now. Just would dug this one up from old archives and decided to give it another go. This time I solved it but have some doubts. Mainly because the German has 2 possible shirt numbers. Can you please have a look at my answer and tell me if I'm correct or not?

    Country: Denmark Portugal Germany Netherlands
    Shirt #: 5 3 2/19 7
    Item: flag facepaint wig hat

    The German number can be 2 or 19 because when he celebrated his country's first goal it was the 5^2+13 = 38 minutes, which is a "plural" of 2 & 19, both valid shirt numbers.

    Hope you still have the answer in record.

    Anony

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