Sophie's triple rockets her last-to-third; the bonuses double

What a turnaround for Sophie. In a single day her Portugal thumped Nichola’s Uzbekistan 5-0, her Croatia beat Tega’s Panama 1-0, and her Algeria saw off Emily’s Jordan 2-1 - three wins, nine points, and a leap from rock bottom all the way to third. She beat three different players’ teams in an afternoon.

At the top, Richard’s Ghana held Henry’s England to a 0-0 draw - a tier-6 minnow taking a point off a tier-1 anchor - nudging Richard to 26 and leaving Henry adrift at the foot of the table.

The standings: Richard 26, Pete 17, Sophie 16, then Tega and Ella on 15, Emily and Nichola on 14, and Henry 10.

New: the knockout bonuses now double each round

The progression bonuses have been rebuilt to reward going deep. A team now keeps 5 for qualifying, 10 for the last 16, 20 for the quarter-final, 40 for the semi, 80 for the final and 160 for lifting the cup - each round worth about as much as the entire run up to it. Group points are kept (nobody resets to zero), but the knockouts now dwarf them: one team reaching the semis is worth more than the whole current spread of the table. In short, the group stage is your head-start; the knockouts decide it. The winner’s owner is now expected to top the table about 99.7% of the time.

Odds watch

The new scoring re-based the market, and in a way that tightens the race: because the title now dwarfs group points, each player’s chance of winning the sweepstake tracks their strongest team’s title odds rather than their league position. Richard’s big group lead counts for far less, so he eases back to roughly 3.7 (27%) - still favourite (Argentina, 24% for the cup), but Ella closes right up to ~4.4 (23%) on the strength of Spain, with Nichola ~6.8 (15%) behind France. The neat illustration: Sophie has surged to third on the table, yet sits seventh in the betting (~18) - her teams banked points, but none are title contenders, which is exactly what the new ladder is meant to capture.