Discussion

Explanation:

Instead of calculating the minimum number of wins required to guarantee qualification to the next round, let us focus on maximum numbers of wins despite a team can be eliminated.

Total number of matches in a pool = ⁸C₂ = 28 matches.

Now, 4 teams will qualify for next round and the 5th team despite wining a lot of matches would get disqualified.

The bottom 3 teams will play 3 matches.
∴ The top 5 teams will play a total of 28 - 3 = 25 matches i.e., they can win a maximum of 25 matches.

Now to maximise the number of matches team 5 wins, we will distribute these 25 wins equally amongst all 5 teams. Now there are 5 teams with 5 wins each. Since only 4 teams can qualify there will be one team that would get disqualified.

Hence, even after winning 5 matches a team can get disqualified.

∴ To gurantee qualification to next round a team will have to win at least 6 matches.

[Note: A team may be able to qualify even with less than 6 wins, but that would not be a guaranteed qualification.]

Hence, 6.

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