The Official World Cup Thread (no.1)

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Don't worry. Only with luck we will make it to the quarterfinals. There is simply not enough potential. One Michael Ballack is not enough.

 

Ey, don't get depressed beforehand. The only unbeatable team we'll get in the round of sixteen is Italy. The other three from group E should be manageable.

 

I'm late to the party eh? I guess me and Barmy will have 85% of all posts like the last World Cup threads.

Czech is hard, but Germany have been shaping up lately and on home advantage they should be able to beat them.

If you meet Italy? Good luck, you'll need it. Italy doesn't loose against the good teams, that's a fact. If we face Poland in the playoff though, my team is going to have a quick ride home.

Maybe, Germany does NOT play bad in World Cups. Other than 94, and to some extent 98, they have been a steady threat to EVERYONE who face them.

 

tsk, everyone's dumping on Germany wonder why, iirc ddin't they come in 2nd only to Brazil the last time?

As I mentioned in another thread: imo, Brazil's going to take it again. I always root for the underdog though

 

Slightly question folks. How exactly do the groups get selected, is it random draw? Secondly, how do you qualify for the tournament? I imagine they have a certain amount of groups, and a certain amount of countries that qualify for the tournament. How does the selection process work?

 

They were drawn out of big bowls, four to be exact. Category A,B,C, and D, depending on which rank on the FIFA list they are. We were ranked B category, only because we failed to qualify for the last worldcup, but we currently are third overall in the FIFA rankings. Those rankings don't make much sense though mind you, the Czechs are in second, but we beat them twice with 2-0 last year, so why they are ranked higher than us is beyond me.

 

The groups are semi-random selection. Their are 4 'pots' with the teams in, and a team is selected from each pot to comprise the group. It's usually a case of Pot A being the best teams, Pot B being the next best, Pot C being the dodgy teams and Pot D being the fodder. But, FIFA being as lame as it is, often a lot of the more dangerous teams come into group B or C, so you get a 'group of death' each time around. Last WC England were in the group of death (Argentina, Sweden, Nigeria).

Qualification is done with groups made up from the teams in your area. Therefore, it's tough for a lot of European teams to qualify, but the USA and Mexico get a free ticket to the WC each time because they play crap like Ecuador in the qualifiers.

 

Yeah, i'm in favour of randomizing the qualifying rounds too, to hell with the current set up. We should be able to play China, Kenia, New Zealand, or whatever nation competes for the WC. It should make up for some interseting matchups. I mean we've played somewhat 125 official matches against Belgium now, and it's getting kinda tiresome really.

 

Ok my predictions are

A - Germany, Poland
B - Engalnd, Sweden
C - Holland, Argentina
D - Mexico, Portugal
E - Czech, Italy
F - Brazil, Croatia
G - France, Switzerland
H - Ukraine, SPain

Second Round
Germany v Sweden
Holland v Portugal
England v Poland
Mexico v Argentina
Italy v Croatia
France v Ukraine
Brazil v Czech
Spain v Switzerland

Quarter-finals
Germany v Holland
Italy v France
England v Argentina
Brazil v Spain

Semi-finals
Holland V France
Brazil V England

Final
Holland V England

Winner
England

 

England winning, beating Argentina, Brazil and Holland along the way...

Looks pretty good to me, mate .

 

Hey if you want to win do it the toughest way possible

 

if you want to have a random pool for qualifying rounds, might as well make it "brazil and agentina vs europe" cup. To be realistic, given the history, leagues and investment in football in europe, there isn't really any space at all for other countries, i.e. african, asian and even aus+nz. If you want to make it World Cup, at least give other parts of the world something to cheer for, or cry for.

 

I completely agree Teekc, that way we can finally get rid of that ridiculous system where the Championsleague starts off with 5 Spanish, 4 Italian and English, and 3 French teams, just to give an example. We need to go back to the setup where a CL seed is a reward for becoming champion of your national league, not ta gathering for the rich and shameless. And away with the "protected seeds" as well, i vote for randomized drawings where Real Madrid can draw AC Milan in the first round, and not just in the semis or something. The group stage is also an ugly beast, i liked it much better when there was a "do or die" set up, two matches, one at home, one away, winner moves on to the next round. In it's current setup, the CL will almost every year have a winner from a small select group of teams, the ones with all the money.

So away with the numers 2,3,4, and even 5 of the big European leagues, and replace them with the Champions of Brazil, argentina, Japan, Ghana, and all other nations where football really matters. A Champions World League so to speak.

 

Okay, my predictions in an organized way:

A - Germany, Poland
B - England, Sweden
C - Argentina, Serbia & Montenegro
D - Portugal, Mexico
E - Italy, Czech
F - Brazil, Japan
G - France, Korea
H - Ukraine, Spain

Second Round
Germany v Sweden
Argentia v Mexico
England v Poland
Portugal v Serbia & Montenegro
Italy v Japan
France v Ukraine
Brazil v Czech
Spain v Korea

Quarter-finals
Germany v Argentina
Italy v Ukraine
England v Portugal
Czech v Spain

Semi-finals
Argentina V Italy
Czech V England

Third Place
Italy v England --> Italy

Final
Argentina V Czech

Winner
Argentina

 

Well, that doesn't seem very fair. For one, it seems only logical that you would want to world's best teams in the competition. Secondly, while it's true that the U.S. is closer to Ecuador than say, Brazil, it's not THAT much closer. That's like claiming that France is a LOT further away from the U.S. compared to England.

 

England in the semis? Must be joking. They're like the Tim Henman of football.

Quiz time: Who will get the red card for England at the worst possible moment?

A) Beckham
B) Rooney
C) Beckham AND Rooney

 

I'm not sure how those qualifying games work, because New Zealand seems to end up having to play teams like Iran and Israel to get through and it would be a bit of stretch to say that they were part of Oceania. Mind you, it was 24 years ago that we last managed to qualify so the rules might have changed since then.

 

@Bion: So true... (please, take no offence, England fans) Same happens with Spain, and after Italia 90, same with Argentina...
...that's why I don't see our team in the finals; as long as Crespo, Veron and all those 'veteran-already-well-payed' players are in the team, we can only dream with the third cup; I mean, we have a lot of young, local-league, very good players to chose from.

I, like people said, would like to see sometime some random pick up teams for the groups.
Pre world cup qualification is ok, I think; in South America, the first 3 teams get into the WC, the fourth, plays against, usualy, Australia to get the chance to get into the WC; Central and North America gets only 2 or 3 teams, I think; but seeing that Europe can have lots more teams it seems that is unfair but you got to see that Europe has lots of more countries. Also, of course you can't have teams that aren't that good of football (I don't know why San Marino even bothers to play qualification rounds because every other team seem to play "who will score more goals to that team, so teams in that group gets an easy win always).
The other thing about draws, is that FIFA always will get very famous teams in the finals, because if not, they lose a lot of money, same happens in other championships like tennis, the seeded players never get to play in the first 2 rounds between them.
So imagine that for some luck case, we get Argentina, Brazil, England and France in one group; 2 of the 'popular teams' will get a ticket to home in just the first week, that's mean less money for the country the event is, less money for television, less money for... everybody.
And nowadays, we know, that money makes the world-cup go round...

 

oh come on, it's the world cup, it comes only once in four years, i don't mind who is playing who, it's world cup! once every FOUR years! For sure there is a price difference between broadcast of group level Arg vs Eng and, say...., group level Cambodia vs Luxemburg, but it is world cup, once every four years. The price difference, i thnk, wouldn't be a whole damn lot.

 

If we european sides play against mostly against european sides we can call it something like the european cup, and that is held also every four years. To play the exotic teams from africa and south america is part of the charm. And those teams are not much worse than the european sides that did not make it. The africa cup is not to be underestimated, as is the americas cup.

Half the countries are european, and that is enough. 1/4 american-pacific, 1/4 african-asian. This sounds good to me. For the weaker countries getting there is the triumph.

Those weaker sides still have one or two talents that can show the world what they can do. That way new talent is also viewed. It also promotes the sport into newly developed soccer-areas to make it even bigger. Sorry, north americans, but "soccer" is bigger than baseball, football, ice hockey and basketball put togheter. It is the national pastime of the world.(Even for a fieldhockey player like me who cannot shoot a football straight)