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December 5th, 2009
08:36 am - World Cup
 hoyland54 posts about the World Cup Draw, which happened yesterday evening (previously on communicator: The World Cup occurs every four years and I get over-excited). The World Cup in 2010 is to be held in South Africa.
The qualifying teams are put into eight groups, which all play each other in a league style. The two top teams in each league go onto to the 16-team play-off round, which then operates as a knock out tournament to the final.
Here are the groups. I have bolded the teams I think are likely to head their groups, and italicised the ones that I think will come second. In some groups I think there is no clear second.
Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic, Greece
Group C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia
Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana,
Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon
Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia
Group G: Brazil, Korea DPR, Côte d'Ivoire, Portugal
Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile
I think England are lucky in this draw (for a change). We should be able to beat all three teams in our group, but that doesn't mean we will, because England always fuck up. England will play the USA on the 12th June. I have a horrible feeling that we might lose, just because that would be so galling, and England do that to me every time. I think we might lose that symbolic match but win the group.
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We're pleased to just be there, but I know Italy and Paraguay will trash us.
We're very like England. Look at our current cricket test. Oy.
Maybe I should put Vila in an Aston Villa scarf for a sports icon. ;-) I must say football is probably your third best sport, which isn't bad given that you are world class in two others. (Plus rich bastard yachting which I don't--and won't--follow.) We don't do badly for our size, but we can disappoint horribly, as we did on Friday in cricket. I wouldn't say it. If you come second in your group, and we win ours, I think we play you in the 16-team knock out. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/65053768/1071362) | | From: | nwhyte |
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| Date: | December 5th, 2009 09:18 am (UTC) |
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Nate Silver has been doing some fantastic statistical analysis on this. He rates Uruguay ahead of France, Cameroon ahead of Denmark and Côte d'Ivoire (just) ahead of Portugal, but otherwise agrees with you (esp on the difficulty of choosing a runner-up in Group D). It is entertaining that he rates all the teams in Group F as lucky to have been drawn against each other! Yes, he may be right that the supportive African crowds will give Cote D'Ivoire and Cameroon a big boost - I mean they are good teams anyway. I'm glad our first African opponents will be Algeria. My pick:
Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic, Greece
Group C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia
Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana,
Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon
Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia
Group G: Brazil, Korea DPR, Côte d'Ivoire, Portugal
Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile
You don't rate the Netherlands at all these days? They haven't done a lot lately, and I just don't think they are good enough at the moment I was just going to say that I fancy ROK's chances more than Nigeria's. :) It will be very interesting, because they play so differently. I always rate Nigeria highly though, and they don't always live up to my expectations. |
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