Foo - The 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany Thread

I know it doesn't start for another 8 months (to the day), but I couldn't contain my excitement any longer. The next 2 months are going to be great with the European playoffs, the CONCACAF/Asia playoff, the Australia/South America playoff, and then the tournament draw in December.

Who else can't wait for June?

(Also, with London getting the 2012 Olympics, what do you think England's chances of getting the 2014 World Cup are?)

Just loving the fact that the boys of Sam's Army punched their ticket to the finals early, did it against Mexico, and in front of a raucous crowd in Columbus!

The Mundial is always a dramatic four weeks..... who will be the darlings next summer??

I'm getting all giddy.... When they played the finals in Pasadena in 1994, my buddy and I went straight to Old Town Pasadena where the Brazilian fans had a night-long street party. Brazil looks really strong again.

Mmmm, World Cup. Less than 8 months now and I will be in Nuremberg getting rowdy with the locals.

I heard that ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC are showing each of the 63 games (and they won't be played at 3am....not that I wouldn't watch them if they were played then).

Thank goodness! I hate how they normally refuse to show football games (I love Telemundo though), electing instead to show poker!!! Screw "the ocho."

I can't believe Ecuador qualified. i was in Quito some time ago during the South American qualifiers when they were playing with Venezuela. God, you could taste the excitement at the stadium...
Anyway, I'm hoping for an intriguing and fun championship. Euro 2004 was kind of disappointing, the final included.

England have been building some nice new stadiums ie wembley and highbugy, they might have a chance of getting the world cup...i hope.

Well, all of the playoffs are set. Spain-Slovakia, Switzerland-Turkey, Norway-Czech Republic, Uruguay-Australia, and my favorite, Trindad & Tobago-Bahrain. I'm thinking that Spain, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Uruguay and Bahrain (yes, that country with less than 700,000 people and 256 square miles of land) will qualify for Germany.

Holland and Brazil in the Finals. But the US has the potential to be the spoiler

THE PLAYOFFS ARE HERE! Today is great. 5 World Cup playoff matches, a US/Scotland friendly (I'm a quarter Scottish, so I'm hoping that Scotland will at least manage a draw today), an England/Argentina friendly, a Holland/Italy friendly, a France/Germany friendly, and a South Korea/Sweden friendly.

On top of all of that the TCNJ Lions (men ranked #8 in Division III, women ranked #2 in Division III) will be playing in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament (I only mention it because that's where I'll be today).

We (Agentina) are worry because a lot of good teams will participate. But i don't loose hope in the team.

THE PLAYOFFS ARE HERE! Today is great. 5 World Cup playoff matches, a US/Scotland friendly (I'm a quarter Scottish, so I'm hoping that Scotland will at least manage a draw today)...

Not a chance! The US is going deep this year and we're starting off with a win! Woot woot!

Norway 0:1 Czech Republic

Vladimir Smicer in the 1st half

kinda unexpected but: Switzerland 2:0 Turkey

Uruguay 1:0 Australia

ireland isnt going to Germany, im crushed.. i dont think i even care about the tournament anymore.

Wow! Scotland actually did manage a draw today. Bahrain just drew away at Trinidad and Tobago. I could definitely see Bahrain going 1-0 or 0-0 at home on Wednesday and qualifying for Germany.

That Turkey-Switzerland return leg is going to be amazing. I think Switzerland might be able to hold on and qualify.

As a sidenote, does anybody follow the US college cup? Our women's team (University of Portland) has a really good shot at winning it this year, despite being oppressed by the NCAA. Our men's team, not so much. Half the guys got suspended midseason when a digital camera ended up in the administrations hands with pictures from their freshmen hazing.

If you get a chance, check out a couple of the games. I think the final four will be shown on ESPN 2.

It sounds like Brazil is the odds on favorite to host the 2014 World Cup (apparently FIFA is trying to let each confederation take turns as the host). However, the 2018 and 2022 tournaments are still wide open. Wikipedia says that England and Netherlands/Belgium are planning bids.

Well the last of today's 3 most exciting matches haa just reached full time. Trindad & Tobago beat Bahrain 0-1 on the day and 1-2 on aggregate. Switzerland lost 4-2 in their match with Turkey and tied 4-4 on aggregate, but they will advance to Germany on away goals. And finally, Australia beat Uruguay 1-0 today, tied on aggregate and tied on away goals. Australia won the deciding penalty shootout 4-2 and will advance to the World Cup in June.

For what it's worth, the Czech Republic are up 1-0 in today's match with Norway and up 2-0 on aggregate; the Slovakians are leading 1-0 against Spain at the moment, but they're still down 2-5 on aggregate.

Now we have to wait for the final draw (3 weeks from Friday) and then we'll get to have 6 months of speculation about how the tournament will play out.

Yeah - we (Australia) just won the opportunity to get our arse kicked in the opening round of the world cup.

woohoo! at least we made it in :)

How many open spots are left?

As of today, there are fours zones with 4.5 (x2), 0.5 and 3.5 teams. I don't get the .5 part:

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/t/team/qualified.html

African Zone (5 Teams)
Team Qualified
Angola (ANG) 08-Oct-05
Cote d'Ivoire (CIV) 08-Oct-05
Togo (TOG) 08-Oct-05
Ghana (GHA) 08-Oct-05
Tunisia (TUN) 08-Oct-05

Asian Zone (4.5 Teams)
Team Qualified
Japan (JPN) 08-Jun-05
Iran (IRN) 08-Jun-05
Korea Republic (KOR) 08-Jun-05
Saudi Arabia (KSA) 08-Jun-05

European Zone (14 Teams)
Team Qualified
Germany (GER) Host
Ukraine (UKR) 03-Sep-05
Netherlands (NED) 08-Oct-05
Poland (POL) 08-Oct-05
England (ENG) 08-Oct-05
Croatia (CRO) 08-Oct-05
Italy (ITA) 08-Oct-05
Portugal (POR) 08-Oct-05
Sweden (SWE) 12-Oct-05
Serbia and Montenegro (SCG) 12-Oct-05
France (FRA) 12-Oct-05
Switzerland (SUI) 16-Nov-05
Spain (ESP) 16-Nov-05
Czech Republic (CZE) 16-Nov-05

North, Central American and Caribbean Zone (3.5 Teams)
Team Qualified
USA (USA) 03-Sep-05
Mexico (MEX) 07-Sep-05
Costa Rica (CRC) 08-Oct-05
Trinidad and Tobago (TRI) 16-Nov-05

Oceanian Zone (0.5 Teams)
Team Qualified
Australia (AUS) 16-Nov-05

South American Zone (4.5 Teams)
Team Qualified
Argentina (ARG) 08-Jun-05
Brazil (BRA) 04-Sep-05
Ecuador (ECU) 08-Oct-05
Paraguay (PAR) 08-Oct-05

How many open spots are left?

As of today, there are fours zones with 4.5 (x2), 0.5 and 3.5 teams. I don't get the .5 part:

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/t/team/qualified.html



At the moment, all 32 spots are taken for the finals in Germany.

I can't really explain the .5, but I can give a good example (hopefully): It says that 4.5 teams qualify from CONMEBOL (South America). The whole number (4 in this case) is the number of teams that qualify directly. The top 4 teams in South America automatically qualified for Germany. The 5th place team (the .5 team) is not assured of a spot in Germany. They have to play a two game playoff against another confederation's ".5 team". In CONMEBOL's case, they played the winner of the Oceania confederation, Australia (Oceania is not assured any spots in the World Cup because they are a relatively weak and small confederation). The team that wins that play off gets a spot in Germany.

The other playoff was between the 4th place team in CONCACAF (North/Central America and the Carribean), Trinidad and Tobago, and the 5th place team in Asia, Bahrain.

Anyone want to know how the European qualifiers work? :eek:

I wonder what happened to Greece. They won the UEFA 2004, but aren't in FIFA 2006....

I wonder what happened to Greece. They won the UEFA 2004, but aren't in FIFA 2006....

They were in a relatively tough group (Ukraine, Turkey, Denmark), but yeah, they've fallen off a bit since Euro 2004.

32 teams qualified for the 2006 FIFA. Final draw is on Dec 9

AFRICAN ZONE
Angola (ANG)
Cote d'Ivoire (CIV)
Togo (TOG)
Ghana (GHA)
Tunisia (TUN)

ASIAN ZONE
Japan (JPN)
Iran (IRN)
Korea Republic (KOR)
Saudi Arabia (KSA)

EUROPEAN ZONE
Germany (GER)
Ukraine (UKR)
Netherlands (NER)
Poland (POL)
England (ENG)
Croatia (CRO)
Italy (ITA)
Portugal (POR)
Sweden (SWE)
Serbia and Montenegro (SCG)
France (FRA)
Switzerland (SUI)
Czech Republic (CZE)
Spain (SPA)

North, Central American & Caribbean ZONE
USA (USA)
Mexico (MEX)
Costa Rica (CRC)
Trinidad & Tobago (TRI)

OCEANIAN ZONE
Australia (AUS)

SOUTH AMERICAN ZONE
Argentina (ARG)
Brazil (BRA)
Ecuador (ECU)
Paraguay (PAR)

Well, it's not the full draw (that comes at 2:15 pm EST Friday), but it is the list of seeded teams:

Germany, Brazil, Argentina, England, France, Italy, Mexico and Spain are the 8 seeded teams and they will all be placed in different groups. Apparently, with the formula that was used (performance at WC 2002 and 1998 and World Ranking in 2003, 2004, and 2005), the USA was 9th, 1 point behind Italy.

The draw on Friday will be almost random. It's been worked out so that there are no more than 2 European teams in each group and no more than one team from each other confederation in each group (Example: the US cannot be put in a group with Mexico, Trinidad/Tobago, or Costa Rica and they can't be put in a group with England, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic).

Here are the groups for the 2006 World Cup:

Group A
Germany
Costa Rica
Poland
Ecuador

Group B
England
Paraguay
Trinidad and Tobago
Sweden

Group C
Argentina
Ivory Coast
Serbia and Montenegro
Netherlands

Group D
Mexico
Iran
Angola
Portugal

Group E
Italy
Ghana
USA
Czech Republic

Group F
Brazil
Croatia
Australia
Japan

Group G
France
Switzerland
Korea Republic
Togo

Group H
Spain
Ukraine
Tunisia
Saudi Arabia

Obviously, with the Czech Repulic (currently #2 in the world), USA (#8 in the world), and Italy (#12 in the world), Group E will be the "Group of Death" this time around.

Thanks for posting that, TCNJ2UofM. I'd completely forgotten it was the 9th :o

Now all we gotta do is wait a few loooooong months till Jun 9th 2006 when the first couple of matches are
Germany - Costa Rica (I'm assuming that's the opening match)
Poland - Ecuador

Thanks for posting that, TCNJ2UofM. I'd completely forgotten it was the 9th :o

Now all we gotta do is wait a few loooooong months till Jun 9th 2006 when the first couple of matches are
Germany - Costa Rica (I'm assuming that's the opening match)
Poland - Ecuador

Even though it's 6 months until the everything starts for real, there are going to be some GREAT friendly matches leading up to June. So far, the most notable USA friendlies are against Japan (in SF, CA) and Germany (in Dortmund).

Germany will also play Italy in March.

At the moment, that opening match looks pretty good. It's #16 in the world versus #21.

I was just working out my bracket and I'm picking Netherlands to win (call it the "border on the host country advantage"). Reasoning: They should win their group (I think they'll beat Argentina). They should play either Mexico or Portugal in the first knockout round, and I don't see any problems for them there. Next should be Germany, in Berlin. The last time they played each other in Germany, it was right after the 2002 World Cup, and Netherlands won 3-1. If they win there, their semifinal would be in Dortmund (not too far from the Dutch border), probably against the Czechs and I think Netherlands have more offense in that matchup. A win would put them into the finals in Berlin, and I like the chances of an upset against Brazil.

I think the US will advance from Group E (but probably on goal differential over Italy) and play Brazil in the first knockout round. England should make the semifinals, but I can't see them beating Brazil.

Finally, Ghana may end up with a goal differential worse than -15. The race between the US, Italy and the Czechs is going to be so tight that each is going to have to score as many goals as possible against Ghana when they play them.

I was thinking about what the different teams' chances are and am having trouble making a good educated guess. I've noticed there are surprises every championship and some country that nobody took seriously advances just out of the blue, and vice versa.

I think Brazil and Netherlands would be on the final. I expect good play from Portugal, the Chech Republic and Argentina... and Saudi Arabia might have a chance of going to the next stage. From what I've seen so far I don'tthink Germany or England have much of a chance for the cup..

... Oh, and I REALLY hope the French bastiges go home very very early :p

This is a good preview of the early matchups:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/mark_bechtel/12/14/cup.predictions/index.html

I can't wait til June. Wouldn't mind being in Germany during that time, either, even to just hang out in the pubs with the fans.

Also, here are the early odds for each team to win the World Cup outright:

Brazil 5/2
Argentina 13/2
Germany 7/1
England 7/1
Netherlands 12/1
Italy 17/2
France 10/1
Spain 14/1
Portugal 19/1
Czech Republic 30/1
Sweden 40/1
Ukraine 50/1
Mexico 40/1
Croatia 60/1
Serbia & Montenegro 90/1
Ivory Coast 90/1
USA 80/1
Poland 90/1
Paraguay 150/1
Japan 180/1
Ecuador 190/1
Ghana 190/1
Switzerland 125/1
South Korea 200/1
Australia 150/1
Togo 350/1
Angola 400/1
Costa Rica 450/1
Iran 500/1
Saudi Arabia 750/1
Trinidad & Tobago 800/1

...
I can't wait til June. Wouldn't mind being in Germany during that time, either, even to just hang out in the pubs with the fans.

:cry: Tell me about it! I'd love to be there even if I just watched one of the first stage matches at a stadium. And then watching them at a pub with lots of people, drinking beer and shouting... aw, man...

You got 6 months to save up... you can do it :D

You got 6 months to save up... you can do it :D

I'm already looking ahead to South Africa in 2010. One of it's official languages is English and I think the exchange rate is actually in our favor.

I think the US/Germany friendly in Dortmund on March 22nd should be good for seeing how Germany's 7/1 odds of winning the cup are. Germany also has a friendly against Italy (in Milan I believe) on March 1st.

I just noticed that FIFA has already moved Australia into the Asian Football Confederation (I thought it was going to happen after the World Cup). They're currently ranked 48th overall and 5th in Asia.

What does everyone think of the move? The new top team in the Oceania Football Confederation is New Zealand (120th in the world).

Personally, I like the move. Australia should be very competitive in Asia and Oceania now becomes completely wide open.

Here's an interesting article from NewScientist magazine about the suspense and drama of soccer. Only in soccer can Cinderella teams have greater chances to defeat giants:

Surprises make soccer the best sport
07 January 2006
From New Scientist Print Edition.

BASEBALL has home runs, American football has touchdowns and basketball has slam dunks. But when it comes to which is the most exciting sport to follow, soccer takes the gold medal.

Eli Ben-Naim, Sidney Redner and Federico Vazquez at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico decided to look at unpredictability of results - how often a team with a worse record overcomes an apparently superior one - as the best measure of how exciting a league is. "If there are no upsets, then every game is predictable and hence boring," says Ben-Naim.

The team analysed results from more than 300,000 games over the last century from the US's national hockey, football, baseball and basketball leagues and the top English football league. Rugby and cricket were omitted because they do not have a big following in the US.

Their results showed that the "upset frequency" was highest for soccer, followed by baseball, hockey, basketball and finally American football. But when they looked only at data from the past 10 years, the English football Premiership and baseball swapped places, which suggests that soccer might have become more predictable in recent years.

From issue 2533 of New Scientist magazine, 07 January 2006, page 13

I also think it's exciting because goals mean so much more (and they happen so quickly) in soccer. Every goal scored, could be the last of the game.

Home runs and hockey goals can be that way too (although, as leagues try to create more and more scoring, each goal/home run loses some meaningfulness).

I just saw this article (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/10012006/325/fans-face-penalty-prices-world-cup-hotels.html) on the high cost of lodging during the World Cup.

Allez les Bleus!

I was just watching some highlights of the 2002 World Cup online and realized just how great that tournament was. Unfortunately, a lot of it was played while I was sleeping.

One person's compilation of the 10 best goals of Korea/Japan
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8645759128096099125&q=%22world+cup%22

Another compilation of the 10 best goals (I counted 2, maybe 3 goals that were also in the other video)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8979798911483772228&q=%22world+cup%22

A compilation of just highlights from South Korea's games (yes, it includes the "speed skating" celebration from the US game)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2736061904551038598&q=%22world+cup%22

Apparently, FIFA's World Cup website has really good video summaries from 1966 through 2002, but it seems like the videos have been down since the site was redesigned.

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/p/video.html

Enjoy

hehe, a WC thread to waste time on!

Wonderful!

Is the Fifa video console working for you? Mine is kinda slow.

Right, can you tell which team jersey I'm wearing from my avatar?

hehe, a WC thread to waste time on!

Wonderful!

Is the Fifa video console working for you? Mine is kinda slow.

Mine doesn't even work (It may have something to do with the fact that I'm still running Windows 98). Back when it did work for me, I'd have to refresh the page (the F5 button) once or twice before things would work, and even then it wasn't a sure thing.

Ah, too bad. I did watch one really cool movie of Pele the night before the redesign, but that was it. I can't wait till they get it figured out.

TCNJ, do you play college level soccer?

No, but I love watching it (Women's team finished #2 in DIII, Men finished #5 I believe, losing to the eventual champions). I've been meaning to play intramural, but there's just so much other stuff that I do.

Hmmmm, but you are a college student? Do you play in any sort of league?

Can't wait for the Cup, it's gonna a be sooooooooo fun.

Yeah, I go to The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). We have really good varsity teams here.

I haven't played organized soccer in over 10 years.