mgoblue2 said:There may also be analysis afterwards that brings it to 1:30. Remembering from 2010 I think the actual draw process takes 10ish minutes.
But is that draw stretched out through the whole show?
mgoblue2 said:There may also be analysis afterwards that brings it to 1:30. Remembering from 2010 I think the actual draw process takes 10ish minutes.
The venue that nobody wants to draw is Manaus, the World Cup’s Amazon outpost, where the games take place in a different time zone from the rest of the tournament in hot and muggy conditions that will require a 3,340-mile round trip from São Paulo. Like the 23 other unseeded teams, the U.S. has a 29 percent chance of drawing a game in Manaus, the same odds of drawing a game in Recife, Natal, Curitiba, Porto Alegre or Cuiabá.
Mr. Wednesday said:
And there were not three European teams in the group that you quoted, unless the U.S. or Brazil moved while I wasn't looking.
It's the best field in quite a while. Just about everyone in the field is in the top n of their federation (where n is the number of spots the federation had), and even the ones who aren't in the top n aren't too far off.
Jeff Van GULLY said:As Wahl correctly concludes, B3 is the most favorable seed for the US in terms of travel and D4 and G4 are seeds to absolutely avoid.
DennyDoyle'sBoil said:Does being in pot 3 mean that you get one of the seeds that ends with "3"?
Seems to me that the B group would be nice to avoid, since it likely means playing Brazil in the round of 16, even if the team advances -- unless it were to win its group.
coremiller said:
I'm not sure I agree with this. Yes the travel to Manaus would suck, but it would also suck for the other teams playing there. The U.S. may have an advantage in that a) the MLS-based players will be fresher since they won't be coming off the end of a long European season, b) the U.S. team is much more used to crazy travel for international matches than the European teams and might handle 7-hour flights and time zone changes better.
It's certainly terrible for fans though.
Infield Infidel said:If they are aiming for games at 7pm and 9pm CET, then that'd be 1pm and 3pm ET. And I think 3pm and 5pm local time (not sure about the DST difference during the summer; BrasilSoxFan?)
I listen to the BBC Radio 5 World Football Phone-In show every week via podcast. Whenever MLS comes up, the callers and British presenters are baffled at how the players can handle traveling all over the continent on a weekly basis. What they see as almost superhuman is standard for almost all American professional athletes.soxfan121 said:This is an excellent point. There is no doubt that US mainstays like Howard, Dempsey and Bradley are FAR more accustomed to arduous travel for NT duty than any European player. Heck, most MLS USMNT players are more used to long travel than most Europeans (excepting the Russians?).
Of course, the Brazilians will have homefield AND this advantage, as any Europe-based Brazilians also are used to travel for NT duty and probably additional travel issues for them to get "home" once arriving back in country from overseas.
Thus, another reason to want to end up in any group other than Brazil's group.
“Everyone wants to avoid Manaus, there’s no doubt about it,” Klinsmann said in the lobby of his hotel. “It’s an unlucky decision to have a location like that in a World Cup, because of the [lengthy] flight, because of the [weather] circumstances there. I think it shouldn’t have been a location for the World Cup.”
Pesky Pole said:You guys must be watching ESPN2. The live feed is so much worse, you really owe it to yourself to watch it.