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World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

  • Thread starter Thread starter Priceless
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Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

jmh said:
After playing with that simulator for a few weeks, I understand where FF is coming from. There really aren't going to be any easy groups. Sure, it would be nice to get one of the weaker African nations rather than Ghana or one of the non-seeded South American nations, but no matter what there will be a seeded team (all of which are pretty good, even Switzerland and Belgium) and a non-seeded European team (almost all of which are pretty good and some of which are Italy and Netherlands and the like). If you go based on the assumption that it's going to be three tough games no matter what, then three tough games with reasonable travel demands are better than three tough games with thousands of miles of travel every other day.

That being said, I have to imagine that this will be the same for every team. If we're in Group C or Group G, we'll have a lot of travel, but so will every other team in the group. If we're in Group B or Group H, we'll have less travel, but so will every other team in the group. Though, on the other hand, in some groups (Group D, Group E), one team (E4, D4) has to do significantly more traveling than the others. The one thing the table in the SI link hammers home for me is that I really, REALLY don't want Group A, because then we'll have to play Brazil AND have to do crazy traveling.
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I read another article that talked about some group members having way more favorable travel than others. The other thing of note is going to be whether you're playing games in the more temperate southern cities (Brazilian winter) or the amazon/equatorial cities. I would think it would be advantageous to have your training location in one of the warmer locations to get acclimated better than being in a more comfortable clime. I don't know.

This article is what I read:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymc...ld-cup-finals-will-be-unique-and-very-unfair/
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Shirtless Guy said:
I read another article that talked about some group members having way more favorable travel than others. The other thing of note is going to be whether you're playing games in the more temperate southern cities (Brazilian winter) or the amazon/equatorial cities. I would think it would be advantageous to have your training location in one of the warmer locations to get acclimated better than being in a more comfortable clime. I don't know.

This article is what I read:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymc...ld-cup-finals-will-be-unique-and-very-unfair/
Click to expand...

Travel for group E will vary drastically.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

jerphisch said:
Right, because clearly where you play is more important than who you play.
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While you meant that sarcastically, I'll respond in a literal manner:

Basically, since we aspire to be an elite team, we want other teams to fear us, not for us to fear them.* Even if we aren't there yet based on skill and talent, I would hope we are getting close to that point based on work ethic, perseverance, and desire. I am surprisingly pleased with how good a job Klinsman has done on that score. "you might outscore us but you'll never outwork us!" The number of goals Team USA scores late in the second half is close to best in the world.


"We don't really care who we play, as long as we are in the best condition we can be in when we play them. To win the tournament, we have to beat them sooner or later anyway."




* Sports Illustrated had a posting today culled from newspapers around the world describing their Grupo del Morte, etc., and all but one or two had the USA as part of it. We are getting closer!

http://soccer.si.com/2013/12/05/med...ld-suggests-foreign-powers-hope-to-avoid-usa/

It's a fun fluff read.

Call it what you will – “Grupo de la Muerte” or “Poule des Doods”, etc. – there are plenty of people beyond U.S. borders steeling themselves for a group of death. The upcoming World Cup will be the deepest 32-team event ever, with all eight former champions present, a powerhouse host, no Cinderellas and only one debutant (Bosnia-Herzegovina, ranked 21st in the world).

The decision to use only the FIFA ranking to determine the seeds (other than Brazil) has left the likes of Italy, the Netherlands and France among the unseeded teams whose pairing with a World Cup favorite would create an instant “Girone di Ferro” (that’s Italian).

....the Italians and the Germans, both of whom have lost friendlies to Klinsmann’s U.S., are wary of the Americans. RAI’s group of death includes Brazil, France and either the U.S. or Mexico, and La Repubblica hopes the Azzuri avoids the U.S. and Japan
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Part of the fun is that they say "group of death" in many languages...
 
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Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

FreshFish said:
* Sports Illustrated had a posting today culled from newspapers around the world describing their Grupo del Morte, etc., and all but one or two had the USA as part of it. We are getting closer!
Click to expand...
I think that's more a function of us being in a pool with some of the weakest teams in the tournament than necessarily of the fact that we're all that good.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

jmh said:
After playing with that simulator for a little while (not sure why I originally typed "few weeks" here), I understand where FF is coming from. There really aren't going to be any easy groups. Sure, it would be nice to get one of the weaker African nations rather than Ghana or one of the non-seeded South American nations, but no matter what there will be a seeded team (all of which are pretty good, even Switzerland and Belgium) and a non-seeded European team (almost all of which are pretty good and some of which are Italy and Netherlands and the like). If you go based on the assumption that it's going to be three tough games no matter what, then three tough games with reasonable travel demands are better than three tough games with thousands of miles of travel every other day.

That being said, I have to imagine that this will be the same for every team. If we're in Group C or Group G, we'll have a lot of travel, but so will every other team in the group. If we're in Group B or Group H, we'll have less travel, but so will every other team in the group. Though, on the other hand, in some groups (Group D, Group E), one team (E4, D4) has to do significantly more traveling than the others. The one thing the table in the SI link hammers home for me is that I really, REALLY don't want Group A, because then we'll have to play Brazil AND have to do crazy traveling.
Click to expand...

D3 is an underrated spot, I think, particularly if you get a northern European side in D4. The long trip is Manaus, and you get that out of the way early (if against a northern European side, against a team that seems particularly likely to be bothered by the climate), then the round 2 game is in Sao Paolo, where the U.S. plans to base out of. Moreover, D1 would also be coming in on a long-ish trip. Then round 3 is a short-ish hop, I think to Belo Horizonte.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Is travel really that big a deal? Sao Paulo to Manaus is about 1600 miles. That's the same as New York to Denver.

And both sides will have to make the same flight, or close to it, won't they?
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

That's kind of fun, remembering that while we're almost certainly getting a group of death, it's partially because we are scaring the siht out of some stronger teams that we're bound for one.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

And, by the way... from the end of the NY Times primer on today's draw...

Brazil is the fifth-largest country in the world by area, and it could comfortably fit the three previous World Cup hosts — South Africa; Germany; and Japan and South Korea — within its borders. A result is that teams could face arduous travel in the first round from their home bases to matches in far-flung cities.

For example, the top seed in Group D will have to cover almost 3,000 miles hopscotching to games in Fortaleza and Natal in the north and São Paulo in the south. The top seed in group H, meanwhile, will get the much simpler task of ferrying between the comparatively nearby cities of Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo — three trips that in total cover less than 500 miles. Add in temperature variations and varying numbers of rest days, and it is clear, as England Manager Roy Hodgson noted this week, that it could be more important where a team plays than whom it plays.
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FWIW, Brazil, which probably doesn't care as much, is playing in São Paulo, Fortaleza, and Brasilia. And from my presumptive vantage point, Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza again, Belo Horizonte again, and then Rio.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

jerphisch said:
Right, because clearly where you play is more important than who you play.
Click to expand...

From an interview with Klinsman:


On the eve of the draw for World Cup 2014, U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann doesn’t want to land a game in the Amazon, and he wouldn’t mind drawing five-time world champion Brazil in the tournament next June.

In a discussion that hit on a number of topics, Klinsmann said he did not want to draw any first-round games in Manaus, the hot-and-humid city in the Amazon rain forest that’s in a different time zone from the rest of the tournament.

“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.”

Not that Klinsmann is all about avoiding challenges. In fact, he said he’d be happy to draw into Group A and take on Brazil in the tournament opener before the eyes of the world.

“Oh, I would take it,” he said. “I don’t mind any team that we eventually could face.” [emphases added]
Click to expand...
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

It's cute of him to say, but it's pretty much what he HAS to say and I'm not buying it. Would you expect the coach to ever say that he doesn't want to play certain teams, or that there are other teams that he DOES want to play?
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

Hopkinja said:
Is travel really that big a deal? Sao Paulo to Manaus is about 1600 miles. That's the same as New York to Denver.

And both sides will have to make the same flight, or close to it, won't they?
Click to expand...

The issue that's been raised with respect to travel is that there can be dramatic differences even within a group, and a team that has a lot of traveling in the group stage could end up matched up against a team that's stayed at home in the knockout stage. It's not just that you have New York to Denver and back, it's that you could be playing against a team that only had to go New York to Boston and back in your next game.

jerphisch said:
It's cute of him to say, but it's pretty much what he HAS to say and I'm not buying it. Would you expect the coach to ever say that he doesn't want to play certain teams, or that there are other teams that he DOES want to play?
Click to expand...

Personally, I both disagree with him and think it's a major error in the event that we should end up in Manaus. He's now psyched both himself and the team out of the game and/or group.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

like 2 minutes I guess, at least espn2's coverage isn't of the actual draw yet, just talking about it. They are showing some of the video but no audio from Bahia yet.
 
Re: World Soccer XXIV: The Road to Rio

All I'm getting is audio - in three languages. Argh! Just do the draw already!

I vdid hear the announcer call Marta the greatest woman footballer of all time. How cute. She wouldn't even be in the US all time starting XI.
 
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