PT.2 Who’s Dancing at the FIFA Ball
Posted June 5, 2010 by james in World Cup for the Ladies | 1 Comments
Now that I have your attention, let’s start with the thirty-two countries that will be playing for the Jules Rimet trophy. (that’s the dude the World Cup trophy is named after, and its pronounced rim-eh.)
These are useful little tidbits to impress the menfolk.
First of all the game is called “football”, and not soccer, in ninety-nine percent of the world. The word soccer came from the English, to differentiate Rugby football from Association football. The “soc” in association became the word soccer.
The international football world in run by an orginization called FIFA, The Federation Internationale De Football Association, with headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. The president of FIFA is a man named Sepp Blatter. (sounds like some kind if internal disease)
Two hundred and four countries started qualifying matches two years ago, so it is a long journey to South Africa.
The thirty two teams are divided into eight groups of four countries. After the teams in a group play each other once, the top two teams advance to the second round, the other two go home.
The groups are decided by a draw, held in the month of December prior to the World Cup. Certain powerful teams, like Brazil, Italy, Spain, and Argentina, are seeded in different groups, so they won’t play each other in the first round. The rest of the draw is random.
Here is how the 2010 World Cup draw played out: Numbers in brackets are world ranking as of May 26 2010
- Group A : Mexico (17), France (8), South Africa (83), Uruguay (16)
- Group B : Argentina (6), Greece (13), Nigeria (21), South Korea (47)
- Group C : England (8), U.S.A (14), Algeria (30), Slovenia (25)
- Group D : Germany (6), Ghana (32), Serbia (15), Australia (20)
- Group E : Holland (4), Denmark(36), Japan(45), Cameroon (19)
- Group F : Italy (5), Paruguay (31), New Zealand (78), Slovakia (34)
- Group G : Brazil (1), Portugal (3), North Korea (105), Ivory Coast (27)
- Group H : Spain (2), Honduras (38), Chile (18), Switzerland (24)
The fact of the matter with these team rankings is, that on any given day, any team can get lucky and beat a higher ranked team. The World Cup tournament is always full of upsets.
But enough technical stuff. Here is your “hottie” tip of the day. Google “David Beckham underwear ad” and hold on tight.
And now for something completely different…I have a friend, Irene Duma, who needs some World Cup tutoring. She is going to join me on this blog, to provide insight, questions and humor from a lady’s perspective.
We also welcome your questions and will try not to give you ridiculous answers. Just type your questions below in the Comments field.
There is better than watching the World Cup with a cold beverage