because I am a closet Statto I’m very excited about tonight’s/tomorrow morning’s FIFA World Cup draw.
However, this event brings up one of the few drawbacks of being out here in Australia in that most of the sporting events that I’m interested in take place between 9 and 11 hours away. The draw, for example, is taking place at 20:15 CET (Central European Time) which means that it will be 6:15am here
OK, enough of the whinging. If you’re really interested you can read full details of the draw and the procedure on one of those tedious pdf’s that sporting organisations produce for events like this. There’s fiddly rules about who’s in what pool to be drawn and why Serbia-Montenegro are in a special little pool all of their own etc.
So, all that remains is for me to give you my dream draw and my nightmare draw.
The Dream Draw
ENGLAND
Australia
Switzerland
Trinidad and Tobago
Australia are the easy pick, it would make my year to be pitted against all my friends here. Switzerland are, on my reckoning, the weakest of the European pool and T&T are by far and away the cushiest pick from the last pool.
The Nightmare Draw
ENGLAND
Tunisia
Netherlands
Japan
Tunisia are the strongest in pool B by far. The Netherlands would be a nightmare, currently ranked 3rd in the world. And despite USA having a higher rating (how on earth did they ever get to 7?) I still rate Japan higher.
Top 2 teams from each group go through. Even the nightmare draw should see England comfortably into the second round.
Dream draw
Well one out of 3 wasn’t bad.
Ideally we will meet Germany in the Semis. I’ve got two crates of beer riding on england getting further than Germany, so lets hope we do so. Better still lets beat the Germans, ’cause if we don’t my life out here is going to be hell – It was bad enough losing to Portugal in last years European championships and having to watch a portuguese friend of mine dacing around the town square. Mind you there are enough brits in town that if we do win we’ll show the locals how to party!
Martin
Exiled Blades Fan (will be at the lane on Boxing Day – if Dad remembers to buy the tickets!!)