Latest World Cup Blog Updates

---

World Cup Kits go High-Tech. And Female Fans Rejoice Posted: 02 Dec 2009 10:00 AM PST World Cup 2010 kits have gone high tech. Seriously high tech. How high tech, you ask? Well, according to the official Adidas press release: Through the use of compression fabrics and applied TPU bands in specific areas, TECHFIT is proven to increase a player's power by 5.3 per cent*, vertical leap by 4 percent*, sprint speed by 1.1 per cent* and enhance endurance by 0.8 per cent*. The adidas 2010 FIFA World Cup TECHFIT jerseys worn as a single layer are 45 percent lighter than wearing two pieces together. Power increase of 5.3%? Wow. But wait. There’s more. Female fans, if the recent French look is anything to go by, the performance maximization requires that these jerseys be extremely tight-fitting. As in: second-skin-tight. (Or, y’know, so I’ve been told.) And I’m surprised that nobody’s mentioned this, but given that these kits can do in one layer what it used to take two to accomplish? Goodbye base layers. Which is great for the players because…uh…compressions shorts and shirts under a kit add weight and…um.. Oh, who am I kidding? What I’m really saying, ladies, is that they’re taking away the undergarments, which means shirt swaps just got interesting again. (And that giant crashing sound you hear is the internet collapsing under the collective weight of Kickette readers rushing to send a million fruit baskets to the good researchers at Adidas.) But the good news for players of a certain body type is that this skintight fit is apparently not the only option. The second 2010 FIFA World Cup jersey option is the FORMOTION uniform, which features optimised garment construction with sculpted sleeve openings to accommodate maximum freedom of movement. I haven’t seen photos of this one, but I believe it may be known as the “Brazilian Ronaldo” option. Oh, what? I’m only thinking about his comfort.

FIFA Announces World Cup Seeds; Karma Announces French Retribution. Posted: 02 Dec 2009 06:52 AM PST The seedings for the World Cup draw were announced today and there were a couple of surprises. Namely the news that the great Fabio Capello has effectively wiped Euro 2008 from statistical history and that France will need a small miracle not to be drawn into a Group of Death. Going into today’s meeting it was undecided which methodology FIFA would use to determine the seeds for Friday’s draw. It could’ve been the most recent FIFA rankings, it could’ve been the whims of the committee members or, and this one had to be considered the likeliest, it could’ve been whichever countries gave the biggest timepiece to Sepp Blatter. In the end they went with none of the above, instead using the all too rubbish October 2009 FIFA rankings when teams had played an equal number of qualifying games. France making way for England is, obviously the bigger news, but a second glance over the names will reveal that somehow, someway FIFA have deduced that Maradona’s Argentina are one of the seven best teams in the world. This despite ample evidence to the contrary – that evidence being known as World Cup 2010 Qualifying*, of course. * – Yeah, yeah – FIFA Rankings criteria spreads back aways. South Africa as the host team gets a free pass. Based on their friendly form, so too will the other clubs in their group. Hopefully they’re merely the sleeping tiger ready to pounce once the cage is opened. Otherwise, all standard. Pot 1 (Seeded teams): South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Holland, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England. Pot 2 (Asia, Oceania, North/Central America): Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Mexico and Honduras. Pot 3 (Africa, South America): Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria, Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay. Pot 4 (Europe): France, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Greece, Serbia, Denmark and Slovakia. Europe will, obviously, be the only continent allowed to two teams in the same group, simply based on numbers. And from there on it’s simple: pick one from each pot. Now, if we were to be totally original and peg a Group O’Death on the back of this it would likely be: Brazil, Japan, Ghana, France. Or just as easily swap in Ivory Coast for Ghana should you so desire. France are by some margin the biggest losers, and while the karma angle is easy, it’s really just down to the fact that they haven’t been very good for about two years now. Euro 2008 was a slight disaster and, by keeping that same astrologist on the sidelines, World Cup qualifying didn’t go a great deal more smoothly. You could even say it went less smoothly, given the backlash of the manner in which they qualified. (Notice I managed to avoid “manner in which they handed in their qualification”. Please pass this along to every announcer, journalist and boob assigned to next summer’s tournament.) So basically, it’s down to no one but themselves. But if any Irish fans ask you, tell them France got their just desserts.

You are subscribed to email updates from World Cup Soccer - South Africa 2010 To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610