Latest World Cup Blog Updates |  |
- 10 Things We Learned From the 2010 World Cup Draw
- The World Cup Group Stage Draws As Seen By Elo Rankings
- World Cup 2010 Groups: Who Plays Who in South Africa
- World Cup 2010 Draw Liveblogtacular.
- Meet the Adidas Jabulani, Official Matchball of World Cup 2010
| 10 Things We Learned From the 2010 World Cup Draw Posted: 04 Dec 2009 02:40 PM PST
1. Jérôme Valcke is in trouble when he gets home 2. World Cup 2010 will definitely be in South Africa 3. There is no Group of Death 4. North Korea would like a re-draw 5. …the draw is not rigged. 6. “Moral compensation” doesn’t get you into the World Cup draw 7. Being World Cup holders has certain benefits. 8. Must see group games: 9. England and USA in Group C means we’ll be seeing a lot of this video on ESPN 10. An open draw would have been much more exciting |
| The World Cup Group Stage Draws As Seen By Elo Rankings Posted: 04 Dec 2009 01:10 PM PST
FIFA – 43 That’s quite the disparity. In fact it’s the difference between being thought worthy of the World Cup 32 and not, which is no small claim. Stopping at Japan would be imprudent, so here’s a look at the entire draw as seen by the good people at Elo. (November, not October, FIFA ranking in parenthesis.) Group A: Group D: Group E: Group F: Group G: Group H: * – Germany would like a written explanation from FIFA as to how Portugal is better than them. They cite the ‘06 third-placed game, Euro 2008 qualifying and finals, as well as bludgeoning one of the difficult World Cup qualifying groups. Now let’s average out the scores for fun: So according to Elo, the Group of Death is Group E, which isn’t all that surprising as there’s the Netherlands and then three evenly matched teams. And in the case of Denmark and Japan, the most evenly matched game in the World Cup groups (what with the organization being unable to separate the two in the rankings). Italy, meanwhile, were apparently given a gift for being defending champions, what with their group being by far the least impressive statistically.
FIFA stake the claim that Spain head the Group O’Death, when they clearly don’t (Elo have them not far behind to be fair), as well as the fact that Groups C, D & E are all on par with each other. Slovenia and Algeria sheepishly cower in the corner. Elo are far from perfect, but they’re better. Nothing learned in that realm. What we did learn is that Group E should be a cracker, being defending champions does come with some rewards, and that Group H will be better than you think. And that outliers are the detriment to the statistician. Thanks, North Korea. |
| World Cup 2010 Groups: Who Plays Who in South Africa Posted: 04 Dec 2009 10:35 AM PST
Group A: Group B: Group C: Group D: Group E: Group F: Group G: Group H: A very generous friend volunteered to sit down with a calculator and the FIFA world rankings and figure out which group was the strongest. Here are the groups’ total FIFA world ranking (the rankings of all four teams combined.) The lower the number, the tougher the group, obviously: Group A: 127 So mathematically Group H (Spain, Switzerland, Chile, Honduras) is the toughest group. But that’s mostly because there’s no low low team in there, like 84th ranked North Korea which drags down the standard of Group G for example. |
| World Cup 2010 Draw Liveblogtacular. Posted: 04 Dec 2009 08:48 AM PST
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| Meet the Adidas Jabulani, Official Matchball of World Cup 2010 Posted: 04 Dec 2009 06:10 AM PST
The official matchball of World Cup 2010 was officially unveiled today. Officially. So now it’s all official. The adidas Jabulani (above) will be the ball used in all World Cup 2010 games in South Africa. There are plenty of technical details, some of which are after the jump. But the key ones as far as I’m concerned are: 1. It’s round, and 2. It bounces. According to the press release, “Jabulani” means “to celebrate” in the the Bantu language isiZulu (one of South Africa’s 11 official languages). The press release also explains how the ball is made from eight molded panels and is much rounder than previous balls (which were presumably all just cleverly disguised squares by comparison). If I’m honest, I find the technical stuff with footballs a bit silly. But I am a fan of the meaning behind the design, and in this respect the Jabulani doesn’t disappoint:
Here’s a much larger image of the ball:
For an even larger image, please touch your nose to the screen. So what do you think? My take is that it’s not quite the magnificent wawa aba from Africa Cup of Nations 2008, but it will certainly do the job. If you’re interested in hearing a bit more about the Jabulani, here’s an adidas sanctioned video of the press conference where the ball was unveiled today: |
It’s FIFA’s baby so their rankings have taken obvious priority, determining in some way nearly all parts of this draw, but anyone who knows anything – or equally nothing – will tell you that 
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