Ted's Polish-Mexican Page

The Fifa World Cup Draw is today. The way it works is rather obscure, but basically it is like this: there are eight teams considered the "top seeds." They are the usual suspects: Germany, Brazil, England, Spain, Mexico, France, Argentina, Italy. These teams all made it in despite the fact that six of them underperformed at the last World Cup. Apparently, Bruce Arena was a bit tweaked because they rated Mexico higher than the United States, despite the fact that the United States is ranked higher than Mexico and has beaten them several times over the last few years. Apparently, the seedings were based on performance in World Cups, so the dismal performance at the 1998 World Cup is counted.

Something else to blame on Steve Sampson.


Speaking of Sampson, because of who qualified and the structure of the draw, we could actually get in a group with Germany, Iran and Serbia-Montenegro. 3-6-1 anyone?


In each group there will be one of the top seeds plus three lower ranked teams. There will not be more than one lower ranked team from each continent in each group, although it looks like Europe can have up to two teams in each group. I think.


Prairie Clayton tells me her dream draw for the US is Spain (who crashes out early in every World Cup), Australia and Switzerland. My dream draw replaces Australia with Angola (we hardly ever get to play the African teams in World Cups), maybe Portugal (who routinely underperform) instead of Switzerland. It looks like its possible for us to draw Mexico, but what fun is it to play them in the first round? I want us to play them in the elimination rounds.


Every World Cup needs a group of death: A group of good but not great teams that will all play tough games against each other. My ideal group of death: Mexico, Tunisia, Ukraine, Costa Rica. Hmm...so many new untested teams, who knows?


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.