What I Learned Today - The World Cup

So today I was just kind of surfing the internet at random because I was bored. After spending some time looking at how to replace a refrigerator door gasket, I suddenly realized that I was curious about the FIFA World Cup tournament that is being played right now. I’ve never had any interest in soccer at all so this surprised me a little, and I feel no urge to watch a game, but I decided that I wanted to find out how the tournament was played out.

The first thing I learned is that the World Cup Finals are only held every four years, like the Olympics. There are more than 200 soccer teams around the world, one for almost every country in the world, and they spend three years qualifying to play for the coveted World Cup. Out of those 200+ teams, only 32 get to play for the cup. In a highly publicized event, sort of like the NFL draft I take it, the announcements are made as to which teams will be included in the tournament and how the teams will be grouped. The announcements for this summer’s tournament were made last December.

The 32 best teams from around the world are put together into 8 groups of 4 teams. The groups are not random but are actually selected in order to put teams together that will be similarly matched in order to make for more exciting groupings. Of course it’s never possible to get everyone matched up equally and there always ends up being one group that they call the “group of death”, a group where a weaker team gets matched up with very good teams.

So the tournament goes like this: it began on June 12 and for two weeks the four teams in each group play each other in round-robin style, that is each team plays each of the other teams one time. Goals don’t matter, only wins. A win earns a team three points, a tie earns one point, and a loss earns no points. At the end of this period, the two teams from each group that earned the most points advance to the final tournament. If there’s a tie then goals are counted as a tie-breaker. The sixteen teams in the final tournament play in a standard single-elimination bracket until the last two teams standing play for the world championship.

The USA team is playing for the cup this year, which is apparently not uncommon although they have never won a final, and wouldn’t you know it they ended up in the “group of death” being matched up with Germany, Portugal, and Ghana, all of which are supposed to be quite good. However, so far they have beaten Ghana by a score of 2-1 and a match between Germany and Portugal ended in a tie, which plays to USA’s advantage since those teams will only earn 1 point each for the tie. I am writing this on Sunday evening at not quite 6pm and right now the USA is playing Portugal. At halftime the score is 1-0 in favor of Portugal. If USA can somehow pull off a win in this match they will be in a good position to advance to the final tournament. Pretty exciting stuff huh? USA’s final match will be on Thursday the 26th against heavily favored Germany. Pretty exciting stuff huh?

So that’s what I learned today. Hope you learned something interesting as well!

P.S. It took me a long time to get this posted because our internet connection is really bad right now. I just saw that USA and Portugal ended in a tie 2-2, which leaves USA tied with Germany for the lead in their group.

Sources:
2014 World Cup Matchups
A 101 on Brazil '14: How does the World Cup work?
How the World Cup Works, for the Soccer Newbie
World Cup Draw: What You Need to Know

Football Season 2011

Well, here it is August already, and that can mean only one thing: football season is almost here! I’m not much of a baseball or basketball fan, so as soon as the superbowl is over, I pretty much just sit around and wait for football season to start again. We had a pretty hot and humid summer here in Nebraska, but during the last week or so the weather has been very mild. The calendar tells me that football season is near, but the fall-like weather is much more convincing.
The upcoming 2011 season brings a little added excitement for us Cornhusker fans. This will be Nebraska’s inaugural season as a member of the Big 10 conference. It’s the beginning of a whole new era for the University of Nebraska, and for its ravenous sports fans. The Big 10 conference has 12 athletic schools now, and they will be divided into two divisions of 6 schools each, as follows:
One division will have Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Iowa, Northwestern, and Nebraska. The other will have Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Each team will play the other five teams in its division every year, plus three teams from the other division on a rotating schedule. It was also announced that one of the three cross-divisional games for each team will be against the same opponent each year. Nebraska’s annual cross-division opponent will be Penn State.
It was also announced recently, that division mates Nebraska and Iowa will meet each year in the newly dubbed “Heroes Game.” Each year, the Heroes Game will honor one person from Nebraska, and one from Iowa, that exhibits the qualities and characteristics of heroism. The first Heroes Game will be played the day after Thanksgiving, at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln.
Here’s a look at Nebraska’s very first Big 10 football schedule:

*Non-conference games
Sat Sep 03, Tennessee Chattanooga
Sat Sep 10, Fresno State
Sat Sep 17, Washington
Sat Sep 24, Wyoming
*Conference games
Sat Oct 01, Wisconsin
Sat Oct 08, Ohio State
Sat Oct 22, Minnesota
Sat Oct 29, Michigan State
Sat Nov 05, Northwestern
Sat Nov 12, Penn State
Sat Nov 19, Michigan
Fri Nov 25, Iowa (Heroes Game)

There will also be a conference championship game sometime after that.
Wow, the early part of that schedule looks a little rough. It looks like Nebraska is playing Washington again after they embarrassed the Huskers in the bowl game last year. And those first two conference games? I’ve heard that Wisconsin is expected to win the Big 10 this year, and Ohio State is always very good. That’s a tough start but maybe it’s best to get those games out of the way early, since Nebraska tends to peter out throughout the season. I also noticed that ABC has opted to air quite a few of these games, so those of us without cable might be able to see more games on tv this year. Only a few more weeks to go!