Date: Monday, June 7th, 2010

Location: Port Authority, New York, NY

In anticipation of the tournament ESPN had a series of advertisements made up in the form of  a mural representing each team in the World Cup.  Each ad conveyed some sense of the nation’s history in the tournament, and in some ways the significance of the World Cup to that nation.  The ads covered the windows of the old Virgin Super store at the Port Authority bus terminal so I walked over to look at them in the afternoon.

Fernando Torres represented the favorites, Spain.  He ended up losing his starting spot, finishing the tournament without scoring a goal, and injuring himself yet again.  But he left with a winner’s medal so while it may not have been a perfect tournament for him I think he’ll survive.

England is depicted with Lamps, Rooney, and Stevie G trying to tear down the pressure of 1966 (the last and only time England won the World Cup) under the guidance of Fabio Capello.  It didn’t really work out, and this mural could probably be used unchanged for the 2014 World Cup.

Karim Benzema was depicted as one of the Three Musketeers in the France mural but wasn’t even selected to the team.  Henry’s face is vandalized with the word “CHEAT” and he didn’t even play until the final match after France had completely imploded.

Messi looks like the savior of Argentina, and while Higuain scored all the goals, Messi is pretty much the shining light of  Argentine football.

While Japan didn’t slay the Netherlands they did manage to make it out of their group.

Kaka didn’t have a particularly stellar tournament.

The Elephants of Ivory Coast may have been the biggest African disappointment.

Australia didn’t really do much at all.  I guess this is what a Socceroo looks like.

South Korea managed to break through the group stage again in 2010 but it wasn’t quite the 4th place finish of 2002.

Cristiano didn’t really work a whole lot of magic this tournament.

Aguirre led Mexico to what is becoming a pretty standard second round exit for them.

North Korea played surprisingly well against Brazil before getting thumped by Portugal.

New Zealand had a player who wasn’t even a professional.  I wonder if he’ll do the Haka before business meetings at his banking job.

Cameroon.

Honduras carried the hopes of a nation.  We met some Honduran guys in one of our hotels.  They were really cool, and they told us that the president of Honduras offered American player Jonathan Bornstein a free vacation to Honduras because the late goal he scored gave Honduras the last World Cup qualifying spot from North America.  He’s a hero in Honduras.

On the way to dinner we found this mattress in the street.

In the evening we went to B Café.  If I recall correctly I had a steak which I enjoyed and Tracy was prepared to give it a solid 3 star review on yelp.  She even ordered this cool Belgian beer that came in a glass with a spherical bottom so it was served with a cool handle so it wouldn’t fall over!

I saw this ad on the way home.  Brazilian clubs make most of their money by selling talented players.  Apparently some banks make money by financing that.

The World Cup draw this morning was great for two reasons.  The United States were drawn into a group they can make it through.  I fully believe the US is capable of advancing ahead of Algeria and Slovenia.

Secondly, we finally got to match teams to the group numbers we had for our tickets.  I have tickets to six matches.  I only have tickets to see one team twice, and that happened to be Brazil! Awesome!  Here are the games I’ll be at next June:

• Nigeria vs. Korea Republic
• England vs. Algeria
• Ghana vs. Germany
• Netherlands vs. Denmark
• Brazil vs. Korea DPR
• Brazil vs. Cote D’Ivoire

It would have been really awesome if the England vs. Algeria game had been England vs. United States and the Brazil vs. Korea DPR game had been Brazil vs. Portugal, but I will in no way complain.  We’re really fortunate to be going and we got some GREAT games.

France qualified for the World Cup today, and I’m sure every Irishman alive is filled with rage. Henry got the assist, but the play appears blatantly illegal. That said, Henry is going to play in the World Cup, something many, many people would do many, many things to have the chance to do in their lifetime. What would you do to play in the World Cup? Would you use your hand to keep the ball in bounds?

My brother, grandfather, and I drove North to Quito to meet up with my father to go see the Ecuadorian national team’s World Cup qualifying matches against Brasil and Paraguay.  Here are a few quick photos I took on my phone.  I’ll have to wait until I get back to the US to post the rest of the pictures and some of the videos because the net connection here just can’t handle that.

A huge Ecuadorian flag

My brother (with his face paint and headband) and grandfather

The stadium was full of people in yellow Ecuador jerseys

920 days. that is the amount of time remaining between today and the first day of the 2010 fifa world cup in south africa. there are very few things that i expect or plan on for the next 3 years of my life, but one thing i’m sure about, is that i want to be at this tournament. so here’s some very preliminary planning that revolves mostly around the finances of the trip.

first off here’s the ticket pricing fifa has decided on for the tournament, all prices are in US dollars (which hopefully will be worth a little something by the time the tournament rolls around).

so the first thing to note about this chart is that all the prices in category 4 are limited to south african residents only. this is part of an initiative fifa has to kick start a sustainable soccer movement in world cup host nations, so getting tickets way on the cheap is out.

so as you’d expect tickets get more expensive as the tournament progresses, with two exceptions: the first game is more expensive than the other group games (simply because of the opening ceremonies, and the novelty of being at the first game of the tournament), and tickets to the third place match are less valuable than tickets to the semi-final matches (because really, the teams in the third places match aren’t really as cool as they were before they lost in the semi-final).

so here’s a quick breakdown of that match column:

match 1: this is the opening match, good numbering scheme, this makes sense.

matches 2-48: these are the group stage matches, determining which teams qualify for the knockout stages of the tournament. these matches are really kind of a crapshoot cause you could get germany beating the crap out of saudi arabia 8-0 (korea/japan ‘02), or you could get senegal upsetting france 1-0 (korea/japan ‘02).

matches 49-56: these are the round of 16 games, the top two teams from each of the 8 groups advances to this round. there must be a winner from here on out, and the loser goes home. that makes these games exciting. you could see a maxi rodriguez extra time volley for a thiller win (germany ‘06), or even an argentina-england shootout, yet another heartbreaker for england (france ‘98), not to mention years of death threats for becks.

matches 57-60: the quarterfinal matches, what we americans call the elite 8. this is the round of 16 with half as many teams and twice the excitement. think americans putting a ball off a german defender’s hand on the goal line, and eventually losing 1-0 (korea/japan ‘02)

matches 61 and 62: the semifinal matches, the winners go on to play the match of their dreams, the losers get to play again, but they probably don’t feel great about it unless maybe it’s their first world cup and your leading striker takes home the golden boot. (croatia at france ‘98)

match 63: if you can’t get a ticket to the final, this isn’t a bad substitute, especially if the home team makes it. those korean fans can be really exciting (korea/japan ‘02).

match 64: the world cup final. this is the most important sporting event on the planet. enough to draw the attention of a up to a third of the population of the entire planet at once, enough to close shut down economies, and sometimes, to halt wars.

so to get a decent estimate of the cost of tickets for the tournament there is one important stipulation. no individual can purchase tickets for more than 7 matches during the tournament, that means at most you’re going to get to see 7 matches in person. So let’s check calculate the upper bound on ticket cost assuming you get the most expensive tickets throughout the tournament:

a category 1 ticket to the final will cost you $900.

the two semifinals are usually played on back-to-back days, so although horribly unlikely (fifa may not even allow you to purchase tickets to both semifinals) it might be possible to make it happen. two category 1 semifinal tickets will run you $1200.

assuming you get a ticket to the third place match, that’ll be another $300, now you’ve got 3 tickets left. There are 4 quarterfinal matches, and at least two games are usually played each day, which would make it hard for you to travel and see more than 2 of the quarterfinal matches. if you get cat 1 tickets to 2 of the matches, you’re out another $600.

Because this is supposed to be a quick estimation of the maximum amount of money you could spend on tickets, let’s suppose you snag a ticket to the opening match, that’ll bring your total up to a whopping $3750 on tickets alone. Throw in a round-trip ticket from Boston to Johannesburg and you’ll need at least another $1,435 to get yourself to Africa.

So if you wanna be a baller a the world cup in 2010, you’ll have to have at least $5,185 ready for tickets and travel alone. I can’t imagine what lodging will cost in africa for a month during the world’s largest sporting event either. If you’re not willing to put out the $5k+ you could go for the discount world cup over two weeks, and 7 group stage nosebleed seats. That route should run you about $1,995 for match tickets and travel to Africa plus 2 weeks lodging, food, and transportation around South Africa. Whichever route you choose it should be the trip of a lifetime, at least until 2014 rolls around, see you there .

FIFA yesterday officially announced that the right to host the 2014 world cup has been awarded to Brazil. It will be the first time South America has hosted the tournament since Argentina 1978 and the tournament returns to Brazil for the first time since 1950. I’m already dreaming up travel plans and the like for my trip. I fully plan on attending every World Cup from now until the day I die. It may not work out, but I can dream. I wonder what the cost of lifetime tickets to the World Cup would be?

Anyways here are some pictures of a legendary Brazilian stadium, the Maracana. This stadium was built for the 1950 world cup, and hosted possibly the greatest upset of all time, when Uruguay beat Brazil 2-1. Then attendance at the stadium for that match is estimated to be around 210,000. Today with the capacity is significantly less due to safety restrictions, despite that, I hope they can refurbish this stadium in time for it to be one of the premier stadiums for the tournament

here is a delightfully overexposed panorama

and a bit better shot of the full interior of the stadium

I was thinking today about the next world cup. And I took a short bit of time to figure out that there are 1,206 days remaining until the world cup begins. Now this without a doubt will seem crazy to some people, that I am anticipating the World Cup so much that I have a countdown running with over a twelve hundred days remaining. I won’t disagree, I’ll simply say that I am crazy about the World Cup. I couple months ago I was trying to think of the five things most important to me. I came up with

Now soccer also falls under that category of the world cup, it’s just that the world cup is soccer in its highest form. Now not only am I insanely excited for this coming world cup, I fully intend on being there to watch it in person. So this countdown now brings me to think, what will the next 1,206 days bring in my life. Here’s the short list I can think up on the spot:

I can’t really think of much else in this short period of time, but I’m sure there will be all kinds of craziness, and things I can’t even imagine right now. Anyways 2010 isn’t the only tournament that will matter, 2014 could be headed to Brazil (wow…just wow) and England looks to be in the planning stages of a bid for 2018 (also wow, where the game was born wow). So now for a picture.

This is Johannesburg, the city will host two world cup stadiums so will likely be the place I/we’ll end up camping out for the month.

And music, this was the inspiration for one of the best commercial campaigns I’ve ever seen. It was from france98 with the brasilian team playing through the airport. excellent.

[audio:masQueNada.mp3]

so the US bombed out of the tournament today, which is really pretty disappointing. Clint Dempsey scored a good goal, and added a fun celebration but, other than that few minutes, the US didn’t really do too much. so it was a bad penalty call but they didn’t play like they wanted it. Deuce Dempsey was the best US player of the tournament in my mind, and hopefully he’ll get a chance to move to europe where he can really develop. I actually ended up working today, which was actually kind of entertaining if only because it helped move the day along a bit faster. I guess I’m skipping out on running this evening, but I did at least play gator today so that should serve well as my activity for the day. Plan for the evening is get my stuff packed up for an early trip out to the airport in the morning, and arrival in Indianapolis, for Grand Council around 10am

So i’ve seen nearly every single game of the World Cup, and I must share that Ecuador has gotten off to a blistering start with a 2-0 win over Poland, and a 3-0 win over Costa Rica. Ivan Kaviedes even scored the third goal in the win over Costa Rica.

He celebrated with the mask in memory of Otilino “Spiderman” Tenorio, a friend and former Ecuadorian international, who died unexpectedly in a car crash last summer. Ecuador face Germany tomorrow in the battle for 1st place in Group A. I think Ecuador have a real chance of beating Germany, as does Tommy Smyth, who I ran into and spoke with at lunch at the cafeteria on Friday, and they only need a draw to win the group. The loser of the match will likely have to face England in the round of 16. Time for me to get to sleep so I can stay awake at work tomorrow.

[audio:siSePuede.mp3]