Friday, December 09, 2005

At long last, it's World Cup Draw Day!

Last night I'm sure many a soccer fan dreamt of Heidi Klum. Who knew that one supermodel would ever hold so much of the world's hopes in her hands. In just a few hours, Madam Klum will begin the draw as 350 million look on. The good news is you do not have to wait till then to hear about how bad the ceremony was thanks to Australia's Herald Sun. In a story posted 3 hours ago (or 5 hours before the ceremony begins), Tom Smithies talks about how overblown the whole event was. Way to build credibility.

Anyway, enough of the press bashing, let's all enjoy this day. In just a few hours we will know where all teams will play and which group will be labeled the 'group of death.' The odds are any group with the Netherlands in it will be labeled in such a way. This will lead to six months (182 days to be exact) of speculation and preparations. Think of all the fun soccer arguments you will have between now and June 9th. Awesome.

As far as coaches, 31 of the 32 national chiefs will be at the event. Argentina's coach Jose Pekerman will be absent due to personal reasons. US coach Bruce Arena is hoping to use this event to schedule at least one friendly in Europe.

So enjoy this day and all that it brings us. It will be four more years till this much excitement comes our way again.

If you are in the US, ESPN2 will show the draw live at 3pm EST. You can also 'tune' in on your computer. Just click on over to FIFA's 2006 site or checkout ESPN's live cast.

If you are looking for some information on how this draw should proceed, take a look here.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tough group. CR is ranked 2 in the world by Fifa, Italy is the head of the group, and Ghana is no walk in the park.

Crossing my fingers but it is going to be tough to get to the second round.

4:50 PM  

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