Prediction Review 2

So its all over.... The qualification rounds for the 2014 World Cup are now complete and the final 32 teams are as follows: -

Honduras / Mexico / Ghana / Ivory Coast / Algeria / Nigeria / Uruguay / Colombia / Chile / Ecuador / Belgium / Germany / Switzerland / Portugal / Greece / England / Spain / Bosnia / Russia / Cameroon / France / Sweden / Croatia

The teams in green above are the ones I failed to predict to make it through, but overall I am happy that got the majority right.

Sad to see that New Zealand could not turn-around the 5-1 drubbing they took at the hands of the Mexicans, in the 2nd leg of their play-off, but they gave it a good try and will now have to start looking forward to the World Cup Qualification for Russia in 2018.

Now we have to wait until Friday 6th December when the World Cup Final Draw will take place in Costa do Sauipe in the Brazilian state of Bahia. This is when we, and the rest of the the world, will find out who will be playing who, in the Group Stages of the tournement.

 

After the Final Draw, the 3rd Ticketing Sales Phase starts on the 8th December, which will be another lottery style draw for tickets. So far, Yates & I have only managed to get 3 sets of tickets in the 1st Sales Phase, and none at all in the 2nd Phase, so we are hoping to pick up the remaining 5 sets of tickets that we are after in this next phase.

 

So far we have tickets to the following :

• Match 7 - 14th June - D1 v D2 - Estadio Castelao, Fortaleza
• Match 29 - 21st June - G1 v G3 - Estadio Castelao, Fortaleza
• Match 38 - 23rd June - C2 v C3 - Estadio Castelao, Fortaleza

After the 6th December I will be able to tell you which teams we will be watching with the above tickets, and the game we are trying to get tickets for.

 

Only 203 days until the World Cup in Brazil gets underway. The good news is that it is only 180 days until Fiona & I start the first leg of trip, heading fro Santiago, Chile....

 

Can't bloody wait....

Prediction Review

So, how did I do on my prediction from the last blog post, of which teams would progress to the World Cup Finals next year…?  

The teams below in Red qualified and each of the remaining team all have a change to make it through the play-off in November:  

Honduras / Mexico / Tunisia / Ghana / Ivory Coast / Algeria / Nigeria / Uruguay / Colombia / Chile / Ecuador / Belgium / Germany / Switzerland / Portugal / Greece / Ukraine / England / Spain / Bosnia / Russia / Sweden 

NB. Only one of either Portugal & Sweden will make it through, as they have been drawn to play each other in one of the European play-offs. I also missed on the fact that both Iceland & Croatia would make it through to the play-off’s, so one of them will make it. 

The upcoming play-off fixtures are as follows, (the team underlined is my prediction to win over the 2-legs):  

 

Iceland v Croatia

Portugal v Sweden

Ukraine v France

Greece v Romania 

Burkino Faso v Algeria

Ivory Coast v Senegal

Ethiopia v Nigeria

Tunisia v Cameroon

Ghana v Egypt

Jordan v Uruguay

Mexico v New Zealand

 

I really hate tipping Mexico to progress at the expence of New Zealand, but I still can't see how NZ can win over 2-legs against Mexico. If they manage to beat Mexico, it will be a massive upset and I'll be grinning from ear-to-ear....

So what about the football.....?

So it’s about time that I did a roundup of how the qualification of the World Cup is coming along, and try and guess the outcome of the upcoming fixtures. 

The following teams have already qualified for the World Cup in Brazil:  

Brazil (Hosts) / Japan / Australia / Iran / South Korea / Holland / Italy / USA / Costa Rica / Argentina

Over the next month or so, the remaining 22 teams that will contest the World Cup will become known after the final round of qualifiers. Obviously the teams that we want to see make it to the finals are USA, (already qualified), New Zealand & England. 

England are currently top of Group H in the European qualification draw, but with a slender 3 points ahead of Poland, and only 1 point lead over Ukraine & Montenegro, things are far from certain.  With only a single guaranteed qualification slot avaliable for coming first in the group and a playoff spot for second, England have 2 home games left to play, firstly against Montenegro & then Poland a few days later, in which to clinch qualification. Safe to say that England need to get a result from both games, ideally 2 wins, to ensure they go through… 

New Zealand on the other hand have a far more intriguing route to the World Cup finals in June next year. Having qualified top of the Oceania group, they have a 2 legged intercontinental play-off match with the team that comes fourth in the North America & Caribbean group (CONACAF), scheduled for mid-November. Currently Panama & Mexico are tied for 4^th spot, (Panama ahead on goal difference), each with 2 games left to play. It really could go either way, but the crunch match will be when they play each other on the 11^th October, but both teams may end up relying on results elsewhere in the group to get their shot at New Zealand. Personally, I would prefer Panama to Mexico, but Honduras could come into play depending on how their matches go….. 

Qualified

May qualify

Failed to qualify – games to play

Failed to qualify – games over

Did not enter – FIFA member

Did not enter – not a FIFA member before tournament

So with all the final qualifications games to go, here is my prediction for the final 22 teams to make up the 32 teams heading to Brazil: 

Honduras / Mexico / Tunisia / Ghana / Ivory Coast / Algeria / Nigeria / Uruguay / Colombia / Chile / Ecuador / Belgium / Germany / Switzerland / Portugal / Greece / Ukraine / England / Spain / Bosnia / Russia / Sweden 

NOTE: I am being rather pessimistic in not selecting New Zealand to go through, but if I am honest I can’t see them getting past the 5^th best team in South America… My head says No, but my Heart says “Go On My Son…!” 

248 days to go…….

Travel Arrangements are done

Greetings blog watchers & friends…

We are almost another month closer to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, and plans are moving forward.  I have organised all the flights for myself & Fiona, and have sorted out & paid for the internal flights around Brazil. Other than taxi’s and maybe some ad-hoc car hire, all our transportation arrangements are complete….

I have also scoped out the times and budget for the Chilean portion of our pre-trip, and passed them on to Fiona so that she can start her planning process. I think the current plan is to spend some time in Santiago with Fiona’s cousin before heading north to San Pedro de Atacama, as part of our now customary ‘Desert’ visit. We are expecting that Fiona’s cousins that live in Chile may join us for a portion of our time in Brazil, in Salvador hopefully.

So that’s about it for this month’s update….. We have the core components for our trip booked, just need to wait and see how lucky we are with the ticketing process…..

Starting to get real....

Since my last blog entry, I made the changes to the Itinerary that I proposed last month and have successfully progressed all the bookings for our accommodation in Brazil accordingly. 

So the  schedule now looks like this: -

• 6th June – Arrive Sao Paulo – Oscar Freire Suítes  - BOOKED
• 13th June – Arrive Fortaleza – Beach Apartment – BOOKED
• 30th June – Arrive Salvador – HouseGuest Penthouse  - BOOKED 
• 16th July – Arrive Rio de Janeiro – Atlantis Copacabana – BOOKED
• 20th July – Arrive Manaus – Caesar Business Manaus – BOOKED
• 26th July – Fly to Sao Paulo for return international flights

 

Yates has booked his international flights and will be arriving 1 day early in to Sao Paulo on the 5^th June, and Fiona & I are planning to meet him on the following day. I am still progressing my international flight bookings, but I am hoping to have that all squared away by the end of this month, or early October.

 

Once we have the international portion of our flights booked, we will both need to sort out our internal Brazil Airpass flights soon too..!

 

Yates & I have also submitted our initial request for 4 sets of tickets each in the first sales phase ballot of the World Cup ticket process, (specific matches identified in my previous blog post). Now we just need to keep our fingers crossed that we do better in the first sales phase than we did for the previous World Cup in South Africa, where we were allocated only 1 set of tickets out for the 14 we requested…!

The first sales window closes on the 10^th October and we will know what we have been allocated soon after that. Yates & I will then be ready and waiting with our credit cards in our hands to purchase any tickets we miss out on in the initial phase, when the "First Come First Served" phase starts of 5th of November. Exciting huh...?

Here is an overview of the remaing ticket sales phases:

With only 276 days to go now, it is starting to get real.... :-)

 

 

Latest Changes to the Itinerary

Okay, I have taken an executive decision in regards to the proposed itinerary for Brazil 2014

So far I have not been able to find suitable accommodation in either Manaus, (in the Amazon), or in Rio de Janeiro over the World Cup Finals weekend. The majority of Manaus hotels/lodges are almost fully booked up during WC2014, and those that are available are charging a premium that I was not interested in paying.

The Rio situation is a bit different because there are plenty of hotels in the city but nearly everything in the good area’s is either already booked or too expensive, and I don’t want to take the risk of staying somewhere less savoury, given the city’s reputation for violence & street crime.

Therefore I am proposing to take those two destinations out of the itinerary and extend our stays in Fortaleza & Salvador, (see exact dates below). I will however be looking to book visits to both Manaus & Rio, but after the end of the World Cup, where unsurprisingly availability & price are both plentiful and reasonable.

I have not ruled out making a side trip to Rio if we can manage to score some tickets for the World Cup Final on the 13th July, where we could fly to Rio for the day and then straight back to Salvador.

So the new proposed itinerary is as follows:

• 22 May 2024 – Arrive in Santiago, Chile
• 6th June 2014 – Arrive Sao Paulo – Hotel booked for 7 nights
• 13th June 2014 – Arrive Fortaleza – Apartment booking pending for 17 nights
• 30th June 2014 – Arrive Salvador – Penthouse booked for 16 nights
• 16th July 2014 – Arrive Rio de Janeiro – Hotel to be confirmed
• 20th July 2014 – Arrive Manaus, Amazonia – Hotel to be confirmed
• 26th July 2014 – Fly to Sao Paulo for return international flights

I have also taken my first pass on our ticket requirements for the World Cup based upon the revised schedule above : -

• M1 - 12th June - A1 v A2
• M7 - 14th June - D1 v D2 
• M17 - 18th June - A1 v A3 
• M29 - 21 June - G1 v G3
• M38 - 23rd June - C2 v C3
• M51 - 29th June - 1B v 2B
• M56 - 1st July - 1H v 2G
• M59 - 5th July - W51 v W5

The 1st Ticket Sales Phase starts on 20th of this month and is open until October, so there is no rush to make a ticket request. Therefore I will take another look at the schedule to re-confirm the ticket schedule before starting the application process.

Next.... Flights....!

Brazil World Cup 2014: Planning Update

It’s been a while since I last posted to the Blog, but now that we are within a year of the World Cup, preparations are beginning  to start in earnest and our plan starts to come together.

We are still planning to travel to Chile in our pre-World Cup Trip, leaving New Zealand around the 21^st / 22^nd of May. We are aiming to start off in Santiago, where Fiona has some family, before heading north to San Pedro de Atacama, where we will hang out for a relaxing week or so, taking in the sites and de-stressing from our hectic lives in New Zealand.  

From Chile we head to Brazil on the 6^th June to  spend 7 days in Sao Paulo. As it’s only a short period of time I have booked 2 apartments in the Oscar Freire Suítes hotel near the Consolacao & Paulista  districts, and close to the Clínicas Metro stations to allow us to travel about the city easily. The opening match of the 2014 World Cup is being played during our time in Sao Paulo, and tickets allowing, we aim to be there.

Sao Paulo Accommodation: http://www.booking.com/hotel/br/oscar-freire-plaza-imovel-total.en-us.html?sid=dc147fc41fe2bc2a7b4fb9dfb07dcd7c;hotel_id=373020;lang=en-us 

Our original plan then had us jetting north to the Amazon to a city called Manaus for another week, where we could see 2 of the group round matches. Manaus is quite a small city and does not have the scale of accommodation available that we could find in Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro. For this reason it has been difficult to find somewhere to stay, a lot of the bigger hotels & resorts have already been booked early by the traveling international media and the organising committee. I am continuing to investigate options, but this stop on our itinerary may be the first casualty, as our plan gives way to reality.

 

Next step of the tour takes us to Fortaleza on the North Eastern coast of Brazil for an 11 night stay in this historic city. I am currently working with some contacts in Fortaleza to secure a high rise sea-front apartment, and am just waiting for the last few details to come through before making the booking. While we are in Fortaleza there are 3 World Cup games being played at the newly renovated Estadio Castelo stadium.

 

Staying in the North Eastern corner of Brazil, I have booked an apartment in Salavador, where we will be staying for just slightly less than 2 weeks. The main criteria for selecting this property, apart from the fact that it is pretty cool is that it is in a great part of town, not too far from the Stadium, and close to where things will be happening. A brand new stadium has been built for the World Cup, and we are planning to attend 2 of the later stage World Cup matches at the Arena Fonte Nova stadium.

 

Salvador Accommodation: http://www.houseguestbrazil.com/

 

Finally we are planning to head to Rio de Janerio for the World Cup Final weekend if we can find suitable accommodation and blag some tickets to the Final. Right now it’s pretty hard to find accommodation for that particular weekend with so many people from around the world all thinking of doing the same thing, but I am continuing to keep my eyes peeled over the coming weeks.

 

The timeframe and pricing has been released for the World Cup tickets, and Yates & I are planning our strategy to get the tickets we want, for the cities we are staying in. The first round of ticket sales starts on 20^th August and is open until 10^th October, after which there will be a lottery draw to see who gets tickets. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we have better luck that we did in the last World Cup where we got 1 set of tickets out of 14…!

 

With the above in mind, our itinerary needs to be pretty firm before we commit to buying tickets, but we do have up until 10^th of October to get the plan fully sorted. There are 4 further sales phases before the tournament kicks-off, so we have plenty of opportunities to pick up the tickets we don’t get in the lottery.

 

Tickets Sales Phases: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/organisation/ticketing/ticket-information/sale-phases/index.html

Ticketing information: http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/tournament/ticketing/02/12/19/77/fwc2014-ticket-media-info-en_neutral.pdf

Preparations pick up in Brazil

Preparations pick up in Brazil as they get ready for the Confederations Cup this summer.

A preview of the 2014 World Cup ticketing process...?

It's been a while since I last posted here, mainly because 2 years out from the World Cup, there is very little going on...... But now that we are less than a year & a half away I have started my early planning process and started checking all my usual sources of information, and came across the ticketing information for the this years Confederations Cup.

The Confederations Cup is the pre-competition that is held in the country of the World Cup the year before and is generally used as a test run for all the processes and systems that they will use for the World Cup a year later. With that in mind, please find below details of the ticketing sales phases for the 2013 Confederations Cup to be held in Brazil in June 2013:

It is my expectation that the ticketing for the 2014 World Cup will be released in exactly the same format as that for the Confederations Cup, especially as the format is almost identical to the sales phase breakdown from the 2010 South African World Cup.
 

If the above is correct, then we will be preparing ourselves for the first sales phase, (Visa Pre-Sales), around the last few weeks of November, with the second phase (Advanced Sales), between December 2013 & April 2014, with the final phase (Last Minute), from April 2014 until the competition starts.
 

Can you feel the excitement yet...?