Welcome to a new World Cup year…..

I hope everyone had a restful Christmas and are looking forward to everything that 2014 has to offer…. 

Back in December 2013, the World Cup draw took place and the final 32 team and their groups have been determined. Some interesting pairings have come to light in the first round of the competition, such as Spain v Holland, England v Italy & Germany v Portugal.

 

Of the teams we will be following next year, I think the USA will have the toughest start in Group G, along with Germany, Ghana & Portugal. All the matches in the ‘Group or Death’, are going to be interesting, and I have no idea which of the 4 teams will make it out of that group, and USA will be doing very well if they can be in the top 2 of that group. England have fared a bit better with their slot in Group D, along with Italy, Uruguay & Costa Rica, and if they can scrape a win & 2 draws, that would probably be enough to progress. Finally, with no New Zealand this time around, Australia will one of the teams I will be rooting for next year. The Australians will also have their work cut out, sharing group B with Spain, Holland & Chile, and will really need to ‘punch-above-their-weight’ to make it through to the Group of 16 round. 

Now that the draw has been made we know which teams will meet in the initial group stages of the tournament. Yates & I have ordered and received some of the match tickets we are after for Brazil, and we now know who will be playing in all group stage matches we want to get tickets for:  

·         Match 1 - Sao Paulo - Brazil v Croatia

·         Match 7 - Fortaleza - Uruguay v Costa Rica

·         Match 17  - Fortaleza - Brazil v Mexico

·         Match 29 - Fortaleza - Germany v Ghana

·         Match 38 - Greece v Ivory Coast

 Note

-          We already have tickets for the matches highlighted in  BOLD

-          There are 3 matches in the later stages which we are trying to get tickets for as well

It’s always a heap of fun trying to get tickets for World cup matches, especially now that the draw has been made, it makes getting tickets for games with Brazil in almost impossible to get… Them is the breaks…! We are well into the 3^rd Sales phase right now, which is another ballot process, and we will not find out the results until early in February. The 4^th ticketing phase starts on the 26^th February and the tickets for that are sold on a “first-come-first-served” basis, so Yates & I will need to be at our computers with Credit cards in hand as soon as that phase starts. There is a 5^th phase in April, and after that it is pretty much only ticket returns.

I will update everyone on our progress with tickets over the coming couple of months, check back to see what we get… 

The great thing about it being 2014 at last is that it is starting to feel like the big trip is finally getting closer. It’s now less than 147 days until the tournament kicks off, and only 135 days until Fiona & I get on a plane bound for South America…. It can’t come quick enough…

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....!