2018 World Cup Draw

[Jimmy Higgins]

The 17 years of games to qualify for the World Cup came to an end in the last couple of weeks and the draws have been made for each group.

Russia is in Group A and their grouping is quite forgiving, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Uruguay. It'll be hard not to at least finish a strong second place.

Group B shows Spain and Portugal should have an easy route over Morocco and Iran.

Group C is the first questionable group with Denmark, Peru, and France battling it out. The fourth team, Australia, isn't a push over either.

Group D sucks! Iceland is easy team to beat, so not a good sign. Nigeria, Iceland, Argentina, and Croatia. Good squads, all of them.

Group E isn't as bad, but is a pain. Costa Rica battled well above their weight last world cup and they'll need to have that fighting spirit to deal with Switzerland and presumably Brazil. Serbia rounds out the group.

Group F much like E. Germany, Mexico, Sweden, and South Korea. Germany wins the group, but second place? To be determined!

Group G returns to normalcy, with high ranked Belgium, always disappointing but talented England teamed up against Tunisia and Panama. While Panama has been in good form, they are up against it with Belgium and England in their groups.

Group H is apparently the group everyone else would have liked to been in. Poland (a top seed team), Senegal, Colombia, and Japan. Gambling on the top two teams in this group, probably like gambling on a roll of the dice.

And now, we take a moment and honor the memories of the teams who did not qualify for this upcoming world cup.

Netherlands (didn't even get into a playoff due to EUFA's silly qualification setup)
Ireland
Northern Ireland
Honduras (yeah, they played in a playoff for the World Cup instead of the US)
Paraguay
Marinas Islands
United Fucking States

With Groups E and F battling on each other, top teams will drop. Russia will have a tough opponent. Meanwhile Belgium and England should have an easy route to move past the first knockout round. However, second place in the England group will be fucked in the following round, so 1st place is essential!

My prediction: A team from Europe or South America will win.

 

[Tigers!]

The 17 years of games to qualify for the World Cup came to an end in the last couple of weeks and the draws have been made for each group.

Russia is in Group A and their grouping is quite forgiving, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Uruguay. It'll be hard not to at least finish a strong second place.

Group B shows Spain and Portugal should have an easy route over Morocco and Iran.

Group C is the first questionable group with Denmark, Peru, and France battling it out. The fourth team, Australia, isn't a push over either.

Group D sucks! Iceland is easy team to beat, so not a good sign. Nigeria, Iceland, Argentina, and Croatia. Good squads, all of them.

Group E isn't as bad, but is a pain. Costa Rica battled well above their weight last world cup and they'll need to have that fighting spirit to deal with Switzerland and presumably Brazil. Serbia rounds out the group.

Group F much like E. Germany, Mexico, Sweden, and South Korea. Germany wins the group, but second place? To be determined!

Group G returns to normalcy, with high ranked Belgium, always disappointing but talented England teamed up against Tunisia and Panama. While Panama has been in good form, they are up against it with Belgium and England in their groups.

Group H is apparently the group everyone else would have liked to been in. Poland (a top seed team), Senegal, Colombia, and Japan. Gambling on the top two teams in this group, probably like gambling on a roll of the dice.

And now, we take a moment and honor the memories of the teams who did not qualify for this upcoming world cup.

Netherlands (didn't even get into a playoff due to EUFA's silly qualification setup)
Ireland
Northern Ireland
Honduras (yeah, they played in a playoff for the World Cup instead of the US)
Paraguay
Marinas Islands
United Fucking States

With Groups E and F battling on each other, top teams will drop. Russia will have a tough opponent. Meanwhile Belgium and England should have an easy route to move past the first knockout round. However, second place in the England group will be fucked in the following round, so 1st place is essential!

My prediction: A team from Europe or South America will win.

You are very safe with your prediction. No bookie will touch it. It is set up so that your prediction will come true.

 

[rousseau]

Last World Cup when Colombia made the quarter-final, I was sitting on an outdoor patio near a train crossing. There were about 3-4 cars full of Colombians right beside us, waiting for a train, and 'celebrating' the win for about five minutes until it passed.

Never again.

Seriously, last World Cup then girlfriend and I got to the end of summer and thought to ourselves: 'what the hell did we do all summer'. Then: 'oh yea, watch soccer'. Might wait until the second round to watch some games this go around.

And for another useless anecdote, in 98 when France won and I was 12 years old I became a bandwagon jumper and called them my favourite team.

Hard to decide who to root for this year with the Netherlands out (after all I'm engaged to an orange-woman), but Spain usually seems to be a good choice for good soccer.

 

[bilby]

Australia qualified the hard way, knocking out Honduras, who themselves knocked out the USA.

I will be very impressed and happy if we make it to the round of 16. We are grouped with France, Peru and Denmark, and I expect France and Denmark to go forward from our group; but it's a funny old game, and some strong teams have already been eliminated, so anything is possible.

If we do make it to the round of 16, we will most likely play Argentina there - so it would take the hand of God (or its being penalised) for us to get to the quarterfinals.

 

[rousseau]

Canada's just going to be over here in the corner, winning gold in ice hockey.

 

[ruby sparks]

Another notable absentee is Italy, who failed to qualify for the first time in 60 years.