Friday, June 30, 2006

World Cup geography


Quarter-final will begin in an hour.


The 8 quarter-finalists are, co-incidentally, the countries with highest populations in Europe and South America
  • Russia and Colombia did not qualify, so fate/FIFA cannot control (it was alleged FIFA secretly wished the countries with biggest markets to advance further and that FIFA discriminate against Asia and Africa - but that is conspiracy from those continents)
  • That Portugal sneaked in (in instead of Spain) was because of sheer luck in bracket drawing. The Netherlands (16M) should have beaten Portugal (10.5M) but Spain's "votes" when to Portugal while neighboring German "votes" stayed with Germany
  • That FIFA manipulated the matches through dubious referee was obvious. Why would Switzerland (7M) miss all the penalty kicks otherwise? :) Why did FIFA keep refusing spending another couple minute to look at the video when there is dispute in referee judgment?
  • This is a stupid game and I am not going to watch again. Time will be better spent studying maps
Prediction for quarter-final (according to population, or democratic voting, or FIFA marketing)
  • Germany, Italy, England (49M), Brazil
Prediction for semi-final
  • Germany, Brazil
Final is a game of population vs continental power. If Japan can be eliminated in the group prelims, it is not unlikely Germany would beat Brazil.
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