Benni and I depart the US tonight for South Africa. It will take us almost two days to get to Cape Town. We fly via London, Istanbul and Johannesburg. We land in Cape Town at noon on June 17th (Iceland's Independence Day).
There will be no blog updates in the meantime. But check back on the 17th!
Our first game is on Friday: England vs. Algeria.
We will be watching for your posts. Safe travels we are all excited for both of you. Love Aunt Carolyn
ReplyDeleteKaren and Ada looked great for the USA England game. Safe journey, we look forward to following your travels virtually. -Sally, Ian and Hannah
ReplyDeleteHave a great trip! Could you adopt me as your son for 2014?
ReplyDeleteIn re Spain's campaign to fulfill your forecast, The FT's Simon Kuper served up this cross for Switzerland's easy put-in:
ReplyDelete"... When Spain beet Switzerland in Durban today, the best team in the world face the most boring team. Rightly, Spain are the bookmakers' favourites to win the trophy. Nonetheless they will probably fail, because in World Cups the best team usually does. ... Spain's first problem is that everyone knows exactly how they play. They methodically weave their way down the pitch with short passes ... shun[ning] the orthodoxy of modern football, which says that the best way to score is on a fast break. ... [I]t was José Mourinho... who seems to have cracked Spain's code. This spring his Inter Milan twice played Barcelona, a team including about half the Spanish national team. Mourinho, in his own jargon, "parked the bus" in Barcelona's stadium: virtually his entire team lined up in moving rows at the edge of their own penalty area. Barca were allowed to do what they liked until they reached Inter's wall, whereupon they were crowded out."
More generally, Kuper points out why the World Cup Final does a poor job of singling out the best team:
"Over ... a long period, random factors like one referee's error or a ball on the post are rarely decisive. In a league, quality tells.
"In contrast, a World Cup is decided in four games.... Most of the knockout games will be decided by one goal or penalties.... [A] random element... therefore can-- and often does-- decide the World Cup.
"Luck of the draw matters too: if either Spain or Brazil somehow fail to win their group, they could meet in the second round-- thereby opening the way to a second-rank side...."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b17bf0fc-789a-11df-a312-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=ccbe57a8-5e99-11df-9266-00144feab49a.html