World Cup 101

So, you're thinking to yourself: "I want to watch the World Cup this summer. But I don't know much about the tournament, the teams, or even when it's on. Where do I start?"

Start here.

The Format
32 teams compete in the World Cup (WC) every 4 years. In the 2 years or so leading up to the WC, more than 200 teams from all over the world compete against each other just to qualify. Here's a link to all the teams.If you want a funny run down of the American sports equivalent of each WC team, read this.

Once the qualification process is complete, the 7 "best" teams plus the host country (this time South Africa) are put into 8 different groups. Then the remaining 24 teams are drawn (kind of at random) into the 8 groups, leading to a total of 4 teams in each group.

Group Stage
England is one of the seeded teams and were placed in Group C. The US was drawn into this group, as were Algeria and Slovenia. I'll get into this into more detail in a later post, but the US is considered the second best team in this group and is expected to advance.

Every team in a group plays every other team in that group; so each team plays 3 games. The 2 teams with the most points in each group advance to the next round, the knock-out phase. Points are awarded like this: 3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, and 0 points for a loss. Obviously if you win all 3 games in the group phase you are guaranteed to advance. But few teams win all their group games. A good rule of thumb is that if you win 1 game and tie at least 1 other, there's a good chance to advance. But if 2 teams end up with the same number of points, then the team with the better goal differential advances.(Goal differential is the difference between the total goals scored and the total goals conceded.)

So the US opens play against England in June 12, then plays Slovenia on June 18 and finishes against Algeria on June 23.

Knock-Out Stage
Once the knock-out stage starts, the WC looks more like the NCAA basketball tournament, only there are 16 soccer teams (not 64). If a game is tied after 90 minutes, the teams play 2 15-minute overtime periods (it is not sudden death, however -- the teams play the whole time). If the game is still tied, then it is settled by penalty kicks.

This continues just like any other bracketed tournament until 2 teams are left, and they meet in the final game on July 11.

Favorites
Who are the favorites to win the WC? Brazil and Spain are the top 2 teams in the world, but I would also keep an eye on the Netherlands and Argentina. This is also, however, the first WC to be played in Africa and there may be some shock upsets. This occurred in Korea/Japan in 2002 (the first tournament played in Asia), when S. Korea and Turkey (not world powers) advanced to the semi-finals and the US advanced quarter-finals.

Schedule
Here's a schedule of all the matches, which will all be shown on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC. Many will also be streamed online on the ESPN web site. You should, of course, watch all of the US games -- especially the match against England on June 12. But here are some other games I recommend from the first week:

- The opening game on June 11: Mexico v. South Africa. How will the host nation start the tournament?
- Argentina v. Nigeria on June 12. Argentina's Lionel Messi is the best player in the world.
- Ivory Coast v. Portugal on June 15: 2 of the other best players in the world (Didier Drogba from Ivory Coast and Christiano Ronaldo) square off.

US v. Czech Republic
That's all for now. The US plays an exhibition match tomorrow night against the Czech Republic at 8 pm ET on ESPN. This is the last chance for some players to make their case for inclusion on the final US team. I'll write more about that later.