and since I love New Zealand so much and was there back in 1997...I'll add another link on this same topic: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/118108396/we-should-reinstate-every-mori-place-name?rm=a
Nice that they split the groups up such that no team has to go between AUS and NZL; makes the only "bad" travel be for teams that have to go out to Perth. Whoever gets D3 might actually want to make their home base out in Perth since they'll actually have two group matches out there.
This also may be an accommodation to fans. Following a team will not require flying back and forth between Australia and New Zealand.
but in the knockout stage it will be a nightmare. On another note many of the group stages in France 2019 had plenty of empty seats, and that was in the peak season for tourism in France, will be significantly worse in Aus and NZ during the our low season and not in our summer holiday season.
What is the weather ordinarily like in Australia and New Zealand during the July-August World Cup time frame?
It's winter. New Zealand is a bit further south than most of Australia and is a little cooler. No games are being held in the tropical zones so expect cold weather but not sub zero temperatures.. A quick look at the cities hosting August averages Australia Brisbane Ave Temp 22 max 10 min. Monthly rainfall ave 37.2 mm Sydney Ave Temp 19 max 9 min. Monthly rainfall ave 62.0 mm Melbourne Ave Temp 15 max 7 min. Monthly rainfall ave 52.7 mm Adelaide Ave Temp 17 max 8 min. Monthly rainfall ave 77.5 mm Perth Ave Temp 19 max 9 min. Monthly rainfall ave 120.9 mm New Zealand Auckland Ave Temp 15 max 12 min. Monthly rainfall ave 105.4 mm Wellington Ave Temp 12 max 8 min. Monthly rainfall ave 83.7 mm Dunedin Ave Temp 9 max 5 min. Monthly rainfall ave 49.6 mm Hamilton Ave Temp 14 max 10 min. Monthly rainfall ave 99.2 mm For things other than football if you are into tropical settings then Darwin, North Queensland or the Kimberly region of Western Australia may fit in any travel plans. If you are a winter sport enthusiast then there are some excellent (so I'm told) skiing facilities in New Zealand's South Island.
Thanks so much. We are hoping to be able to make a World Cup trip, possibly bringing daughter 1 and spouse and daughter 2 and granddaughter who will be college age. For those from the US who are used to fahrenheit temperatures and inches of rainfall, here is a conversion table: Being from Portland, Oregon, the temperatures are warmer than we are used to in the winter. The rainfall will make us feel right at home, though a bit lower than we are used to.
Not sure if NYT covered it, but here is why several 2023 WWC host bids were withdrawn back in 2019. In short, FIFA will not share any WWC revenue with the host nation(s). FIFA ensures this occurs by forbidding the host from creating a local organization committee. FIFA will oversee all WWC revenue by creating its own temporary commercial entity within the host country. This mode of operation starts with 2023 WWC. That should help closing WWC accounting books to local gov't agencies, too. Under South Korean law, sporting event revenue must be shared with the local gov't. Hence, South Korea withdrew in Dic 2019. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20191213007300315
We are currently experiencing our wettest year on record in many parts of Australia and if that repeats you should now feel right at home.
I know you said "on average", which simplifies things, but comparing those two UEFA tournaments is glossing over a lot since those two competitions have very different attendance profiles. Code: Comp: - FRA19 - ENG22 Avg. -- 21.7k - 18.5k <10k -- .2. --- .13. >avg -- .17. -- .9. (xHost) (12) -- (3) >30k -- .8. --- .3. Basically, the ENG22 attendances were highly skewed by the ENG game attendances; FRA19 was not only higher in total but also more evenly spread across the board. Part of that was obviously a function of ENG22 being put in tiny stadia and thus kneecapping themselves for all of the non-ENG games. One average, I think it will be hard to say, because AUS+NZL have lower local populations but are generally very easy to travel in a paperwork sense (even if very far away from anyone else in a physical sense). They certainly won't have the stadium size limitations that ENG22 did, so on that alone I somewhat expect AUS/NZL23 to be better than ENG22. Whether it's better on average than FRA19 remains to be seen, I think.
With the draw done, I went back to look at potential team schedules, then checked back in this thread to see what discussion might have been a while ago. Not sure if the schedule has changed since previous discussion, but the knockout stage actually isn't a "nightmare" at all. For the teams from the four AUS-based groups, they stay in AUS through the entire knockouts, and the knockouts avoid Perth, so it's actually quite nice for them. For groups A&C, the only time those teams might leave NZL is for the final, if they advance that far, so that's also pretty nice. The knockout are only rough for teams in E+G. Those teams will play the groups in NZL, go to AUS for the R16 match, then go back to NZL for the QFs and SF before a potential trip back to AUS for the final. If you had to name six teams as favorites for the final, three of them would probably be USA, SWE, and NED - and they're all in E+G.
B is not the group of death. Most even, maybe, but that's only if you think NGA is much better than their ranking - and even then, there's a pretty big gap between AUS and IRL. Remember, "group of death" means three or four teams you would expect to advance; I wouldn't say IRL or NGA would be expected to advance, no matter what groups they were in. Honestly, ever since FIFA switch from geographic pots to ranking-based pots, the possibility of a "group of death" has dropped dramatically.
It's a balanced group. If we didn't give hosts a top seeding then Canada would have been in pot one and Australia in pot 2.