Has anybody blamed altitude?

I think that ban was placed before the World Cup was offered to South Africa. I think that's a rule for the future competitions.

Speaking about altitude, All games I've read from Argentina's point of view were in altitude and reading one post from these forums I think it's a benefit to come back down to sea level.

Is that true?

 

Yes, there's benefit in conditioning coming down from high to low elevations. The one is the thinner air requires your lungs to adjust to breathing more often to get the same amount of oxygen. Once you go back to sea level, your lung capacity is still at high elevation levels. Therefore, you breath easier because you're getting more oxygen. Less likely to get winded. Muscles get oxygen faster then, less cramps/pain.

 

It's not really your lungs that adjust but the actual chemical composition of your blood. Just an FYI, I guess.

There might be an issue with the ball carrying more at higher elevations. Yes, the ball will fly 5% faster, but it will also be essentially a lot "lighter" in the air, and the ball will carry "higher" when the ball is lobbed in the air, probably much moreso than 5%. I suspect this is why a lot of teams are not doing traditional corner kicks, instead kicking the ball out to another player.

 

Fifa should ban games in absurds altitudes like happens in South America. Play in a altitude over 2.500m is a crime, and there is no fair play on these conditions. Force a team to play in altitudes of 4.200m like in Potosí is a completely absurd, but South Africa dont have high altitudes like those.

 

Some friends and I were discussing South American dominance over the weekend )). Surely someone has realized that these teams have great experience in playing under differnent altitude conditions- it's part of the WCQ process and MUST be factored into planning.

 

Since everyone is playing on the same playing field with the same altitude, why would you want to blame anything on it now?

Seems a bit anti-football dont you think?

I kind of wish people would quit lookin for scapegoats.

 

Its an even playing field

 

I don't know about the altitude thing but maybe the fact that their in the Southern Hemisphere. You got 5 teams from South America that play in the Southern Hemisphere that qualifed for the Knockout Stage.

 

The Mexicans had trouble with the ball on the first game. They are probably more used to the alititude than other teams. They should not have difficulties with the ball if the ball is normal. Besides, the two Mexician World Cup Finals were known as the best ever. I do not know the average alititude of the stadiums in Mexico vs South Africa. Alititube did not affect the overall perofrmance of those two WC Finals.

I think it is a mixture of the ball and alitube. Adidas did not test it enough.

 

The thing with SA is that the stadiiums all range from "fairly high elevations" to sea level. So if you played your first game or two up high, then you have to play at sea level or the other way around, it might throw off your overall accuracy significantly.

I suppose it's possible that the CONEMBOL teams are more used to having to change altitudes because south america is far more varied in altitutde than most other places.

But my guess is, the CONEMBOL result is just south america have a good crop of teams this WC that are peaking at the right time, more than usual, and UEFA having a few top teams self-destruct, like italy/france.

 

How would being from the southern hemisphere help?

 

And it didn't exactly do Australia or South Africa any good being from the Southern Hemisphere.

 

Not really... Argentina got smoked by Bolivia 6-1 in La Paz was that laughable? Sure the higher you go the harder it gets but its still a valid argument. I watch a lot of MLS and when MLS teams go to Mexico city to play the games are good until about the 70th minute then the Mexican teams somehow find a way to rack up 6 goals in the last 20 minutes of the game... I do buy the high altitude theory but I think the only real team in this tournament that plays at elevation is Chile and Mexico and they are out so Its pointless now. The rest of the teams pretty much are on an even playing field.

 

Outside of La Paz they were 0-1-8... That does sound like a huge home field advantage. I went through the score lines from La Paz, I was actually expecting to see majority of the goals come at the end of the game but most of them in reality were in the first half. I havent ever seen a game in La Paz due to no real availibility of CONMEBOL games here.

However Am I semi right in assuming the typical strategy for any team going to La Paz is just bunker and try to come out with a point?

The point im trying to make is that it really doesnt matter if its 7k feet or 13k feet... Yes La Paz is a rediculous height... but if your not acclimated to the Altitude its a serious disadvantage or huge home field advantage judging by Bolivia's WCQ home and away record.

4-2-3 at home, 0-1-8 on the road... You do have to take into consideration the type of home field advantage that gives a team especially in a competition like the world cup. If South Africa were a better side it could have proved to be a very serious advantage.

I dont really have any info on Chile.. I just know the Andies take up a good portion of the country so I assumed out of all the SA countries chile would be a possible candidate to play at elevation.