The World Cup draw is now listed online in ESPN's schedule lineup as 9am-10:30am PT on ESPN360. It doesn't list what cable channel it will be on yet. Link to their guide is here, but you'll need to forward to December 4th and noon ET / 9am PT to see the 360 listing. Obviously, this is always subject to change, but seems correct with a 7pm local Capetown time listed here. If I can remember past draws correctly, there's a lot of pomp for the first 45 mins to 1hr, so I'm guessing the actual draw will happen around 10am PT / 1pm ET.
dude, I am of the opinion that if there were only 7 teams in the world cup, FIFA would make sure that we still weren't seeded
The games are at 1:30, 4, and 8:30pm local time. SA will be 6 hours ahead next summer (7 hours ahead when the draw happens). So we're looking at 7:30am, 10am and 2:30pm start times on the east coast. I guess that doesn't really jibe with lunch though. http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/tournament/preliminarydraw/64/42/24/2010fwc_matchschedule7709.pdf
It'll be more like "Who sucks bad enough that South Africa has a better-than-even chance to get a result against at home? Pick one from UEFA, one from CONMEBOL, and one CONCACAF or AFC team, and that's Group A."
Ah yes, nothing like an 8:30pm start in the middle of winter at 4,500 feet of elevation. That match on June 25th in Bloemfontein could be in sub-freezing temps.
south africa group.... south africa costa rica slovakia bahrein... if i was usa, i'd pay to get in that group too
Its more like -have your Member cusp his hand around the ball you want as he is strirring the pot. 0:52-0:57. The ball selected on purpose was Costa Rica- that could have easily been the US. A group composed of Germany,US,Poland,Ecuador, is more well balanced and more of a threat for the host Germany than a Germany,Poland, Ecuador,Costa Rica group. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er3OOuYMNnE&feature=related"]YouTube- 2006 FIFA World Cup Final Draw Part 4[/ame]
DAGSports answers your question, but it's a little complicated. The simple version: FIFA maximizes revenues. They figure out which teams in which groups does this, then create a sorta-fair-seeming draw process to achieve the result they want. They allow some randomness as long it doesn't have any significant monetary impact.
The World Cup draw is more like watching an all-star celebrity porn, but without the guilt... Well...except for this:
Well done with this prediction: http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/Charlize-Theron-set-to-co-host-Wolrd-Cup-draw--78234017.html
Quite a wide temp spread. Avg high 61F, avg low 26F on June 25. Unlikely to be below zero but could be in the upper 40s at kickoff and cooling throughout. http://www.wunderground.com/history...tml?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA
i'd say an hour of formalities and entertainment, tune in 1pm est earliest... http://www.weather.com/outlook/trav.../graph/SFXX0008?from=month_bottomnav_business that june night matches can be cold, of course, you people do realize the COLDEST temps are 4am-6am range, so temps with highs close to 70 probably get down to about 30 at worse for a night start... an afternoon match would be very soccer friendly temp wise
According to ESPN, the first ball will be drawn at 18:00 GMT. The East Coast is GMT-5, so it would be 1:00 PM EST/10:00 AM PST.
so in other words, lunch as a couple beers from noon till one, then pay attention from 1 till 2, then a few beers from 2 till 3, as alexi and company tell us how usa will do...
oh my god... alexi lalas and julie foudy blathering about the world cup draw. i might have to watch on univision. come to think of it, there will probably be a lot of hot babes dancing around on univision.
I'm hopeful but we always get screwed. This thing is designed to make it next to impossible for minnows to succeed and to insure one of the big soccer countries wins. Can't remember a different outcome with the possible exception of France's win and they're not really a minnow
Nah. Until we no longer suck relatively speaking, we'll continue to make our first round exits with the occasional skating by to the next round or two. The elite teams win because they're better and the minnows usually lose because they suck, not because of tournament design. Would you feel better if they shoved us into a group of minnows so we could get into the next round?
When did this become "always"? In 2002, the U.S. was drawn with one of the two weakest sides in Pot A (host South Korea)?
Except that, as almost everybody's noted, it wasn't. Portugal was a darkhorse favorite, Poland was an average UEFA side (who had been on a hot streak in qualifying), and South Korea were an unfancied side who had the advantage of hosting. We were really the minnow of that group according to expectation at the time (having won 1 WC match in 50 years, and that one at home). We were the team that those around the world expected to soften up the group. Japan's group was easier, and so was Germany's. However, ours was certainly not one of the 2 or 3 toughest groups, nothing at all like our 2006 draw.