1. FIFA got the seedings right. Pot 1 seeds earned their ranking. France did not. France’s final appearance was four years ago.
2. Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay have come out of the pot alignment better than most. Each of the smaller South American nations will avoid the big five African qualifiers in the 1st Round.
3. Argentina and Brazil cannot avoid the African qualifiers from Pot 3. The seeds for two potential Groups of Death have now been sown. Has FIFA put Brazil at risk for an early bath?
4. The most frightening Group of Death would be: Brazil, Mexico, Côte d’Ivoire and Portugal.
Whether you like Cristiano Ronaldo or not, you can’t hate on the fact that about 80,000 people turned up for his “unveiling” (basically a news conference) at Real Madrid earlier today. Ronaldo may have his detractors against the claim that he is the world’s best player (he is certainly its most expensive), but he has now confirmed his status as a football pop star with all the attendant signs: the media circus, the screaming fans, the tabloid behavior.
On a related note: With Barcelona outplaying Manchester United in the European Champions League and now Kaka and a number of top players joining Ronaldo in Spain, is Ronaldo also right that the Spanish La Liga will displace the English Premier League as the most demanding football league in the world?
Reuters Football Blog reports on Inter Milan manager, Jose Mourinho (who has a gift for the soundbyte), discussing the ‘discipline” of footballers from various backgrounds:
“The Brazilians are the most difficult and ill-disciplined. If you organise a meeting for 10, they don’t care if you let them enter or not. The English arrive at 9.55, the Italian, even if he comes at 10.01, arrives in a hurry and is fed up.
The Portuguese are there at 10 or 9.59. A Frenchman, who is always right, comes at 10 but thinks there was no actual reason to be punctual. Russians arrive at 10, not a minute before and not a minute after. They need to be guided.”
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