The Best World Cup Blog

Iran has not bolstered the strongest record in World Cup play but this year they are hopeful, and they may just have a reason to be. In 2011 Iran agreed to a deal with Carlos Queiroz, a manager who since then has redirected the team. Queiroz, former Real Madrid, and Portugal manager, has belief that this year as manager of Iran he can take the team further than their previous attempts. In Iran's last World Cup attempt ended in group play but the team did gain momentum. They continued to play well throughout the 2015 Asian cup as they again qualified for group play and made their way to the quarterfinals. Iran has high hope moving forward to the 2018 World cup, but Queiroz is keeping his goals realistic, "We want to get through to the second round, but that obviously going to be a very difficult task. Everyone’s agreed that we’re in the hardest group at the World Cup, as we’ll be coming up against two title contenders in Spain and Portugal. But our duty is to go and improv

With the 2018 World cup getting closer every day so do national tensions. Everyone wants to believe their country has some shot to win, as irrational as it may be, and earn the right to hold the precious cup. Well, maybe not Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo... In a recent interview, Ronaldo said "We are not the favorites, we have to be honest" to Desimpedidos. And that was not all he had to say  "There are teams with more names, like Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, but in football everything is possible".  Not only did Cristiano say that Portugal wouldn't be winning the World Cup but he went as far as to name some teams he favored! It may seem strange at first, but Cristiano is indeed honest. While Portugal does have Ronaldo, current Ballon d’Or winner, their World Cup team outlook is not as bright as it has been in the past. With Spain looking to be the strongest team in Group B, Portugal needs to ensure they make it out of group stage before

Group A: Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uruguay Winner: Uruguay  Runner Up: Egypt  Group B: Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Iran Winner: Spain Runner Up: Portugal Group C: France, Australia, Peru, Denmark Winner: France Runner Up: Denmark Group D: Argentina, Iceland, Croatia, Nigeria Winner: Argetina Runner Up: Croatia Group E: Brazil, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Serbia  Winner: Brazil Runner Up: Serbia Group F: Germany, Mexico, Sweden, Korea Rep.  Winner: Germany Runner Up Sweden Group G: Belgium, Panama, Tunisia, England Winner: Belgium Runner Up: England Group H: Poland, Senegal, Colombia. Japan Winner: Colombia Runner Up: Poland Post your winners and runner ups in the comments so we can see which blog team has the best percentage.  Here are the odds and favorites for the world cup: https://www.oddschecker.com/football/world-cup/winner

The group of death is the group that you pray you're country is not randomly selected to. It is the group that is unusually competitive with more quality teams than number of spots available in the next round. This years group drawings are interesting as there doesn't seem to be a clear cut group of death. Judging of rankings alone the third best team in each group is Iceland making group D the group of death Argentina, Croatia, Iceland, and Nigeria. Others think it's group F; Germany, Mexico, Sweden, and South Korea.  Would the lack of a defiant group of death hurt interest and viewership in this world cup?  The answer according to different articles is yes and no.  Yes because the group stage will be seemingly predictable and the top two teams from each group should advance.  No because the seemingly predictable group stage will set the stage for an all time heavyweight knockout stage.  Where it wont be David vs. Goliath but rather David vs. David big soccer

Elimination Stage As mentioned in our first post, these are the 8 groups that were randomly drawn for the World Cup. If you remembered our first post you would know how the group stage works. The top 2 teams advance from each group, and after this we get the round of 16 or as Americans are more familiarized with, elimination stage.  To the right is the bracket after group stage. As you can see in the top left you have the winner of group A vs the runner up of group B. This way you often times get rewarded by winning your group with an opponent that's supposed to be weaker as they came in second, but some groups are much more competitive than others. You also play another group so you  don't play someone who just played in group stage. Due to the uncertainty of group stage people often bet on head to head games or a point system of whom can guess the most first and second place teams. Once in the round of 16 and the bracket is complete you know which team play

Group Stage Pictured above are the 32 countries that made it through qualifications and have the privilege to participate in the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Now the way the tournament format works is that within each group every team will play each other once, also called round robin. So for example in group A: Russia will play Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Uruguay. You get 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw or tie, and 0 points for a loss. In the event of a tie after the group stage you look at head to head result and goal differential throughout group play. The fact that these countries qualified, provides a huge advantage in terms of business. They get to play and are televised on a world stage, jersey sales and other team apparel, youth appeal, brand recognition, and many others. On the other hand counties like the United States that didn't make the World Cup might experience a disinterest in soccer which affects many of those same business aspects negatively. Sources https