Construction Woes

Today marks 134 days until World Cup 2014.

But one questions, is 134 days enough time to have everything ready for the first game?

Brazil has developed many of the greatest players in soccer history, soccer is Brazil’s livelihood, and soccer runs in their veins but what happens when they host the World Cup? It becomes a joke.

Preparations leading up to the World Cup have been lacking, what Brazil needs is stadiums to host games, 12 for that matter which are still under construction.  The Brazilian government is being highly criticized due to the lengthily expensive process, in an interview with the Brazilian assistant coach he stated that "We missed an opportunity to show the world what we can do in this country," and "We missed an opportunity to provide more comfort to Brazilians and to show a different kind of Brazil."

The country had 7 years to build everything needed for the World Cup which might be completed just a few months before the competition is due to start. Most recently construction was halted when a crane crashed killing the workers this past November in Sao Paulo, which is a main stadium for the games. Also, Heavy rains, , labor strikes, a court-mandated halt to construction last year due to safety issues, and financial problems have hampered construction.

The two main venues being affected are Arena de Sao Paulo and Arena de Baixada in Curitiba which FIFA is threatening to take away hosting duties if they do not meet the February 18^th completion deadline.

In the end, completed or not, World Cup 2014 will take place in Brazil and the world will cheer. 

BMO Field Expanding?

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/01/19/mlses_leiweke_taxpayers_would_be_paid_back_for_bmo_field_expansion.html#

An expansion to the BMO field will take away the intimate experience you get watching a TFC game, sure in the eyes of MSLE making the 22,000 seat arena into a 30,000 – 40,000 means lots of $$$$ but it will also mean we will lose our natural turf (real grass) field which was put in when TFC played Real Madrid.

You cannot expect to have natural turf for our soccer team when the Argos will chew it up while playing football.

BMO is special because they moved away from the artificial turf, go ahead and expand but don’t take away the grass.

Group Of Death

Hello soccer fans!

With the World Cup approaching today marks 143 days left before the world turns its eyes to Brazil, but what’s on everyone’s mind is who’s in the group of death? In my opinion, we have two this time. Group D consisting of Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, and Italy and Group G consisting of Germany, Portugal, Ghana and USA.

As statistics go, no European team has ever won the World Cup when hosted in either North or South America, but with heavyweights Germany and Portugal maybe this stat will get trumped. Uruguay was the dark horse before but with a Copa America win and finishing well in their group Uruguay looses their element of surprise and are now known as a team to watch out for.

We have three teams in Group D that will be fighting for the top two spots, Uruguay, England and Italy, Costa Rica will have a tough time against these teams. Although being solid defensively, they should hope to draw or push for the wins in their group stage to move to the next round.

 In Group G everyone will be looking at Germany and Portugal, you don’t even need to be a fan to know that these two teams are great but Ghana and the USA are going to be knocking at the door and might sneak in to the next round. Ghana (one of my personal fav’s) got to the quarter finals but lost on penalty kicks so this year they will be coming in with force, the USA on the other hand may have the hardest time getting to the next round. The players are good but consist of mainly MLS players, this is not a knock at MLS but facing players that play in the best league(s) in the world may pose a problem.

My prediction for Group D will be Uruguay and Italy going through, in Group G Germany and Ghana will advance. But whaaaaa? No Portugal??? They will most likely advance but Ghana is one of my favorite teams of all the African nations so I will give it to them to advance.

World Cup 2014

The World Cup 2014 will be held in Brazil this year, stay tuned for my country analysis and group breakdowns next week.