Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding. The “cry me a river” was directed at Arch Trout. I should’ve been more specific.
Yeah that’s what I meant, Brazil are notoriously bad at football and this years Argentina team look woeful, Australia didn’t deserve to qualify etc etc etc
Highest attendence USA '94. That proves what exactly?
And why did you bring Israel into this? Who cares? Qualifying as part of Europe goes hand in hand with allowing them to enter the Eurovision Song Contest surely. Can’t have one without the other.
At least Vetch took my post in the spirit in which it was intended.
Maybe, just maybe, I suggested a very Europe-heavy competition because of these reasons:
(a)My country may qualify more regularly.
(b)The games will always be on at times suitable to me.
©It’ll be cheap and easy for me to travel to the competition should (a) happen.
(d)My tongue was firmly planted in my cheek.
To reiterate what I really think.
32 team world cup is good.
FIFA doesn’t give a rats ass what I think.
Neither does UEFA.
I love the 32-team format and much prefer it to the previous formats. I love watching every game—even games including mediocre teams such as Australia.
Arch Trout, consider me whooshed. I got a little worked up there, to say the least. My apologies.
No problem 
Just thinking after Saturdays games how good the 32 team setup is.
We’ve had the group stages and that’s our appetizer.
Now we’re in the second round we can sit down to the main course.
I thought saturday’s games were very good (especially the Argentina v Mexico game).
I think the three group games really gives the teams a chance to gel together so (hopefully) by the knockout stages the teams are playing at their best.
Also, how many of us would be looking forward to a Ghana v Brazil game if we were in a 16 team tournament and that was both teams first game?
But after seeing Ghana play their three group games it looks like this game could be one of the better second round games.
Not sure about “no tradition”, it’s huge with the black population. Maybe you’ve heard of Lucas Radebe? Gary Bailey? Kaiser Chiefs?
Having said that, for Cape Town, specifically, they’re pushing to host a semi-final match, which would require building a new stadium to the tune of R1.2 billion, just for one game. It’ll never be filled to capacity again, and it won’t be in a location that the fans living here can easily access (It’d be built in an affluent suburb, and most soccer fans are lower or middle class). Just so they can have Table Mountain as a backdrop :rolleyes:
There’s a lot of talk about how profitable things might be, but apparently FIFA takes the lion’s share of the direct revenues, so we end up paying billions to build/upgrade infrastructure (both the airport and the public transport net need significant upgrades, for instance) for less than stellar returns (we don’t host the final, so we aren’t the main focus). It trips across a lot of sensitive party politics too (Cape Town is the only major city controlled by the official opposition rather than the ruling party, but that was only a recent thing. The impression was that the previous city government foisted this on us without counting the costs)
This story and the related ones listed on the side might give an overview.
By all means, if we’re approved to host the 2010 Cup, do come. The problems are ones that should affect residents, it won’t be a bad experience for visitors. And if you do come, I’d reccomend Cape Town ove Johannesburg any day.