Tag Archives: worldcup

Jogo Bonito

Mexico vs. history

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Scary post from futbol y más regarding the history of World Cups and the host nation. As you know, the opening match of the FIFA World Cup is Mexico vs. host South Africa. As the table below shows, the host nation has never lost their first match, and they have always qualified to the second round. If this holds true for the 2010 edition, this means that Mexico will not win their first game and since only two of four teams qualify, they’d be fighting for that other spot against France and Uruguay.

Year Host 1st match win? 2nd round? # won # tied # lost Group rank
1930 Uruguay Yes Yes 2 0 0 1
1934 Italy Yes Yes NA NA NA NA
1938 France Yes Yes NA NA NA NA
1950 Brazil Yes Yes 2 1 0 1
1954 Switzerland Yes Yes 2 0 1 1
1958 Sweden Yes Yes 2 1 0 1
1962 Chile Yes Yes 2 0 1 2
1966 England Draw Yes 2 1 0 1
1970 Mexico Draw Yes 2 1 0 2
1974 W. Germany Yes Yes 2 1 0 1
1978 Argentina Yes Yes 2 0 1 2
1982 Spain Yes Yes 1 1 1 2
1986 Mexico Yes Yes 2 1 0 1
1990 Italy Yes Yes 3 0 0 1
1994 U.S.A. Draw Yes 1 1 1 3
1998 France Yes Yes 3 0 0 1
2002 Korea Yes Yes 2 1 0 1
2002 Japan Yes Yes 2 1 0 1
2006 Germany Yes Yes 3 0 0 1
Jogo Bonito

Preparing for the World Cup

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In order to be at their best possible level, several soccer stars all over the world are transferring to different clubs ahead of the World Cup:

Oy.

Jogo Bonito

World Cup groups

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fifa cupThe Final Draw is over. Here are the results:

Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic, Greece
Group C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia
Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana,
Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon
Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia
Group G: Brazil, Korea DPR, Côte d’Ivoire, Portugal
Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile

Yes, Mexico will be opening the World Cup. Pretty cool.

Jogo Bonito

Italy wins!

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After a month of non-stop World Cup soccer Italy takes the championship for the fourth time. Congratulations to them. Cetrulo is thrilled. I’m happy for him.

But I don’t care.

What I do care about is that after a shameful start in La Polla I was able to recover and finish 9th out of 81. See for yourself. This means I beat my uncle in a head-to-head bet and I proved to Alejandro del Castillo that my soccer knowledge vastly exceeds his own (as if that needed to be proved). Impressively, if you count only the second round, then I would have finished second out of 81. Anand Narayanan wins, but we all know he’s just very lucky ever since he shaved off that mustache.
All in all, I watched 46 out of 64 matches in this World Cup. That’s a lot of fútbol my friend. And I must frankly admit I’ve had enough. I am ready to move on to something else. Such as the Mexican Soccer League.

Jogo Bonito

Panini World Cup Sticker Album update

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On April 29 I wrote about my new World Cup sticker album. A little over a month later I am happy to report that I’m 14 stickers short of completion. Check my Progress Tracking page… maybe you can help me!

On a related note, I received the following letter from Modena, Italy last week:

That’s right my friends… the most sought-after sticker is finally here: Marcos Kirsch
Rumor has it that for 10 of these you can get one of Maza Rodriguez.

And now, decide for yourself: Who looks angrier, Marcos, or superstar, legend and crack Guille Franco?


Jogo Bonito

World Cup 2006 Sticker Album

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Every four years, the world gets ready for the big party. And every four years, millions of soccer fans buy the Panini Wold Cup Official Sticker Album. I now I’ve been doing it with my brothers since 1982, and still own the 1986, 1994 and 2002 editions (I need to look for the rest).

For the 2006 World Cup in Germany the italian company Panini published the album as usual. They sell it all over the world…. except in the U.S.A. (or at least I haven’t seen it, correct me if I’m wrong). This makes things a whole lot harder. Still I press on and I am in the process of completing mine. Since buying the sticker packets must be done long distance, and trading duplicates with friends is hard because they all live in a different country [Editor’s note: Marcos has friends in this country, they just didn’t get the album], I have created a small webpage where people can track my progress (becuase YOU care!).

Yeah, it seems like it was a lot of work and makes me look like an obsessive-compulsive anal-retentive childish nerd. In reality, you wouldn’t be that far off the truth… but seriously, I promise it wasn’t bad.

Moi, Arturito, Mauri and Abrahamcito drove into town from Monterrey last night. They bought a whole box of sticker packets for me and some more for themselves. I need to paste them and record the duplicates so that I can send them down with them on Monday to my agent in Mexico. He has all the right contacts in school.

And now, presenting the My Panini World Cup Sticker Album Progress Tracking page. As of right now, I have 39.86% completed.

[UPDATE 5/2/2006] Now that didn’t take long… Moi started his own album, and made my script look pretty.