Intro

Are you sitting comfortably? Good then I’ll begin.

Only two days to go, hopefully for the next month or so, we can forget Trump and Kim (not Kardashian) Korea, Syria, Iran, in fact all the worlds hot spots and lunatics and concentrate on football, which is what we hope the nations mentioned above will be doing as well.

The format is the same as last time but I have reproduced it here for new readers or those who may have forgotten because they do not really care.

The only change, from four years ago was to remove the word “North” when referring to America, because as we all know the good ole US of A missed out on qualification to Panama, revenge for General Noriega.

There are five teams from Africa, five from South America, four from Central America, five from Asia and Australasia with thirteen countries from Europe rounding out the thirty two.

In the first round, each team will play one game, against the other teams in their group, with there being three points for a win and one for a draw. If two teams finish level on points, the places will be determined by what is known as goal difference, i.e. how many goals scored for against goals conceded.

The top two sides from each group will proceed into the last sixteen which is a straight knockout, the equivalent for our American readers of the sweet 16 in college basketball. We then have eight teams left in the quarter-finals (elite 8) which will be whittled down to four who will play in the semifinals (final 4) and then two who will contest the final.

Unbelievably, there is still the rather arcane game between the two losers of the semi-finals to see who will finish third, who cares, even I cannot remember who that dubious honour went to four years ago.

Unfortunately, as is often the case these days, the host Nation be it in the World Cup or the Olympics sometimes has, let us say some image issues. Things that they would rather not have the world's attention drawn to, such as poor Human Rights, (China) very high murder and crime rates (S Africa) or massive poverty at home (Brazil) and therefore a huge effort is put on by the host to deflect the world from these issues by controlled media and photo opportunities.

Russia’s issues tend to be of a more foreign nature, the contretemps with Ukraine and their recent annexation of Crimea, their support of President Assad, the list is too long for this article and it is not really the point here.

No, the issue that the Russians are worried about domestically having a negative PR effect on the tournament, is hooliganism.

Below is a two minute clip of a clash between Russian and English fans, at the Euros in France in 2016.  I have to warn you this clip is not for the faint hearted, the images are disturbing and the language… well what you would normally hear at a football match, so for those of you who are sensitive to such things perhaps watch with the volume muted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l3ZSppq6fg

The modern Russian hooligan is well trained, committed and fearless, and as with most of their ilk, the football is secondary to the violence and bragging rights. These are seriously hard men. In an interesting move, it was recently announced that the Russians have drafted in Cossack troops to deal with any outbreaks of hooliganism. Cossack's were known for their brutality and dedication to duty. It will be interesting to see how and if this develops.

Anyway, on with the show, my usual irreverence will return soon, so stay tuned for the first of the group previews starting with Group A consisting of Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay which will appear tomorrow followed by another seven posts  one for each group.

I will then return with previews of the deciding games in the group stages and all the games in the knockout rounds.  


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