The results of the World Cup Finals Draw: World Cup 2018 Russia

The results of the World Cup Finals Draw: World Cup 2018 Russia

So after 3 years of qualifying and hundreds and hundreds of games of football around the globe, the draw for the World Cup Finals in Russia took place last weekend, and we now know which teams we will be seeing in the group matches we already have tickets for. They are: -

Match 4 - Morocco vs Iran

Match 17 - Russia vs Egypt

Match 25 - Brazil vs Costa Rica

Match  39 - Nigeria vs Argentina

So whilst the Morocco v Iran game is a bit of a low-wattage match, the other 3 games in the group stage look quite good. From experience, it is always great when you can attend a match with the world cup hosts involved, as there is generally a great atmosphere, and Russia v Egypt could be a significant game in the scheme of things, (Egypt are my tip of a bit of a dark horse…!). And anytime you get to see Brazil or Argentina play is always a special event, so overall, I am quite happy with the draw so far. 

Using my understanding of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each of the teams, and based on who I think will finish 1^st & 2^nd in their respective groups, there could be a good chance that we could see later games in the tournament involving teams such as Spain, Uruguay & England. And if my "guessing" is correct and matches go to form, there is a potential Argentina v Germany semi-final in our future… How about that….!

The next round of Ticket Sales open in the next few days, and we are still after tickets to Match 56 and the elusive World Cup Final match, so keep your fingers crossed for us that we do well in the next random lottery.

Germany to Win the World Cup...?? : World Cup Russia 2018

Germany to Win the World Cup...?? : World Cup Russia 2018

In my last Blog, I forecast that the following 8 teams would be successful in making it through to the final 32 of the World Cup qualifying process: -

Italy / Croatia / Denmark / Ivory Coast / Peru / Northern Ireland / Australia / Senegal / Tunisia

Well, I got 5 out of the 8 right, so not too bad. Almost no one was expecting Italy to be defeated by Sweden and miss out on their first World Cup Finals since 1958, but they did..! Switzerland managed to bully their way past Northern Ireland, and Ivory Coast conspired to loose out in their qualifying group to Morocco.

So there you have it, the final 32 teams for next year’s World Cup Finals.

The Final Draw for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia is happening in Moscow on Friday 1 December, and will start at 18:00 local time. It is live on TV here in New Zealand at 4am on Saturday, and I will set my alarm to get up and see it.

The draw itself is generally a very convoluted and complex thing, and I have found a YouTube video to explain it: https://youtu.be/jDkn83FwioA

Obviously being a geek, I have conducted my own unofficial draw to see if I can guess which matches we will be seeing in the opening group games, and come up with the following:

M4 Costa Rica v Saudi Arabia

M17 Russia v Sweden

M25 France v Iceland

M39 Panama v Belgium

As I am a bit of a nerd, I have also done a complete mock-up of the whole of the Tournament based upon who I think will progress through the group stages to identify who we might see in the succeeding games:

M51 Brazil v Sweden

M56 Poland v Switzerland

M62 Belgium v Portugal

M64 Germany v Belgium

So I am forecasting that it will be a Germany v Belgium final, with Germany going on to lift the World Cup in 2018…!! 

I wish I could predict England for the World Cup......, but that would be madness...

The end of Qualifying. Who will qualify..? : World Cup 2018 Russia

The end of Qualifying. Who will qualify..? : World Cup 2018 Russia

Well, enough about tickets and travel arrangements, it’s time to look at the World Cup Qualifiers, and who is going to make it into the last 32 teams to play in Russia. So far the following teams have qualified :

Russia / Brazil / Germany / Spain / France / Portugal / Argentina / Mexico / Belgium / South Korea / England  / Nigeria / Columbia / Japan / Costa Rica / Poland / Egypt / Iceland / Iran / Saudi Arabia / Serbia / Panama

From my perspective, the most significant team that is not on that list is the USA, who somehow manage to contrive to throw away their chance to reach the finals with some incredibly poor results in their last few game, not helped by results elsewhere. After having done so well in Brazil in 2014, it feels like a real backward step for US football, and I genuinely hope that they can turn things around over the next few years and make a better fist of it for 2022.

There are however still 9 places left to be taken for next year’s finals, and over the coming weekend the last round of qualifying and knock out games will take place. As is tradition, I am going to try and guess which teams are going to make it through to the finals. The African Conference are playing their last qualifying games to sort out who goes through, and I am going to choose Senegal, Tunisia & the Ivory Coast.

In Europe, there are 4 play-off games taking place, and I have highlighted who I think will go through over two legs below:-

Croatia v Greece / Northern Ireland v Switzerland / Sweden v Italy / Denmark v Rep of Ireland

The 5^th place team in Central American Conference, Honduras, are playing off against runners-up in the Asian qualifying, Australia, and I choose Australia to win that one. This is based on nothing more than me holding Honduras accountable for knocking the USA out of next year’s tournament with their ridiculous late goal in qualifying.

Last but not least is my adopted home country New Zealand, (winners of the somewhat farcical Oceania qualifying group), are playing Peru, who finished 5^th in the South American Conference. If my heart ruled my head, which it is apt to do on occasion, I would go for New Zealand, but if I really thought they stood a chance, I would have brought tickets to the play-off game and thrown my support behind them. But alas not…. So unfortunately I am choosing Peru to go through.

So there you have it…. I am expecting Italy / Croatia / Denmark / Ivory Coast / Peru / Northern Ireland / Australia / Senegal / Tunisia go through after this round of play-off games…

How will I do….?

We have Tickets..... Yay : World Cup 2018 Russia

We have Tickets..... Yay : World Cup 2018 Russia

Well stone the crows…..!!

The result of the First Sales Phase lottery are in, and we have been very, very lucky and scooped almost all the tickets we requested, how about that….!!

We have received confirmation of match tickets for each of the following 6 games, out of the 8 games that wanted to see: 

• M4  - Friday, 15 June 2018 - 18.00 - St. Petersburg
• M17 - Tuesday, 19 June 2018 - 21.00 - St. Petersburg (this game will include the hosts Russia)
• M25 - Friday, 22 June 2018 - 15.00 - St. Petersburg
• M39 - Tuesday, 26 June 2018 - 21.00 - St. Petersburg
• M51 - Sunday, 1 July 2018 - 17.00 -  Moscow Luzhniki
• M62 - Wednesday, 11 July 2018 - 21.00 -  Moscow Luzhniki 

We missed out on the following:

• M56 - Tuesday, 3 July 2018 - 21.00 - Moscow Spartak
• M64 (World Cup Final) – Sunday, 15 July 2018 - 18.00 -  Moscow Luzhniki 

I am not surprised about not getting the Finals tickets, as they are always in high demand, but we still have 4 additional sales phase to try and get the remaining tickets.

Now all we need is the qualification to finish and the draw to take place to know what matches we will be attending at next summer’s competition.

Only 227 Days, 18 hours, 25 minutes until the 2018 World Cup kicks off...!!

Tickets go on Sale… What..?? : World Cup 2018 Russia

Tickets go on Sale… What..?? : World Cup 2018 Russia

Well, unbeknownst to me, and at odds with any information I have previously found on the FIFA website, or any other site on the internet come to that, the first of the ticket sales phases for World Cup 2018 Russia has started…??

The Sales Phases are organised as follows:

Sales Phase 1

-     Random Selection Lottery Period – From 14^th September to 12^th October 2017

-     First Come, First Served Period – From 14^th November to 28^th November 2017

Sales Phase 2

-     Random Selection Lottery Period – From 5^th December 2017 to 31^st January 2018

-    First Come, First Served Period – From 13^th March to 3^rd April 2018

Last Minute Sales Phase – From 18^th April to 15^th July 2018

So that means that Yates and I need to sort our ticketing strategy to make the most of the 5 available opportunities we have to buy tickets. We need a ticketing strategy as we are after tickets for 8 location-specific matches, split between St. Petersburg & Moscow, for up to 8 people. This is a problem in itself as applicants can only apply for a max of up to 7 matches, and for a maximum of up to 4 tickets per match. But we have a cunning plan…..

If ticketing works out the way it has over the past handful of World Cups, we will get some of the tickets we want in each sales phase, with the only real sticking point being getting our hands on tickets for the World Cup Final, which we have been unable to do for the past 6 World Cup Tournaments. But we will be in Moscow at the time of the Final and will try everything we can to get are sweaty little hands on those oh so elusive Finals tickets…. 

Wish us luck…!

Say Hello to the World Cup Stadiums: World Cup 2018 Russia

Say Hello to the World Cup Stadiums: World Cup 2018 Russia

Credit: Knowledge Tube (link)

Ticketing & Fan-ID Visa Travel: World Cup 2018 Russia

Ticketing & Fan-ID Visa Travel: World Cup 2018 Russia

Here is a short update regarding ticketing timeframes and the proposed FAN-ID Travel Visa Waiver details.

Now that this year’s Confederations Cup has successful completed in Russia, and Germany have once again successfully walked away with yet another trophy, it is time to keep an eye out for more detail about the ticketing process for 2018. At the back end of last week, TASS, the state approved news agency for Russia, announced that the draw for the group stage of the 2018 World Cup will take place on Friday, December 1 at the State Kremlin Palace inside the Moscow Kremlin. This is completely in line with timetable of previous world cups draws, so no surprises there. What was surprising though was that on the same day, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko announced that tickets for the 2018 FIFA World Cup will go on sale on Friday, December 1, effectively after the World Cup Draw has taken place…!!

This is a MASSIVE bombshell..! Since we started our World Cup tournament odyssey, match tickets were already on sale, and sometimes even two sales phases in, well before the Finals draw was made. In 2006 in Germany we were already buying tickets in May, well over a year before the tournament kicked off, and in 2010 in South Africa & 2014 in Brazil, we already purchased the majority of the match tickets we wanted before the World Cup Finals draw was even made.

“So what the problem with that…?”

Well, this means that anyone interested in going to the World Cup in 2018 will know exactly who is playing who for every match, and therefore applying for the games they really want to see. 

“And why is that such a problem…?”

Well, I think we have always had a bit of an advantage over those people that wanted to know the draw before ordering tickets, in that we could buy tickets for specific locations in the early sales phase when no one knew who was playing in that match, and there was, in theory, less demand. Now, if one of the matches we want to see in St. Petersburg or Moscow have the hosts, or one of the favourites playing, there will be much more demand for those tickets. I can see this causing us a possible headache in December when we want to buy tickets…!!

In other, slightly more positive news, details about the use of the mandated FAN-ID process and how they are to be used as Travel Visa’s to get in to Russia next year are beginning to seep out. Firstly, Russian media have reported that it takes only 72 hours to process an application for a FAN-ID, which is great for those of us that need one issued before we can enter into Russia. Assuming that we get some tickets in the early part of the initial sales phase, (starting December 1st 2017), then it should only be a matter of weeks after our ticket order is accepted before we can apply for our FAN-IDs,and they arrive in our mailbox, which will hopefully be months before we start our travels towards Russia in May.

Secondly, and it depends on which news source you read, the FAN-ID will be valid for entry into Russia 10 days before the tournament starts and for 10 days after, which is just about perfect for us. There is some confusion around this as I have also read that the FAN-ID will be valid for travel into Russia 10 days before, and after the date of the first/last game for which you have a ticket purchased from FIFA.com…. Whilst this is a little more restrictive in terms of timings, as we are aiming to arrive in St. Petersburg on the 6^th June and the first game we want tickets for is on the 15^th, (9 days before), and the last game we want to attend is on the 11^th July, (assuming we cannot get tickets for the Final on 15^th), and we are planning on leaving Russia on the 19^th July (8 days after), we should be okay. So it appears that we should be able to get our FAN-IDs issued well before we need them and that they will cover us for entry & exit to Russia in the time we are proposing to be there… 

It's not all bad news....