Get in the POOL!

Alright. It's Time! This is where the Yanq's throwin' down this year.

(Updated with corrections! Many thanks to all.)

Like it says in the Good Book, "...and the blind shall lead the blind..." It says that in there, right? Anyway, if you're a Futbol Idiot like me, you'll be lookin' cool 'cause you'll know who's playin' and when and where...and YOU'LL HAVE AN OPINION! First, let's have a little primer in case you know less about futbol than me (thanks, wiki!):

The World Cup is the biggest thing in sports...period...and every country on the planet gets a pretty decent shot at playing because of the selection process. This championship has been played every 4 years since 1930 except for during world war II when 2 World Cups were cancelled.

There are 32 (this number has increased dramatically in recent years) nations playing: The host nation automatically gets in no matter how bad they suck. (from Magnum: "hosts (or co-hosts; as in South Korea and Japan last time) do get automatic entry but they still have to be decent footballing powers to get picked in the first place so it's not like it's a freebie") The same goes for whatever nation won last time (Correction: as of this year, the defending champion no longer qualifies automatically. Brazil had to slog through the double-round robin of South American qualifying and finish in at least the top 4 to make it.) Plus the best 8 teams in the world according to their rankings. Then they fill up the rest of the spots with a random drawing.

These 32 teams are then broken up into 8 groups. The top eight teams in the FIFA rankings are NOT the eight seeded teams in the groups. The seeded teams for the groups are based on a formula taking into account the FIFA rankings, AND the last two World Cups. Because Europe is such a powerhouse (Iceman and Magnum weigh in on this) there is a rule now that says no group can have more than 2 European teams and no group can have more than one of any team from any one of the other 5 conferations (Africa, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, and Oceania.)

Those rules plus the randomness sometimes makes for some very easy groups like this year's Group A for Germany and Group G for France. But usually there is always one group among the eight referred to as "The Group of Death". This year that would be Argentina's draw, Group C, in which they are matched against Holland and Serbia.

Within each of these 8 grupos are 4 teams. Everybody plays everybody else...resulting in a total of 6 games out of each grupo.

If a team wins, it gets 3 points.
If a team ties, it gets 1 point.
If a team loses, it gets 0 points.

At the end of the 6 games the team with the most points goes on to the next stage...and the team with the second-most points goes on to the next stage too.

The next stage is called the "Round of 16" or Octavos: two teams from each of the eight groups. Inside this stage each team only plays one game, resulting in 8 games for this stage:

The winner from A plays the 2nd place team from B
The winner from C plays the 2nd place team from D
The winner from B plays the 2nd place team from A
The winner from D plays the 2nd place team from C
The winner from E plays the 2nd place team from F
The winner from G plays the 2nd place team from H
The winner from F plays the 2nd place team from E
The winner from H plays the 2nd place team from G

Then you get the Quarter Finals:
The winner of the first (above) game plays the winner of the second game.
The winner of the third game plays the winner of the fourth game.
The winner of the fifth game plays the winner of the sixth game.
The winner of the seventh game plays the winner of the eighth game.

Now it's time for the Semifinales:
Winner of the first (above) game plays winner of the third.
Winner of the second plays the winner of the fourth.

Then...in Berlin...on Sunday, July 9th...at 3 o'clock in the afternoon Buenos Aires time, 30 days after it all started... ARGENTINA BEATS BRAZIL... and I collect enough money to buy that cute little A-frame down in Bariloche.

So here's my picks, concocted at the bar in Florida Garden back in April when I knew even less about soccer than I do now (all the above I cribbed from wikipedia moments ago!) The schedule is too big to reproduce here...so go to FIFA to figure out the days and times that you'll need to hide in your basement.

Group A
1st Place Germany, 2nd Place Poland

Group B
1st Place England, 2nd Place Paraguay

Group C
1st Place Argentina, 2nd Place Holland

Group D
1st Place Mexico, 2nd Place Angola

Group E
1st Place Italy, 2nd Place U.S.

Group F
1st Place Brazil, 2nd Place Japan

Group G
1st Place France, 2nd Place Korea

Group H
1st Place Spain, 2nd Place Tunisia

Los Octavos:
1. Germany
2. Argentina
3. England
4. Mexico
5. Italia
6. France
7. Brazil
8. Spain

Los Cuartos
A. Argentina
B. Italy
C. Inglaterra
D. Brazil

After doing some research later, I'm pretty happy with my picks...all done in the blind by a yanqui that knows even less about soccer than his average countryman. I leaned toward the famous futbol playing nations, threw in my fondness for Korean toughness, something I read about Japan being good this year, and a suspicion that an African nation is going to do well.

If I had to rethink it, I'd adjust for England because of injuries, the apparently good squad that Sweden is fielding, and The Ukraine which I didn't know was so good.

Gimme your picks!