Wednesday, November 9, 2022 
Issue #1.0.1 "Nobody's Listening!"
[||| Mini-Updates | Enter Now! ]

ITALY BACK-TO-BACK FAILURES, BRAZIL BACK TO #1
Our 7th World Cup pool in the late autumn will test if anyone's listening

EL SEGUNDO, CA (smt) --  The World Cup is a premier summer event but not this one.  When FIFA awarded Qatar the World Cup back in 2010, the country's average summer temperatures over 40 deg Celsius (104 deg F) forced FIFA to move the World Cup to winter (well, technically fall) to avoid the heat.  This messed up most of the world's domestic league's schedules (except Major League Soccer, which had their wild MLS Cup season-ender November 5) and add to it the controversies of Qatar hosting, who knew the World Cup will soon be upon us?  Can the World Cup coverage in America break though the noise and be heard with the NFL and college football in full swing (both conflicting with FOX's World Cup broadcasts), seasons underway in the NBA and NHL, and college basketball soon to start?

Qatar will feature eight stadiums all condensed within 34-miles of each other, four set kickoff times (2 am, 5 am, 8 am, and 11 am in the Pacific Standard Time), a short 29-day window, and again no gil Azzurri.

For the second straight World Cup, it will be missing 4-time champ #6-Italy which suffered an embarrassing 1-0 loss to #65-North Macedonia in one of the UEFA semi-finals.  However, #16 B3-USA bounced back from missing the World Cup in 2018 to actually make Pot 2 of the World Cup draw (avoids two top tier teams in the group).  Unfortunately, with #19 B4-Wales winning the playoff to be put in Pot 4, the USA will face #5 B1-England, Wales, and #20 B2-Iran in the only group with all four teams in the top 20.  The other 7 groups each have two teams outside the top 20.  So ENG's Group B is the closest to a Group of Death but there really isn't one this year.  Group D (#4 D1-France and #10 D3-Denmark) and E (#7 E1-Spain and #11 E3-Germany) each have two clear top teams with #8 A4-Netherlands lucky to land in Group A with #18 A3-Senegal, #44 A2-Ecuador, and host #50 A1-Qatar.  H2-Ghana is the worst-ranked team at #61.

For the first time since 2010, G1-Brazil enters the World Cup as the #1 team in the world.  The 5-time champs haven't won a title since 2002 and hope to dethrone defending champ FRA.  QAT is the only team making its World Cup debut but two teams are ending long droughts with WAL making it for the first time since 1958 and #41 F2-Canada for the first time since 1986.  The other 29 teams either played in the last World Cup (24 teams) or the previous one in 2014 (5 teams).

Despite rosters being expanded to 26 players, USA coach Gregg Berhalter still had to leave out players such as GK Zack Steffan and F Ricardo Pepi.  With the team struggling with World Cup participants #53-Saudi Arabia (0-0) and #24-Japan (2-0 loss) in their final two tune-up matches, the marquee Black Friday matchup with ENG could be a bust or elimination match for USA.  Can Christian Pulisic be the breakout star on the biggest stage?  He is one of 25 players (DeAndre Yedlin is the lone veteran) who have not played in a World Cup (thanks to USA last qualifying in 2014) as the average roster age is just 25.5.

Four years is a long time to wait, but those who participated in our 3rd-ever HWCI EURO Pool (postponed from 2020 to 2021), only had to wait 16 months!  This is our 5th straight year having a soccer pool (thanks to the special MLS is Back tournament in 2020) with the Women's World Cup in 2023 and the Euros in 2024 to come!  Same rules, same format.  The only issue is that there are no checks if you accidentally put in the same team winning a group and coming in 2nd, but I will do the checks manually anyway.  Just make sure you have 16 different teams in your Round of 16.

We had a record 79 entries in 2018 and hope to continue the upward tick but with this shift to the late fall right after the elections, let's see who is listening (BTW, if you are not watching Star Wars: Andor (where this issue's title comes from), it's one of the best shows this year).  But we'll have fun anyways.  Mike W won the top prize of $355 as the top 4 finishers all picked FRA.  Will Eric's "Foster's Football Brew" be back this year?  I hope so!  If anyone else wants to contribute, let me know.  Anyone else going to Qatar and want to send pictures or mini-reports?

The best way to keep up with the pool is to follow @HWCI_Pools on Twitter or visit the #hwciWC hashtag (you don't need Twitter account to view) often for daily updates.  Less often will be our Facebook group page (post comments or organize viewing parties) and then these newsletters every 4 days or so.

Here are the basics:

WHAT:		7th HWCI Men's World Cup Soccer Office Pool
FEE:		$10.00 USD per entry (up to 3 entries per person) Enter Now! 
DEADLINE:	8:00 a.m. PDT on Sunday, November 20th (if by mail postmark by SAT AM)
WHO:		Anyone with ten bucks!  Invite friends!
REFERRAL:	For those who participated previously (or this year), refer 5 new people and get a free entry with one paid
SOCCER STAT:	France is the defending World Cup champion
PAYMENT:	PayPal $10 to hwci(at)hotmail.com (personal or gift, no credit cards)
		PayPal $10.61 to smt0222(at)yahoo.com (credit card okay)
		Venmo $10 to @smt0222 (personal or gift)
		Google Pay $10 to smt0222(at)gmail.com (personal or gift)
		Mail $10 (email worldcup(at)hwci.com for snail mail address)
WINNERS:	1998: Fernando B (Le Bix) $115 (21 entries)
		2002: Tina M (Puna) $110 (23)
		2006: Cynthia S (Elastigirl) $220 (44)
		2010: Joseph D (Forza Pazza) $310 (69)
		2014: Tim H (EEChick1400) $345 (75)
		2018: Mike W (Walleye) $355 (79)

For more info, see the "Rules" or read our FAQ.  Then please enter online using our Web Entry page or download the form and fill the last page out and email to worldcup(at)hwci.com.

   SIDES 'N KICKS:  In addition to Italy, usual mainstays #17-Colombia, #39-Egypt, and #32-Nigeria also didn't qualify... host QAT is ranked #50 but not as bad as 2010 host South Africa which entered the tourney #83 and was the first host to not make it past the group stage... QAT, ENG, #3 C1-Argentina, FRA, ESP, #2 F1-Belgium, BRA, and #9 H1-Portugal were in Pot 1... most of Qatar's stadiums are modular including one built from shipping containers... originally, Qatar was going to build 12 stadiums... like USA (last 1950, qualified 1990, hosted 1994), CAN qualified on their own ending a long drought right before they would automatically qualify by hosting in next World Cup... BRA is the only team to make all 22 World Cups (GER second with 20 including 18 in a row)... BRA is the odds-on favorite at 4:1 followed by FRA (6:1), ARG (13:2), ENG (7:1), and ESP (8:1)... San Marino is last in the FIFA rankings at #211... the 2026 World Cup will expand to 48 teams (the last expansion was in 1998 when it went from 24 to 32 teams, coincidentally our 1st HWCI World Cup pool)... the past nine champions have won their group... all champions have come from Europe (12) or South America (9)... unlike Russia, all matches will be in the same time zone (Arabian Standard Time)... USA (33) has played the most World Cup matches without a 0-0 draw... BRA and ARG only played 17 of 18 qualification matches because their match was interrupted five minutes in due to COVID concerns and was ultimately not replayed... all regions had delays and restructuring of their qualifying tournaments due to COVID-19 postponements... #21 G2-Serbia records include Serbia and Montenegro and Yugoslavia... Islamic Republic Iran, or IR Iran, will be noted as just "Iran" for simplicity... #12 C3-Mexico is 16-27-14 in World Cup play (most losses by a team)... 7 of 8 teams who have won the World Cup are in the tournament (no Italia)... Qatar is the smallest country to host and "beat" out Australia, Japan, joint-Korea, and USA bids... La'eeb (super-skilled player in Arabic) is the mascot... MLS is already supplying 17 players on World Cup rosters with more teams yet to announce... due to NFL and college football commitments, just 34 games will be on broadcast FOX network (down from 38 in 2018)... the opening ceremonies and QAT-ECU got moved up one day to Sunday (8 am PST) as it was for some reason originally the second match of Monday, not the first...

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Good luck traveling to Qatar...
Scott