Key Countries

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Group A

South Africa: not enough vuvuzelas

Mexico: striker aged 37!

Uruguay: squeaked into tournament

France: handballed into tournament

Group B

Argentina: Messi overcomes Maradona

Nigeria: disorganized but strong

South Korea: far from home

Greece: worse than economy

Group C

England: nosebleed expectations again

USA: not quite yet

Algeria: Egypt a fluke

Slovenia: nil nil draws

Group D

Germany: nicht ich mannschaft

Australia: gutsy 2006 fluke?

Serbia: Montenegro no loss

Ghana: Essien hurt? ouch!

Group E

Netherlands: one million midfielders

Denmark: silly short passes

Japan: fresh minnow sushi

Cameroon: 1990 long ago

Group F

Italy: ma gic spray

Paraguay: surprising qualifying performance

New Zealand: soccer's detroit lions

Slovakia: better than Slovenia

Group G

Brazil: no introduction needed

North Korea: record breaking horrible

Cote d'Ivoire: 4 stars enough?

Portugal: 1 star enough?

Group H

Spain: clever fancy feet

Switzerland: multicultural immigration helping

Honduras: drew with Azerbaijan
Chile: hotheaded but good

Japan ready to be MMMBopped by Cameroon

France will see your Japanese N'Sync

and raise you a busted up dune buggy

Les Bleus came to play, the rest of us are just amateurs.

French fight back as inappropriate cross-training war escalates

No better way to prepare for soccer in Africa... No word yet on Italy's response: tae kwon do anyone?

Germany will lose but intend to hammer stage 19 L'alp d'Huez

For bonus points, pick which one has been named captain of the team. If you guessed the weasel on the right who is 130 pounds soaking wet, congratulations!

World Cup Challenge Welcome

Teams are being “fancied,” mullets are being greased, referees are getting cut for failing fitness tests, and the magic spray bottles are locked and loaded. It’s World Cup Time!!!!

Hello and welcome to the 3^rd World Cup Challenge. We have 2 weeks until kickoff in Soccer City, but I wanted to get this entry form in your grubby little soccer hands as soon as possible so you can do your research and because Mrs. Poolmaster is expecting our third little Gilberto Silva anytime now.

Before explaining the new Challenge rules, a brief summary of the World Cup format for the uninitiated: 32 countries are lumped into 8 groups of 4. Each country plays the other 3 in their group. Best 2 countries in each group advance to round 2. Round 2 is a plain old single-elimination tournament between the 16 remaining countries. That’s it.

For the World Cup Challenge: you will rank all 32 countries from 1 (best) to 32 (worst). The goal in group stage is for your best ranked teams (low numbers) to qualify for the 2^nd round. We sum your rankings of the 16 countries that qualify for round 2 – and the lowest point total is our leader.

Now, the best (lowest score) 16 players scored from group stage of the challenge qualify for round 2. Each player gets to pick 1 country in a draft. Then if your country wins the world cup, you win! The player with the lowest point total gets to pick first. Your order of preference for picking countries in this draft will be the same 1-32 ranking from above.

Entry fee is $5 US or CAN. First place gets 67%, second place 33%. Please have your picks in by June 11, when Mexico is due to crush South Africa. Pass along to friends, enter multiple times yourself, recruit your 5 year old son to plunk down his piggy bank savings on Ivory Coast, etc...

Now, I’m sure you’ll have a blast deciding between Paraguay and Slovenia for that 24^th ranking, but in case you need a little assistance, as a rough guide here are the current FIFA world rankings for the qualified teams:

 

1	Brazil	20	Australia
2	Spain	21	Nigeria
3	Portugal	24	Switzerland
4	Netherlands	25	Slovenia
5	Italy	27	Ivory Coast
6	Germany	30	Algeria
7	Argentina	31	Paraguay
8	England	32	Ghana
9	France	34	Slovakia
13	Greece	36	Denmark
14	USA	38	Honduras
15	Serbia	45	Japan
16	Uruguay	47	South Korea
17	Mexico	78	New Zealand
18	Chile	83	South Africa
19	Cameroon	105	North Korea

 Some other links of interest out on the interweb:

poolmaster blog with all challenge updates and poems

rankings in the chess nerd style

rankings in the political polling nerd style

your brazilian soccer name

Good Luck!

Poolmaster (aka "Hebiano")

Final Results

Halfpoint celebrates on the town

Well the triple threat of USA, Canada, and South Korea were enough to keep Halfpoint in first, with Papa Hurt 2 Bees in second. Congratulations! An untimely choke from Canada women's curling sealed the fate of Bruno, who otherwise would have been second.

I can't believe I curled it the wrong way ... again!

Brokeback Alex hung on for last. Considering his B team (Russia) fired the entire administration due to embarrassment and his C team (Italy) was outscored in the medal count by at least 5 different individuals, it was probably fair to give him his money back.

As for the Olympics, they opened with a horrible first day, stumbled through the first few events, then found their stride with great performances, incredible moments, and to cap it off there was a classic home team hockey win for the ages. And then there were the flying beavers...

As an American living in Canada, all I can say is: maybe you got more gold, but we more than doubled you in bronze! Don't make us pull another 1080 double mctwist!

Oh, and Canada women's hockey: you stay classy!

Thanks for playing and making this the largest Poolmaster challenge yet! See you in 3 short months in South Africa for the World Cup Soccer Challenge... it's like hockey, without the North American domination.

Down to the wire

Halfpoint and PH2B should get near a tv at 3:30pm Saturday, as the pool could come down to the result of the women's speed skating team pursuit semifinals (that's right, I said semifinals. I'm not kidding). Poland faces Japan, Halfpoint rooting for Poland and PH2B for Japan. Halfpoint is ahead by 4 points, but PH2B may get 2 from Slovakia bronze in men's hockey Saturday night and a speed skating semifinal win would be worth a minimum of 2, maximum 5 point spread. But that's not all going on tomorrow as Poland may also have a chance in women's 30k cross country.

The bottom line is that nothing is decided, other than Bruno was slammed into third for the moment thanks to the Canada choke in both the 10th AND 11th end in the gold medal game of women's curling. It's moments like that when I'm glad I'm in 17th place and don't have to sweat it out into extra ends of curling only to come up short.

Brokeback Alex has pulled into sole possession of last, by the way.

Day 13 Update

Handicapping the field with 4 days left

We have 15 players still sniffing around in the competition. Here is a brief outlook of the chances:

1. Halfpoint: leading. All South Korea all the time. Kim Yu-Na needs to crush the figure skating (while wearing blue) tonight and a few falls from the Japanese would be nice too.  3 short track events Friday will be big to cut the field down to just halfpoint, bruno, and papa hurt 2 bees. Finland winning men’s hockey gold would be gravy. But first things first: blue lycra tonight, Yu-Na.

2. Bruno: 10 points back, gold guarantee remaining. Canada women’s curling gold is the obvious priority, then you can repeat all the goals of halfpoint, with the exception of Kim Yu-Na wearing red tonight.

3. Flippy Flyer: 15 back. Actually in a tough spot, as there is little left for China and Australia. FF got full points from women’s aerials last night, and the short track relay DQ of Korea was a nice touch. However, the flyer is running on fumes and will soon be descending to the tarmac.

4. Papa hurt 2 bees: 18 back with gold guarantee remaining. The bee killer is still stalking. Japan and Slovakia. A win tonight in women’s figure skating would be a huge 10 point lift that no one above him has. So even though he picked South Korea, he should be rooting for Kim Yu-Na to skate herself into the wall tonight. After that, a USA-Slovakia men’s hockey final would be quite helpful thank you very much.

5. Tiber: 23 back. Things are not looking good for Tiber. Like Flippy Flyer, the China gravy train is over and there is no more gold guarantee to help. His best hope is for Japanese figure skating gold and Slovakia hockey gold, which would give him a good shot at 2^nd place.

6. Burg de Brown, Lisa McSnowqueen, The Dan in Quebec, Ukari Figgs: 25 back. This foursome have 1 thing in common: Sweden. There are still 3 cross country, 1 biathlon, and 3 alpine events remaining for the blue and yellow to do damage. Oh, and don’t forget curling. These guys aren’t out of it yet – especially Dan and Ukari, who have gold guarantee in play.

6. Dan in New York #1: 25 back. Even if we believed in miracles, that won’t be enough for Dan. He has no unique route to get in the top 2 as there are 2 Chinas, 3 Czechs, and 3 Polands in front of him.

11. Full Monte #1: 26 back with gold guarantee remaining. 26 points is a lot, to be sure. But the gg in curling would make that 16. Then Switzerland is a threat for gold in 5 remaining events – including the 4 man bobsled which gives double points. That would be 30 more theoretically. This race isn’t finished yet.

11. Poolmaster: 26 back. I’m out of it. I don’t want to talk about Mengtao and her face-first landing style in the final jump of aerials last night. I mean really – the strategy on her second jump had to be “land right side up, and you win gold.” This isn’t rocket science, come on! Like I said, I don’t want to talk about it.

13. Bijou: 27 back. Similar to Dan from New York: just too many entries with similar countries in front. Out of the running.

13. Chinda: 27 back. See Full Monte above, subtract 1 point. Oh, and do your best not to think about the Belarus dude who went the wrong way in cross country skiing.

13. Dr. Norway. 27 back. If somehow Sweden and Norway can join forces to win a bunch of everything, he’s got a shot. Just a slim one though. (Slovakia hockey gold would make it interesting!)

Ice Dancing with the Stars

In a brilliant cross-promotional move, that girl from Bones and that guy from ER won gold in ice dancing last night.

Perhaps we'll see the Golden Girls sub in for USA women's curling?

The leaderboard remains unchanged (halfpoint, bruno, papa don't you hurt those 2 bees) with Dr. Norway gaining some ground up to 5th. Alex D'amour is rocking last with an 8 point buffer.