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CONCACAF

Winners and losers of the World Cup draw

 

The harsh reality of the World Cup is that when the tournament ends on July 15 there will be only one winner, and 31 other teams whose hopes were ultimately dashed.

Yet kickoff is still more than six months out which means that everyone gets the chance to dream for now and for some, Friday’s draw felt like an early victory before a ball had been kicked in anger.

PREDICTIONS:Way-too-early World Cup picks

THE DRAW: Full list of groups, schedules

For others, the route to glory already seems a little tougher than imagined.

Winners

Russia

When you’re ranked 65th in the world and your team has come under suspicion in a major doping scandal, you’re not looking to win your home World Cup, you’re looking for respectability. Russia took a significant step toward that without playing a single game, when the fates aligned at the Kremlin and conferred the hosts with a dream draw. Russia starts against Saudi Arabia, one of the weakest teams in the tournament, and should also be too strong for Egypt. By the time it plays Uruguay, its toughest group rival, qualification for the next round might already be secure.

Sochi

Fisht Olympic Stadium was and is, like most things associated with the 2014 Winter Olympics, an extravagant waste of money. When the curtain came down on the Sochi Games, the arena looked destined for obscurity. Until, that is, it landed itself a blockbuster slate of World Cup matches in Friday’s draw. Not content with securing THE match of the group stage, Portugal v. Spain, it was also gifted Belgium’s opening game, Germany’s crucial clash with Sweden, plus a round of 16 game that could feature the host nation. And finally, if things line up, a quarterfinal that could pit Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal against Lionel Messi’s Argentina.

Losers

Mexico

Mexico’s fans already had reservations about the team’s ability to go far and those increased dramatically after seeing the draw. El Tri faces defending champion Germany first and there is no worse team to come up against in your opening match. Germany has won its first match at the last seven World Cups, by a combined score of 27-3. Mexico is capable of beating Sweden and South Korea but has wound up in a miserable spot and its run of six straight last 16 appearances could come to a crashing halt.

France and Belgium

Much like pretty much every other top seed, neither country will be particularly disappointed with its overall slate of opponents and both are strongly favored to progress comfortably to the second round. However, both landed a grueling travel schedule, with France being the only top seed forced to trek east to the Siberian city of Yekaterinberg, after starting off in Kazan. Belgium begins in Sochi, the southernmost venue, hits Moscow for its second game, then heads out of mainland Russia and into the enclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, to take on England.

The United States

Yes, this is rubbing it in, but no, it’s not too soon. Missing the World Cup might have been more of a lost opportunity than we realized. If the USA hadn’t folded so embarrassingly in CONCACAF then it would have been a third-seed for the World Cup. And, thanks to FIFA’s shiny new allocation system that seeds teams according to ranking, it would have likely found itself in a spot where qualification for round two could be expected. Take a look at the groups and imagine the USA inserted into the Pot Three slot in any of them. With the exception of Group B and maybe Group G, can you find any where the Americans would be a significant underdog to place in the top two? Thanks Bruce, Jurgen, and the boys.

 

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