Never Underestimate the Greed of Those Who Run This Sport

Yeah, I said I was taking some time off but a couple of issues surfaced that are better addressed before I forget about them.

FIFA Announces World Cup Matches Will Be 4 Quarters, Not 2 Halves

Okay, that's not exactly how the announcement read but it is the de facto outcome.

FIFA has mandated hydration breaks for every match of the World Cup regardless of weather conditions.  Of course this is sold as a "player welfare" measure.  We do not disagree that hydration breaks are indeed intended to safeguard the athletes' health - when the weather conditions justify them.  We also don't disagree that playing in North American in June and July, we would expect numerous occasions when conditions would dictate breaks.

But that's not the same thing as a mandated three minute break.  This is now a guaranteed stoppage that will need to be filled with commercials.  And just how lucrative these breaks may be is revealed in the debate and confusion over exactly what will be allowed to fill this space.  Chestnut Hill soccer alum Henry Bushnell has an excellent article here outlining the issues.  Will the breaks be sponsored by Powerade or Gatorade?  Either way somebody's gonna make some good money.  Also, Ted Lasso was right.

Bad Lawyering?

Then, courtesy of BFS Track and Field Correspondent Jack W,  we have this story about how West Ham United is balking at letting the city use London Stadium for the World Athletic Championships (think World Cup for track and field) in 2029.  

Recall that the stadium was built as the track and field venue for the 2012 Olympic Games.  There was much concern about what would happen to the place after the Games; that history is chronicled here.  The upshot is that West Ham got an incredibly sweet deal on a lease for a brand new stadium.

London Stadium at its 2012 opening
Photo: Getty Images/Michael Steele

Wait a minute, if West Ham are tenants in, not owners of, London Stadium, how are they able to keep the city from using the venue?  This is where the bad lawyering comes in.  Apparently the city did not think through the possibilities and essentially gave West Ham veto rights during the football season.  This would not be the first time the lease hasn't worked for the city.  In 2023 West Ham qualified for the Europa Conference League, a new European competition.  Because that competition wasn't specifically mentioned in the lease, West Ham was able to use the stadium for free for those matches.  Yes, the Conference League didn't exist at the time the lease was drawn up but wouldn't you think the lawyers would be smart enough to include some catchall reference to "any other football competition" or language to similar effect.

There are many ways out of this mess and I hope it doesn't involve some compensation to West Ham or the Premier League for that matter.  They've already robbed the city blind on this deal.  The says it needs three weekends.  Since EPL teams rarely play consecutive home matches, it's likely that at most two matches would be affected.  With cooperative scheduling from the EPL that could easily drop to one.  And with a little more help, they could just switch the home and away dates for that team.  It would be a slight disadvantage to West Ham as they would play three consecutive away matches early in the season.  That would be balanced however by an extra home match somewhere later in the season.

British middle distance runner Keely Hodgkinson put herself in the debate, first humorously, then a bit more seriously.  As you can read here, her opening salvo was along the lines of we'll win more medals in this event than West Ham have earned in 130 years.  She's not that far off.  West Ham do have a couple of FA Cup trophies and did win the 2023 Europa Conference League title (a third tier European competition).  On the other hand, they've never finished first in the Premier League title and in fact have never won the first division of English football at any point in their history.  In subsequent posts, she notes that West Ham is denying English athletes to compete in front of home fans.

On top of all this, there is a non-zero chance that West Ham won't even be in the Premier League in 2029.  They are in a pitched battle to avoid relegation this year and should they fail to stay up, there's no guarantee they'll come back up soon.   Oy, this is complicating my relegation rooting strategy. 

Hell, since I'm here already, I may as well comment on the FIFA playoff results.

How Many Countries in This Country Made It to the World Cup?  

Two -  England and Scotland already qualified in the group stage.  Northern Ireland fell, not unexpectedly, to Italy in the first playoff round.  There were higher hopes for Wales, especially after they carried a 1-0 lead late into their playoff match against Bosnia & Herzegovina.  Then they surrendered a late equalizer and ended up losing in the PK shootout.  That day was not a good one for the region, as Ireland coughed up a 2-0 lead on Czechia and also lost in PKs.

Not again? Italy misses out on another World Cup
Getty Images

The first round went according to plan but the second did not.  Of the favorites, only Turkiye won their "final."  Most surprising was Italy losing on PKs to Bosnia & Herzegovina.  The Italians did dig themselves a hole by going down a man late in the first half but managed to play to a 1-1 draw through regulation and extra time.  Surely Italy would be favored in the shootout, especially with Bananarama Donnaruma in goal.  Except that doesn't help when you fire one over the bar and slam another one into it.  So this is a third straight World Cup without Italy, which could lead to the ouster of the current government.  Czechia upset Denmark, also in a PK shootout and Sweden bested the lightly favored Poland 3-2 in regular time.

In the international playoffs, Jamaica barely squeaked past New Caledonia in the first round and offered nothing in a 0-1 loss to Congo in the final so the Reggae Boyz will be sitting this one out.  As expected, Iraq beat Bolivia in the other bracket.

Groups of Death Revisited

So how do the upsets change the group stage dynamics?  Let's revise the analysis I did back in December to see what's up.  Recall that I suggested it's not so much the average ranking within the group but how closely the teams are ranked.  Also remember that FIFA world rankings can be suspect (looking right at you USA).

Here's the table with the rankings:

The warning signs for the US that I noted before are still there.  Group D has the best ranked third and fourth "seeds" of any group.  Also, the spread from one to four is easily the smallest of any group.

Looking at strength of schedule, things don't get better.

The US have by far the toughest schedule of any of the top ranked countries and the spread in strength of schedule across the group is the tightest.  Group F looks pretty tough too.  Big winner from the playoffs is Switzerland and Group B.  When we assumed Italy was the playoff winner, Switzerland's strength of schedule was 30.00.  Slot Bosnia into the group and the Swiss now have the easiest schedule of any country in the tournament; Canada was a big winner too.  However, I am going to stay with Group H as the Group of Lollipops and Unicorns as Spain and Uruguay look to have big advantages over the third and fourth ranked team in their group.

The Tudor Reign Endeth

Igor Tudor was given seven games and 44 days to correct years of dysfunction at Tottenham and of course failed miserably.  "By mutual consent," he and Spurs parted company on Sunday.  This turnstile approach to managers is utter nonsense.  And my relegation rooting strategy has already changed from two paragraphs ago.  Wolves and Burnley are toast so the choices are Nottingham Forest, Spurs and West Ham.  Forest are definitely my first choice to go.  The stadium hassle had me ready to dump West Ham but this managerial change made me switch to Spurs; especially since I'd like to see Nuno keep West Ham up while two clubs who sacked him fight it out for the last spot.

What Slowdown in the Schedule?

Not sure why I was thinking this was going to be a quiet period.  The FA Cup Quarterfinals are Saturday and Sunday.  Champions League, Europa Cup and Europa Conference League have the first legs of their quarterfinal series Tuesday-Thursday.  Then, EPL action returns from Friday to Monday.  For those with an iron constitution, you can also check out the Union's away match versus Charlotte on Saturday.  Check your local listings as they say.

On the road next week so chances of a blog post are low, but I said that this week so who knows.