Daves On Soccer

The first kick of the 2006 FIFA World Cup won't actually take place until June 9th, but don't believe for a moment that competition hasn't already started. With the FIFA Organising Committee set to announce the official seedings for the competition on Tuesday, coaches and officials have been jockeying for position for months, and with good reason. The luck of the draw is a critical factor for success. Just ask Argentina, who came up short in Korea/Japan 2002's "group of death". There's a rather convoluted set of criteria for determining how countries are seeded into four pools, and then placed into the eight groups of four teams. With so much mystery surrounding the process and such high stakes, somebody's bound to feel slighted.