What I would like to touch on next is the old adage that European teams win in Europe and South Americans elsewhere, well that was never totally true, as Brazil won in Sweden in 1958 and Germany blew it out of the water in 2014. It might have had some basis in truth when teams were taking a week or longer to travel by sea to competitions, but not nowadays and SA players probably clock up more air miles travelling back and forwards for vacation and international fixtures than any European counterparts and with all but three Brazilian squad members Euro based and the same in terms of outfield players in the Argentine group, it is as much a "home" tournament for them as anyone and for me, not a consideration, infact, the distances teams will be travelling in Russia, might even give the edge to the South Americans. Also, 77% of Russia is actually in Asia, albeit not the most populated areas.

 

The World Cup is being played in 11 cities, at 12 venues (two in Moscow), eight are in the same time zone, but Kalingrad is an hour behind most, Samara one and Yekaterinburg two hours ahead and, as is the norm nowadays , no team plays a group game in the same city/venue. For example Spain will fly 2,000 km from Sochi to Kazan to play their second game and then another 2,000 km to Kalingrad for game 3.  Some teams have additionally opted to base themselves in odd cities, Egypt in Grozny in the Chechen Republic for example, I understand why they have chosen that venue (it is an almost entirely Islamic city), but it means a 2,500 km trip to Yekaterinburg and two hour time difference to play their opener, then another two hour shift and 2,000 km trip West to St Petersburg and finally another 1,700km East to Volograd ! This is definitely something we will look at on a team by team basis during the course of the group stage .

 

 

 

 

Good Luck.