[Nogrod]

I'm agreeing with the phantom here: if I'd have to bet some real money for teams that would qualify I wouldn't make that many bets...


That said there are at least two things that are different in comparison to years before: the budgets and more or less permanent teams. But both those things bring with them further complications.


It's the second year with budgets and the money poured into a team is a meter for the overall performance of a team. But nothing more.

It is hard to see a 60 million team to beat a 100 million team, but as this is a tournament it may well be that an 80 million team kicks out the 100 million team and then the 60 million team throws the 80 million team off in turn - and as a result we have the 60 million team advancing and the 100 million team relegated. That can happen.

With only two friendlies played before the tournament the media understandably has talked about the budgets and the differences between the teams in terms of money they have at their disposal, but it would be a miracle indeed if all the 100 million teams would take all the quarterfinal-spots leaving the rest out. Against that is actually a bet I could think of making...


The permanent teams are a related issue, but also different. Now some teams have barely changed at all while others have gotten over half of their players changed. Yet by carrying the same name and a core of players we easily get the impression they are more consistent than they might be in the end and thusly judge their merits according to the team last year even if it was different or faced very different teams.

The media might be to blame here as well - with a lot of agreement between the main media-houses one might get the feeling everything is packat och klart ("packed and clear", a Swedish idiom) when it most probably isn't.


Thirdly I would like to add that with that many tight groups of which it is hard to say who wins, who qualifies as the runner-up and who is left into the group-phase, the dynamics of the play-offs might take so many different shapes...

Fex. you might have on the "lower" side of the play-off schedule tough defenders like Eriador, The Sea, Angband and Valimar playing against each other, while on the "upper" side tough scorers like Hithlum, AC Beleriand, FC & Real Valinor, Nargothrond, T-I-G, Erebor etc. would fight it out between themselves... and thus you'd have totally different play-offs compared to games where for instance teams like Valimar and The Sea would need to face T-I-G or Hithlum.

And with this the teams most probably have different advantages and disadvantages. Like we saw last year: Real Valinor lost to FC Valinor two times with no uncertain terms but in the end won the whole thing because others did away with FC Valinor. Or this year, Valimar lost to both The Sea and Real Valinor but if they'd meet Angband (or Anfaughlith) at any turn on the tournament it would be hard to see them losing.

So it is still pretty hard, predicting the tournament.