Random Thoughts

Some Fascinating Facts & Figures At The Midpoint Review - 21st FIFA World Cup - Russia 2018 By - Lt Col D Purushothaman Pillay (Retd) Trends Herald The Dawn Of A New Era In World Football! The 21st FIFA World Cup is currently underway in 11 bustling historic cities, around the beautiful host country of Russia. After 11 hectic days of non-stop, group-match-action, which started on Thu, 14 June, two rounds of matches have been completed on Sun, 24 June 2018 in the eight different groups. The competition has therefore reached its mathematical mid-point of 32 matches, out of a total of 64 matches that are scheduled to be held at this World Cup. I have been closely following 11 Football World Cups starting from 1978. Once every four years I get bitten by this "World-Cup-Statistics-Bug". The details that have emerged from the personal notes that I have been meticulously maintaining about these 32 matches so far at this World Cup, after two rounds of ...

Russia 2018 - It is FIFA World Cup time once again! By - Lt Col D Purushothaman Pillay (Retd) Come On B-R-A-Z-I-L !!! B-R-A-Z-I-L !!! The ball gets rolling for the latest chapter of the "Greatest Show On Earth" the much-awaited 21st edition of this quadrennial global carnival - FIFA World Cup Finals, in the historic city of Moscow, today evening on this 14th day of June 2018. I am sharing a quick summary of some interesting facts that I have compiled for myself, from my inquisitive Aquarian perspective to understand the subtleties and fathom the major statistics in order to help enjoy the event better. A total of 211 national teams were involved in a protracted two-year-long qualification process to finally send 32 teams to Russia. Aside of Russia who auto-qualify as the hosts, Brazil was the first team to qualify in Mar 2017 and Peru the last team in Nov 2017. Further breaking down the teams according the football continental zones t...