Countdown to the Under-20 World Cup

139 Days! (As of February 11th.) Less than 5 months until the Under-20 FIFA World Cup (that’s football, not American football) tournament kicks off in Canada of all places! Games will be hosted in Burnaby, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Victoria and … Toronto (duh)! On the heels of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany, this is a very exciting development indeed.

When news spread about the tournament and ticket availability, I quickly got a plan in place and worked the email and phones to make it go. First step, I had to become a Toronto FC member to jump the line for the W.C. tickets before the general public. Next step was to rally my soccer buddies into a package to give us the best seats and broadest access to the Toronto events.

The original plan was for 9 of us, myself included, to buy 4 tickets for all 9 Toronto events. This would entitle each person (each share), to 2 tickets to 2 events. Since we all know each other, no one should really care who they happen to sit with. Once the match schedule is set, then we’ll have a random draw for draft position to pick the events we want to go to. Here is the Toronto event schedule:

1. Sunday July 1 – Opening Ceremonies – Group A: A1 vs. A2

2. Monday July 2 – Group Double Header – Group C: C3 vs. C4 & C1 vs. C2

3. Thursday July 5 – Group Double Header – Group C: C2 vs. C3 & C4 vs. C1

4. Sunday July 8 – Group Double Header – Group C: C1 vs. C3 & Group A: A2 vs. A4

5. Wednesday July 11 – Round of 16 – 1st Group D vs. 3rd of Groups B/E/F

6. Thursday July 12 – Round of 16 – 1st Group E vs. 2nd Group D

7. Saturday July 14 – Quarter-Final Match

8. Thursday July 19 – Semi-Final Match

9. Sunday July 22 – 3rd Place Match & Final (double header)

Nice. Toronto gets a playoff game every step of the way, plus the Final. Here is hoping I get the first or second pick in the draft. I’ll be picking that Final. Also, here is hoping Groups A and C are strong, competitive groups since we’re going to see each of those teams at least once.

We did well on tickets. Midfield, 18 rows up, falling within the most coveted spectator section of the new stadium, BMO Field, not including the sidelines.

Now the big question when we bought the tickets was, what teams are going to be there? At the time we knew one – Canada as the host. Now it is a lot more clear, with only 2 CONCACAF teams yet to be decided late February. Check it:

• Asian Football Confederation
  1. Korea DPR
  2. Japan
  3. Korea Republic
  4. Jordan
• Confédération Africaine de Football
  1. Gambia
  2. Congo
  3. Zambia
  4. Nigeria
• Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football
  1. USA
  2. Panama
• Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol
  1. Brazil
  2. Argentina
  3. Uruguay
  4. Chile
• Oceania Football Confederation
  1. New Zealand
• Union des Associations Européennes de Football
  1. Spain
  2. Scotland
  3. Czech Republic
  4. Austria
  5. Poland
  6. Portugal
• Host
  1. Canada

This is going to be sweet! I can’t wait for our big draft event, which hopefully we can arrange live in conjunction with a Champions League game.

The only downside on all this is I had to cut my annual Blue Jays tickets purchase out of the budget. If you ever needed a sign the Jays are finally going to make it back to the post-season, this just might be it.