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Brazil is a
huge country, even larger than Australia. In fact it is around 10% larger than
Australia with almost 10 times more population. Being closer to the Equator
than Australia, it means that weather differences between Brazilian cities in
the north and the country's cities to the south, are even more significant that
the differences between Cairns and Adelaide.
Twelve Brazilian cities hosted world cup games, from Fortaleza and Natal
up near the Equator, to Porto Alegre the southernmost Brazilian city at a latitude
similar to Brisbane's. And from Manaus at the middle of the Amazon jungle again
near the Equator to Salvador at the east coast at a latitude near that of
Torres Strait islands.
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The other
critical issue with the team logistics was the fact that as most world cups due
to tv coverage all 32 teams had to play each one of their three group stage
matches in different stadiums, in different host city. This meant they had to
adapt to different climates and weather conditions and to be able to tolerate
long distance flights between their camp base and the host city they were
playing each time.
So choosing
the right base camp was more important this time than other similar
competitions. I remember for Euro 2008 that I had the pleasure to watch
Greece's stage round (although Greece didn't go that well that time), Greece
played all their games in Salzburg, Austria and the other games of the group
were played in Innsbruck, Austria two hours’ drive away. So let’s see if
selecting the right camp played a role on the team’s performance. I will
examine Australia and Greece, the winner Germany and some notable failures.
FIFA and
the organisers have prepared a brochure with 83
different available locations for teams to select their base camp. There was
plenty of information there, about weather conditions, distances to the host
cities, available accommodation choices with the details of offered amenities
and much more.
Australia
chose to set camp at Vitoria and journalists in the country were quick to
determine this as a big win. This was further north than what most of the teams
competing in Brazil chose. Around 400 km north of Rio de Janeiro and on the
Atlantic Coast, Vitoria appeared to be (and in fact it is) a quiet, beautiful
city with great accommodation for the team and fairly good accommodation for
the huge number of Australian fans that traveled to Brazil to attend the
games. Australia was in Group B so the team had to play the first game against
Chile, on June 13 at 18:00 in Cuiaba at the center of Latin America. Cuiaba is
some 1075 km away from Vitoria with a total flight time between them at around
2 hours and 45 minutes. Chile had camp at Bello Horizonte, closer to Cuiaba
than Vitoria and while Vitoria is usually warmer and more humid in June than
Belo Horizonte is nowhere near as hot as Cuiaba.
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Second match for Australia
was on June 18 against Netherlands in Porto Alegre and the third and
unfortunate last match was in Curitiba. Porto Alegre and Curitiba, being in the
south of the country had similar weather conditions much cooler than Vitoria
and at least a couple of hours away. Netherlands stayed in Rio which is
somewhere in the middle between Vitoria and Curitiba where Spain decided to
stay.
Looking at the distances the four teams covered between matches, Australia
covered the most at 4320 kms, almost 50% more than Chile that traveled only
2830 Kms. The match that decided the fate of this group was played in the
afternoon (16:00) of June 13 between Spain and Netherlands in Salvador. Spain
seemed to have big problems with the heat and humidity on the day while the
Dutch seemed more prepared having their camp in the slightly warmer Rio de
Janeiro. My conclusion for Group A logistics; Australia did well with their
selection even having to travel the longest distances. After all, Australians
are accustomed to long flights. Spain was the big losers in the logistics game.
They chose a cool camp in Curitiba but that suit them well only against
Australia. Unfortunately, by then it was too late. They could not recover from the shock of
the heat wave in Salvador.
My next post will examine how Greece handled their logistics and what the Germans did and if that led to their success.
