World cup team logistics. Flights and heat in Brazil part 1.

I  was writing on my last post about the world cup in Brazil and all the transport projects that were not delivered in time. It seems that in this world cup there was another transport aspect that affected the whole competition: Team logistics.

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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. 

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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.