Heat, altitude and 3,000-mile flights: the edges nobody prices

Altitude: the Azteca tax

Mexico City sits at 2,240 metres, Guadalajara around 1,500. Teams that haven't acclimatised visibly fade there from the hour mark: the ball flies differently, pressing costs double, recovery between sprints slows. Mexico open the tournament at the Azteca and play their whole group at altitude. It's the single biggest home edge in the draw, and a hidden handicap on every European side routed through those venues later.

Heat: the afternoon kickoff problem

June and July in the southern US means 30-plus degrees and humidity, and European television guarantees a slate of early-afternoon local kickoffs. Some venues are air-conditioned domes — Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Vancouver — where it's just football. Open-air afternoon games in Miami, Kansas City or Monterrey are a different sport: slower tempo, drinks breaks carving each half into thirds, and knackered defenders conceding set pieces after the 80th minute.

The tactical consequence is simple. Heat takes more away from pressing teams than from blocks. The gap between a tier-one pressing side and an organised underdog narrows in exactly the rounds where favourites expect to coast.

Travel: a tournament with jet lag

The group stage is loosely regionalised, but the knockout bracket can send you from a Pacific-coast round of 32 to an East-coast round of 16 — flights longer than Europe is wide, with three-hour time-zone swings between matches. Over eight games it compounds. Every flight is recovery time lost, and thin squads collect soft-tissue injuries while deep ones rotate through it.

Who it helps, who it hurts

Helps: Mexico, for whom altitude is home. The USA, who travel without the shock. And the whole South American contingent — Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay — for whom heat, altitude and continental flights are the day job.

Hurts: the northern Europeans most. Norway, Sweden and Scotland play their club football in winter air, and England and Germany aren't far behind. Add it to the long ledger of reasons Europe wins in Europe and South America wins over here.