Darts World Cup

Posted: 31.01.13 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

Our preview is a reminder about the value of team spirit if you want to win the 3rd World Cup!

The World Cup of darts! It is the third year of this tournament now and it is being held in the same venue in Berlin as last year. We ”complained“ recently about the seemingly nationalistic attitude of PDC darts and discussed the advantage this gives UK based players and we dreamt of the day the PDC World Championships were held outside of the UK.

That said, why is it being held in Germany again? The change of country has worked well in football every four years, a number of FIFA delegates would back me up on that! Setting aside the alleged lucrative business of being in a position of power, part of the magic of the football World Cup is giving other countries the chance to have their own football party. So why not spread this tournament around the competing nations in darts?

I was just looking back at our blogs for the first year of the tournament in December 2010. It got off to a mixed start in its spiritual home of Houghton le Spring and ticket sales were slow. We also discussed the benefit of team spirit and cohesion. You can read that here! This proved to be vital; in the first year for example buddies Barney and Co Stompe took the trophy against the Welsh team of Webster and Bates. This was the year Taylor and Wade were paired together with disastrous consequences.  There was no team spirit and Team England crashed out.

Last year Taylor teamed up with Lewis. There is definitely a bond between the two of them, most likely developing from the time The Power was mentoring Jackpot in his early days. They overcame Team Australia who also score highly on the team bonding scale. Whitlock and Nicholson appear to have forged a good friendship; they share the same management and Nicholson showed up to support The Wizard in the recent World Championships.

We are emphasising the importance of the teams playing as one but of course there are single games too and skill and technique is needed alongside the winning formula of pairs play. Barney and Van Gerwen certainly possess the skill and technique to be a threat. Team bonding wise I think it will be similar to the Taylor/Lewis relationship. Barney must have been a role model for Mighty Mike when he was first starting out. Barney has demonstrated he is adept at forming partnerships in this event. First of all with Stompe and then last year he partnered Vincent Van der Voort to a semi final place.

Betting wise Team England are favourites at a best price 13/8. The Netherlands are 7/4 and Australia 15/2. Scotland is a best priced 10/1. On paper they look a formidable pair, Anderson and The Thorn. It was this duo though that failed to get out of their group in the first World Cup, losing two of their three games. Other outsiders worth mentioning are Belgium. The Huybrechts brothers will have no problem on the team bonding front and Ronny recently earned his PDC tour card so a pair to watch at 33/1.

The Welsh team should provide some classic darting entertainment but Webby and the Prince of Wales are far too volatile for me to invest in. One last team to mention is Spain! 100/1 with Victor, is that enough to make you purr? They are a great team and Alcinas is a brilliant player on his day although he seems to have lost his way a bit recently!

Talking of which Spain are 3/1 to win their group, Wales are 1/4 and the other team involved, Italy are 33/1. A small investment in Spain seems to offer some value as does South Africa to win Group B at 2/1.

If you enjoy trying to predict what may happen but don’t like losing your cash when it goes wrong we can relate to that! We have a free 180’s prediction game with a set of our Performance Darts and membership to our darts improvement website up for grabs! You can enter here, it is at the end of our coaching blog!

The Teams

Seeded Nations
1. England (Phil Taylor & Adrian Lewis)
2. Netherlands (Michael van Gerwen & Raymond van Barneveld)
3. Australia (Simon Whitlock & Paul Nicholson)
4. Scotland (Gary Anderson & Robert Thornton)
5. Wales (Mark Webster & Richie Burnett)
6. Northern Ireland (Brendan Dolan & Michael Mansell)
7. Germany (Jyhan Artut & Andree Welge)
8. Republic of Ireland (William O'Connor & Connie Finnan)

Pool B
Spain (Antonio Alcinas & Carlos Rodriguez)
Belgium (Kim Huybrechts & Ronny Huybrechts)
Canada (John Part & Jeff Smith)
Finland (Jani Haavisto & Jarkko Komula)
Austria (Mensur Suljovic & Maik Langendorf)
Croatia (Robert Marijanovic & Tonci Restovic)
Gibraltar (Dyson Parody & Dylan Duo)
Denmark (Per Laursen & Jann Hoffmann)

Pool C
Sweden (Magnus Caris & Par Riihonen)
Japan (Haruki Muramatsu & Sho Katsumi)
USA (Darin Young & Larry Butler)
South Africa (Charl Pietersen & Shawn Hogan)
New Zealand (Phil Hazel & Craig Caldwell)
Hungary (Nandor Bezzeg & Meszaros Zsolt)
Poland (Krzysztof Kciuk & Krzysztof Ratajski)
Italy (Daniele Petri & Matteo Dal Monte)

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