Friedman says the world if flat but time zones still matter

Historically distance travelled North South doesn't hurts a teams world cup chances much less than distance East West does -- time zones jet lag you know. Nate Silver himself went for some globalization speculation guessng time zones would matter less now that players play all over the world. Yet eight of ten American teams advanced to the round of 16. The 16 are evenly divided between the Western and Eastern hemispheres. I doubt that has happened often.