FIFA World Cup 2006 tickets on sale next Tuesday, Feb 1st. First phase is a lottery including ~1.1 million of the total ~3.2 million seats, all requests between Feb 1 and March 31 will be resolved April 15th. I do not currently own a mastercard, the only reasonable method of payment during this opening phase — frustrating. Rumor has it that all tickets will be RFID tagged, opening the potential of blocking ‘lost’ or scalped tickets at the gate. Scalping of some sort should be possible, lest there go empty seats of those who simply can’t make it! I’m planning my strategy, including how, and how many, of you I’ll be enlisting to help with the lottery ;) .

The tickets faq has the most easily followed information. Current preliminary standings are also interesting leading up to the tourny.