Not enough weighting is given to climatic conditions and preparation sometimes.

Of the European teams in the North 3 out 4 make it with Greece being the one to perform above expactations and surviving having 3 games in the North.
The only team not to make it was Croatia who did well but they were up against Mexico who seem to perform well in the climate.
The three cold weather South American teams were all based in the middle and all passed.
The only UEFA team to defy the climate and make it despite being based in the South and playing one game in the North was Belgium thought not that convincing.
They beat ALgeria which is a North African hotter weather team though Algeria were also based in the SOuth,RUssia cold weather country and Korea in the far south.
All three teams in the far South had poor world cups below expectations.
Australia based in the middle performed the best of the Asian teams and also first to arrive in Brazil.
Its amazing to me that such a crucial aspect was overlooked.
With football really being centered in Europe no one cares about playing in the tropics and the challenges it poses.
We saw that in the Asia cup in 2007 with Arnold running a long camp in Sydney, letting European based Aussie players arrive when they liked after holidaying in Australia, etc. You have endurance athletes acclimatising for half a year before Olympic events.

ya cookin' with gas son.

I likes ya.

ya talks a lotta sense.=d>

For me its bizzare, so few are based in the North, though the other factor to consider is where the camp before the world cup was. The teams furthest in the South have performed below expectations.
Ecuador I know they play all their qualifiers at altitude but you would assume they had an initial camp on their tropical coastline unless they are crazy. Any European team that based themselves that far south would have been finished.
Switzerland who are a lot further north did beat them.
Spain and Korea are two biggest dissapointment look where they are.