The World Cup

[Update 11/22/22:  This time around it's in Qatar (eastern coast of Arabian peninsula, on the Persian Gulf, south of Bahrain and north of UAE/Dubai.  As the temperature during the summer is unpleasant, the games are taking place in late November.  The US & Brazil are back - let's see how they do this time around.  Neymar seems to be the star of the current Seleção.]

I addressed this issue in 2006 years ago when Brazil lost to France in the eliminations back in the 2006 World Cup (“O Que Aconteceu???” = “What happened?”).  This time I’ll tackle it from a larger perspective, rather than just focusing on Brazil’s problems, although any World Cup discussion necessarily concerns Brazil.

 Every 4 years, since 1950, the world (except the US, do we qualify?) has been possessed by this international soccer competition.  Each part of the world has playoff slots to qualify, e.g. South America has 5 slots, the fifth of which requires a playoff vs. Oceania; Europe alone has several different divisions.  Brazil has never failed to qualify.

 This time around, 2010, the finals were held in South Africa.  After the first round, then the subsequent playoffs, a winner emerged on Sunday: Spain defeated Holland, each country trying for its first World Cup; Holland had made it to the finals in 1974 and 1978 but lost both times.  Each of them had defeated another team (Spain beat Germany, Holland beat Uruguay) and those teams played on Saturday; Germany is #3!

 For the first round, 32 teams compete in 8 groups of 4.  Each team plays its 3 competitors once, receiving 3 points for a victory, one point for a tie, and no points for a loss.  The top two teams from each group move on to the next round of playoffs.  These are “win or go home”, no home/away aggregates or best of 7 playoffs.

 Prior winners (and runners up in the final):

[2018     France (Croatia)

2014     Germany (Argentina)

2010     Spain (Holland)]

2006     Italy (France)

2002     Brazil (Germany)

1998     France (Brazil)

1994     Brazil (Italy)

1990     West Germany (Argentina)

1986     Argentina (West Germany)

1982     Italy (West Germany)

1978     Argentina (Holland)

1974     West Germany (Holland)

1970     Brazil (Italy)

1966     England (West Germany)

1962     Brazil (Czechoslovakia)

1958     Brazil (Sweden)

1954     West Germany (Hungary)

1950     Uruguay (Brazil)

 As you can see, Brazil has 5 World Cups, Germany 4, Argentina 2, France and Italy 2, and England and Uruguay 1 each.  Brazil was in the final in 1998 and 1950, so it could have had 7 World Cup victories.  In 1930, 1934, and 1938 there were World Cups, the winners being Uruguay (1930) and Italy (1934 and 1938).  The World Cups which would have occurred in 1942 and 1946 were disrupted by WWII. 

 US.  The US has never won.  However, it tends to dominate the North/Central America group for slots and get in with Mexico fairly consistently.  US players are beginning to get the crucial jobs playing for top flight European teams – better teams and starting positions.  Our best player, Landon Donovan, plays for the L.A. Galaxy and Everton (a Premier League team).  Clint Dempsey, arguably the second best, is being seriously considered by AC Milan. [Both are now commentators.]

            Unfortunately, we are still fair game for countries like Ghana (who?) which have equally strong teams but are politically inconsequential.  If it’s any consolation, Japan is in a similar position, and neither China nor Russia has ever been a major contender.  Neither of those countries, nor India, even qualified this time around.  All the World Cups since 1930 were won by teams in either Europe or South America, as were all the runners up, which leaves Africa, North America and Asia completely left out.  The US’ best finish was a de facto third place back in 1930.  For us to win the World Cup would be a Miracle on Grass, but if the French could do it (1998 & 2018) and the Spanish (this time – plus they had never even been to the final before, nor, for that matter, had the French) then who knows?

 Brazil.  By far the powerhouse and the ones to beat each time.  Brazil’s group this time, G, was called the “Group of Death” (possibly for the ill-fated North Korean team).  Sure enough, Brazil came out on top of that group and easily advanced to the second round.  I still don’t know how the Dutch defeated them, or the French in 2006.  My theory for 1998 (lost to France, in Paris, in the final) is that they were hungover on the field after prematurely celebrating their victory (?) against the underdog French.  Their 58/70 star was Pele, who is still a major figure in Brazil.  In the early 80s it was Zico (most often associated with Flamengo, and coach of Japan’s team in 2006).  By the late 90s and early 00’s it was Ronaldo – not to be confused with Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, or Ronaldinho – who scored both goal against Germany in 2002.  By now he’s back in Brazil playing for Corinthians.  These days the stars are Kaka (AC Milan, now Real Madrid), Robinho (Real Madrid, Manchester City, now back at Santos), and Maicon.  Ronaldo (past his peak) and Ronaldinho (still strong, debatable about his peak) were left off the team, and Rivaldo and Romario (notice they love those one-word names starting with R) were considered too old.  

            For their part, the French didn’t even make it out of the first round in 2002 or 2010, but beat the Brazilians in 2006, only to lose to Italy in the final.  That was the game with Zidane’s infamous headbutt. 

 Dunga.  Brazil’s coach is nicknamed “Dunga”, which is Portuguese for “Dopey”, the dumbest of the Seven Dwarfs.  To me he looks like Mike Delfino, the plumber on “Desperate Housewives”.  But can you imagine if the US coach had that name?  “Let’s go live to Bob, who’s interviewing Dopey now” [with “DOPEY” in all caps under the live video interview of the coach].  Hilarious.

            Of course, since Dunga didn’t deliver a World Cup Final victory for Brazil, he got booted.  But even if he had won, chances are he would have resigned after the victory parade.  The job is non-stop stress for the 4 years or so (depending on when he got it), especially in Brazil, where anything short of complete victory = failure, and it seems that everyone claims to do a better job than the coach (“180 million coaches”).  The press are merciless, so I can understand why Dunga blew up during a press conference.  At least in the US, we don’t have 5 World Cup victories under our belt, so anything less than complete dominance is not considered a screwup.  Even so, we’re still competitive and like to believe we have a shot. 

 Germany.  They have [4] World Cup victories and came close this time, losing to Spain – who I was expecting them to beat.  They have been in the final 4 times; had they beat Brazil in 2002 both countries would have been tied at 4 World Cups.  The Germans are consistently competitive but can be extremely arrogant.

 Argentina.  Bitter rivals to the Brazilians.  Their star of 1978 and 1986, Diego Maradona, came back to coach them this time around.  As we know by now, he has a big mouth, but the Germans shut it for him quite dramatically. 

 Offense vs. Defense.  Baseball has the most rigid structure: the teams stick where they are until the at-bat team gets 3 outs.  In the NFL, this is less rigorous: it takes only a fumble or interception to change possession in a heartbeat, but these occur modestly relative to the amount of turnover-free series of possessions.  In soccer, as with basketball, a steal can rapidly switch possession from one team to another; in terms of the dynamics of possession, soccer most closely resembles basketball.  But a basketball court is much smaller, and it’s MUCH easier to make a basket than it is to make a goal.  One area where soccer definitely dulls me out, is when the winning team simply plays “keep away” with the ball, continually passing the ball back and forth between players, even as far back as their own goalie.  Because a 1-0 score is victory no matter how you slice it, this means a soccer game can slow down after only one goal. 

 Ties.  In most other sports, a tie or draw is rare.  In the NFL there would be overtime, and usually one team can score at least a field goal.  But 0-0 ties in soccer are fairly common.  For all but the eliminations, they are acceptable.  In the NFL, if one team runs up the score, that’s a dull game.  But in soccer, two evenly matched teams can hold each other goal-less, which to me is actually NOT an exciting game; in fact, if a team runs up the score it is more exciting (at least to me) than a 0-0 slugfest.  To me, the issue is goals vs. no goals; a 3-3 tie is still exciting, we get to see 6 goals scored.  

 Injury Time.  You know with any soccer game it will probably last only a little over 90 minutes, plus the 10 minute halftime.  Overtime, if necessary, is two 15 minute periods followed by a penalty shootout if the exta 30 minutes were still not enough for a goal.  There are no timeouts; the clock runs continuously; in Maracana Stadium, there isn’t even a clock for the fans or players to watch. 

            At the end of the 45 minute half, they add on 2-3 minutes of “injury time”.  This is the amount of time which had been wasted by various players pretending to be seriously injured by incidental contact with opposing players, in the hopes of earning a penalty kick because they’ve been unable to score a goal any other way.  In some cases the player cringes and cries, clutching an entirely different part of his body than was actually struck by the other player or the ball.  My solution?  If your “Injury” merited a penalty kick, you go off the field on the stretcher and are OUT of the remainder of the game.  Because too many of these crybabies are running around 5 minutes after the “injury” with no apparent problem.  If an NFL player is “injured”, chances are they really are.

 Fans vs. Players.  This doesn’t help soccer’s image of a sport played by effeminate Eurotrash boytoys like (gay icon) Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo.  For every lower class Paul Gascoigne there seem to be dozens of jet-setting, metrosexual, overpaid playboys.  The two “Goal!” movies reinforce this even further (Newcastle and Real Madrid).  I don’t think they’re all like that, but certainly that’s the image they tend to advance.

            Contrast this with the image of European soccer FANS, especially in the UK.  In “Fever Pitch”, Colin Firth’s character is wary that his fellow teacher (the woman he likes) will write him off as a “yob” (lower class Neanderthal) because he supports Arsenal, i.e. that he follows soccer at all.  Certainly the press loves to hype the hooligan issue.    Groundskeeper Willie (The Simpsons): “You call this a soccer riot??”

Jerseys.  What I find amusing is that many countries have jersey colors which don't appear in their national flag.  Australia - yellow & green?  Germany - white?  Italy - blue??

 Crazy stuff.  This time around it was the annoying vuvuzelas (plastic trumpets) which produce the buzzing noise together.  Then there was the German octopus, Paul, who correctly picked the winners of every German game and the Final.  And Joachim Loew (German coach) had that lucky blue sweater; its luck ran out against Spain.  Then there was that Paraguayan model.  Schwing!

Let me add this (2022).  Let the players put a patch on their jersey indicating the professional team they play for.   That would help us recognize them a little better.