The "Real" World Cup

They call this tournament, the "World" Cup, and there's no doubt about its international pedigree, even the final 32 teams cover every corner of the globe, from New Zealand to Honduras, Paraguay to Japan, and South Africa to Denmark.

But, if you look closely, the international flavor starts to lose its salt. Out of the possible 72 semi-finalists in all 18 of the previous World Cup, only 4 teams were not European, Brazil, Argentina, or Uruguay. Read that again, FOUR, and I'm being generous because I'm counting the Soviet Union. Yawn, YAWN, Bloody Yawn!

2002: Korea
1966: Soviet Union
1962: Chile
1930: USA

There may be reasons why you might expect this empirically, such as the fact that UEFA sends the most teams to the tournament every time, and gets to do so because most of their teams are just great (the losers of the playoff qualifiers have the potential to make the semis alone). But the fact remains, its not as much of a "World" Cup as one might like. Many fans only plan for the group stages, because the expect their team to be going home early.

So, I started to think about a second World Cup, a "Real" World cup, one where there may be more equality in the results between teams from across the globe, one where you'd get more unpredictable games in the group stages, and one where you'd get more diverse semi-finals at least. If such a World Cup were to happen, and it had 32 teams, it would be inviting the losers, the non-qualifiers, the second best from all the regions.

First, I checked out the rankings, here is the ranking of the top 32 teams to not make it to the World Cup this year:

Ranking	Country	Region
9	Croatia	UEFA
11	Russia	UEFA
13	Egypt	CAF
22	Norway	UEFA
24	Israel	UEFA
25	Ukraine	UEFA
28	Romania	UEFA
29	Czech Republic	UEFA
33	Turkey	UEFA
34	Colombia	CONMEBOL
36	Ecuador	CONMEBOL
37	Sweden	UEFA
39	Bulgaria	UEFA
41	Gabon	CAF
42	Costa Rica	CONCACAF
43	EIRE	UEFA
44	Scotland	UEFA
46	Latvia	UEFA
48	Lithuania	UEFA
49	Venezuela	CONMEBOL
49	Finland	UEFA
51	Bosnia	UEFA
52	Burkina Faso	CAF
53	Peru	CONMEBOL
54	Mali	CAF
55	Tunisia	CAF
56	Hungary	UEFA
57	N. Ireland	UEFA
58	Poland	UEFA
59	Benin	CAF
60	Iran	AFC
60	FYR Macedonia	UEFA

Here's how many teams that would be from each region:

Region	Number
UEFA	20
CAF	6
CONMEBOL	4
CONCACAF	1
AFC	1
OFC	0

OK, that's not going to work, so I'll go back to the format that the organizers use, where they restrict the number of entrants from UEFA. But with a few new rules of my own. In the following list, for each region, I'll detail the number of entrants, and why.

UEFA: 9
The original number of 13 is too much for my liking, and I decided to free up four spaces for the other regions. In addition to taking the 9 second-best UEFA teams, I will not include the ones that lost in the playoffs, simply because they're too good anyway, so Russia, Ukraine, and Republic of Ireland are out (Henry handball notwithstanding). Bosnia stays in because I like them for even making the playoffs, so there. My rules.

The 9 UEFA teams would be (with rankings):

Ranking	Country
9	Croatia
24	Israel
29	Bosnia-Herzegovina
29	Czech Republic
37	Sweden
46	Latvia
49	Finland
56	Hungary
57	Northern Ireland

Africa: 6
I award Africa one of the spots taken from UEFA:

Ranking	Country
13	Egypt
41	Gabon
52	Burkina Faso
54	Mali
55	Tunisia
59	Benin

Asia: 6
I award Asia one of the spots taken from UEFA, and I also give them an extra half a spot, because they lost their inter-continental playoff qualifier against New Zealand.

Ranking	Country
60	Iran
66	Saudi Arabia
69	Bahrain
94	Uzbekistan
95	Qatar
100	United Arab Emirates

CONCACAF: 5
I award CONCACAF one of the spots taken from UEFA, and I also give them an extra half a spot, because they lost their inter-continental playoff qualifier against Uruguay.

Ranking	Country
42	Costa Rica
71	El Salvador
79	Jamaica
91	Trinidad and Tobago
115	Guatemala

CONMEBOL: 5
I award CONMEBOL one of the spots taken from UEFA, and I also take away the half a spot, because of Uruguay. Take note, this is literally the rest of the teams in the entire region.

Ranking	Country
36	Ecuador
34	Columbia
49	Venezuela
53	Peru
67	Bolivia

Oceania: 1*
I would deduct half a spot because of New Zealand, but that means that the Pacific Islands would have no contenders. As it happens, there is one spot left, but how could I justify offering it to the lowliest of teams...I know, I'd make them the host nation:

Ranking	Country
146	New Caledonia

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you New Caledonia 2010, the "Real" World Cup!

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At first glance, this seems like a fantastic mixture of teams, but sadly, ranking-wise, UEFA would dominate again. It looks like at least the African teams, particularly Egypt would make the Semis, and they'd be the first African team do do so.

World Cup Memories: Germany '06

Germany '06
Erika and I were in Europe in the latter part of the tournament. I had actually scored two tickets for a game through the lottery: Ukraine vs Tunisia. Yea, I know, whoop-de-doo, but the whole experience was very educating. Here's what it taught us: If you're going to a World Cup game, plan on arriving at the stadium a good three hours before kick-off time. I kid you not.

We were on the train into Berlin the same day, and when we got off, we looked at the clock, and judged that we had a few hours to find our hostel and to get in the seats before the national anthems. Oh, boy. We were wondering around south Berlin trying to find the bloody hostel in the first place, and by the time we checked in, and legged it back onto the subway, we were sweating like pigs. But that wasn't the end of it, we actually arrived at the Berlin Stadium with time to spare, but found that we had to run two miles around the stadium to get our tickets, and would have had to run two miles back to the gates just to get in when some nice security guards let us in the media entrance. By then, the anthems were done and the game had started, but we did managed to catch most of it.

The Ukraine had to win or tie to be sure of progress, we were in nose-bleed seats, next to a nervous young Ukranian who kept chewing nails, and kindly pointed out Shevchenko for us as I couldn't make out numbers.

This is us in Berlin Stadium, looking pretty jaded from all that running

Being in Germany for this World Cup, we were hosted by the German/Irish family of an exchange student we knew, and the atmosphere was amazing, the Germans were so pumped up, as any nation would be, at one point, making our way through central Berlin, we were swept up in a stream of fans singing their hearts out, on their way to watch a game on the big screen in the city's heart, it was awesome. Our hosts were telling us, this was the first time since the second world war, that the German people dared to be so patriotic, once again they were unfurling their flags and singing their songs about Klinsmann et al. It seemed like a really good time to experience Germany, and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit.

Anyway....I'm sorry to say, we were on a train in the Czech Republic at the same time that England lost to Portugal, so that dulled the pain somewhat. Cristiano Ronaldo, my latest source of hatred due to his starring role scoring goals and diving for Manchester United, became the national focus of enmity after this dual provocation (note the wink at 1:26):



The devil incarnate is now featured in the latest Nike commercial, and I sure hope he finds the same form he did in Germany '06. What, you didn't notice how few goals he scored? 1 goals in 6 games, and it was a penalty against Iran *snicker*. UPDATE: Looks like he's having trouble once again.

My mate Palfie was at the game, and he was kind enough to re-live the penalties with me, as he made a video on his camera. We both sat there in the pub with our beers, compatriots in misery. Though Jamie missed his second penalty (he was asked to retake it), I'm still excited he might be back in the squad, because he was the best penalty-taker at the time.

The two best games of the group stages were the first one, where Germany beat Costa-Rica in a six-goal thriller:



It wasn't really over until Frings scored one of the best goals in the tournament. I wonder where Wanchope is now, you could pick out his gangly stride from a mile away.

The second was when Australia beat Japan in a 3-1 comeback. Tim Cahill was substituted on with ten minutes to go, and scored the two goals for Australia to seal it in an exciting finish:



I was rooting for Australia because of Harry Kewell, I should do a "Where are they now?" segment for all these ex-Premier-league footballers I keep seeing in these videos.

The world was introduced to the neanderthal charms of Carlos Hirsute Tevez in this tournament, and I spent much of my time deriding his appearance: "He must handball a lot if he's dragging his knuckles like that?!"



I remember the Portugal-Holland game, notably for the combination of atrocious refereeing, letting the game get out of control, and the sniping by both sides, which led to then Barcelona club team-mates, Deco and van Bronckhorst, sharing a step after both having been sent off. It was an amusing sight of a friendship between supposed enemies in the midst of the game, you can see it right at the end of this video:



Technically, I think they were supposed to go back to the dressing room, but given the environment, they just thought "screw it" and sat there.

Erika and I were in a pub near the hostel for the Mexico-Argentina game. There were two Mexicans who'd made the long trip for their team, and everyone was rooting for Mexico with them, it seemed wonderful when Mexico had a fast start, but they couldn't hold on, and it just made us hate Argentina all the more when Rodriguez looped his goal in. The Mexicans were humble about it, seeming to say, "Ah well, it was Argentina after all" and they went on to sing a song for the entire pub, a kind of hispanic ballad of loss, and the Germans loved them and bought them lots of beer. Note to self: sing something when your team loses.



Australia threatened to be the surprise, taking Italy almost all the way in the round of 16, and the irony would have been so sweet, why? Check out the Australian coach. Yup, Guus Hiddink, architect of the Italian downfall at the hands of the Koreans, was at it again.



And so, we come to the final, and Zidane's header. No, I don't mean the headbutt, I mean the header. It seemed strange to me that nobody nowhere in all I read would connect an open header that Zidane missed, with his response to being provoked by Materazzi, they were only 6 minutes apart, check it out at the 1:18 mark. I remember seeing the replay of Zidane's response to that miss, he was furious, he just stood there and shouted. In my mind, Zidane, in his last ever game for France, and rueing such a great chance with 15 minutes left of extra time, was replaying the header in his head when Materazzi spoke up.

My first World Cup game

The first World Cup game I went to, which was actually a qualifier, but still my first one, was in Lima, Peru, of all places, and I didn't even know it was happening.

Here's my ticket, proud I am of it.



As the story goes, I was backpacking in Peru, summer of 2000, way before Korea/Japan 2002, Euro 2000 was over, the French victorious again, and the European qualifiers weren't going to start until September, I think. So here I was in Lima, I was shacking up in some hostel, and walked over to the local supermarket to get some goods.

The supermarket had this long line of Peruvians waiting to get in, it ran around the block almost, and at the front entrance, there was this metal fence, with a gap that the line ran through. A couple of people did pass through this gap, but they looked as if they were pushing in front. I had no idea what was going on, but the last thing I wanted to do was to piss off a lot of chain-smoking Peruvian men by acting like a superior white guy, so I went to the back of the line and waited.

I don't know how long I waited for, time was my friend, and I just watched people around me chat animatedly, as the line slowly moved along, and I was thinking, things must be bad around here if they have to line up to get their milk, but I didn't think that was the case. I was convinced that I could just be able to walk through the store, but I'm sorry to say I was just too chicken to do it.

Eventually, I found myself near the front of the line, and I realized, that really, I could just walk in the store, other people were doing it, and I was just about to do so, thinking to myself, "what on earth was this line for?" when I happened to glance at the store windows right in front of me, screaming "Arriba, Peru!", and it hit me!

I was in line to buy tickets for a game! I was like, "Yes! One please! Huh? I don't care what you're saying, here's your fifty, just give me that piece of paper!"

The game itself was a very intimidating atmosphere, everyone was wearing the national strip (white with a red diagonal, note to self: get it), and I was a little nervous perched on the end of a wooden bench hearing everyone chanting "Peerrr-Hu! Peerrr-Hu!" It actually got fun until I started thinking, "they're not going to be happy with a draw here", and I was saying to myself, "I'm going to be out of here at the 80 minute mark", but the Peruvians tied won it, and I got lost in the bouncing crowd and had to stop to ask for directions of a family cleaning out their tiny restaurant, which took me about 30 minutes just to enunciate my objective correctly.

But there you have it, I pride that ticket.

ESPN hits WC Overdrive

I remember when I first moved here, apart from MLS and following the national team, ESPN didn't seem to care much about soccer. Over the years, I've witnessed a slow growth in coverage, leading from when they would bother themselves to announce the Champions League Final result in the "BottomLine", to actually purchasing rights to show some Premiership and Champions League games this year, live(!).

During Euro 2008, I walked into an Italian pizzeria (I was doing my summer internship elsewhere in Chicago) and the nice old proprietor actually had no idea what channel the soccer would be on, I had to go back to work, with his cable company information, and figure it out for him.

Well, this year, ESPN owns all the rights to the World Cup for domestic viewing here in the US (correct me if I'm wrong), and they are not letting you forget it. They started showing their first adverts during the Vancouver Olympics in January (they bought ad time on NBC to do so, if you hadn't thought of that) and are now blasting us whenever they can.

It's getting a bit overboard, albeit entertaining, as they are using their own advertising time to show 30 second reviews of the 32 teams that will be playing in the tournament. You can see the forty (at time of press) different adverts on their youtube page.

I liked the "power of 10" ad, which discusses the best players to have worn that number, but I'd honestly like it if they did a "power of n" advert because there has been so many great players.

On a related note, I had always detested the commentating done in previous tournaments, and would turn the captions off. Tonight, ESPN had someone on to briefly discuss the Dutch's defense and teamwork, and they subscripted the discussion with his "Resume", to tell me that his work in soccer had basically consisted of being on their international commentary team for the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Euro 2008 and Japan/S. Korea 2006 and....that's IT. His so-called "Resume" did not include any managerial experience or playing experience...in fact, he looked all the world like someone who had barely touched a ball, and ESPN was going out of their way to tell me that(!) All I could think of was, "Oh, so it was you that I'd been tuning out?".

Euro 2008 was better, including Andy Gray, and I was pleased to see Andy, but he got into an argument on the air with a fellow American analyst who was obviously pissing Andy off, and I didn't see him review games again after that (he did continue to commentate). I was disappointed, and I am hoping that ESPN has invested heavily, in fact as much as they did on the adverts, on their commentating team, because it makes such a difference (an infinite difference, some might suggest) when you have people who actually know what they're talking about.

I just had a look, here's the line up. I don't follow commentators, so I don't know these names *crosses fingers*.

Finally, ESPN took a little time to review the FA Cup Final tonight, and by review, I don't mean they showed Kalou's miss, or the number of times Chelsea hit the woodwork, I mean they showed the goal, and that Michael Ballack got injured, like, they had perhaps ten seconds for the game. But I brought it up because the captions spelled Ballack as "Bollack" *snigger*. The American captioning seems to cover the wide variety of names found in sports pretty well, but, I'm sure there'll be some good misses this June, I'll post them if I see them.

World Cup Memories: S. Korea/Japan '02

S. Korea/Japan '02
My first summer in the sweltering heat of Chicago, with no AC. I should be grateful that the games were at 2am, but it was still damn hot. This is the world cup I don't remember so much about, and the sleep deprivation is to blame there. I'm sorry to admit that I did start to stay in bed for a lot of the games in the group stages, as I ran out of steam.

England re-united with their hated foes, the Argentinians, and many of the same players were there from the first time, so it was all the more anticipated. The game itself didn't have the same spark that the two teams found in France '98, but certainly, given the history of the two nations, you can't blame the reaction from Beckham's penalty that won the game:



I am so glad Beckham held his nerve there.

The French were just abysmal, it's almost as if the malaise that infected the forwards in France '98 spread throughout the squad. Senegal had their day, in their first game of the tournament, by beating their old colonial power:



Two of their players were poached by Houllier for Liverpool, before the tournament, but neither of them turned out well for the Reds, though Diouf (seen assisting on the goal) seemed to have cured his spitting syndrome and is doing OK with Blackburn.

We went out against Brazil, and I remember anticipating a good run for us, because I believed we could have beaten Turkey in the semi-final, and handled whoever reached the final, even though it could have been the Germans, especially if it was the Germans, given how we unloaded on them in the qualifiers. The memory of standing in a pub shouting "We want six! We want six!" is one of my favourites, sorry Ernst.

The two moments that summed the England-Brazil game for me was Beckham's turnover leading to Rivaldo's goal. I couldn't find a youtube video showing the moment, but before Ronaldhino took off down our midfield, Beckham was supposedly shepherding a ball out of play, ready to claim the throw-in, but he jumped when someone went for the ball, and they claimed it back for Brazil right under his studs, sparking the counter-attack. Ronaldhino was able to advance because the English were still thinking, "what happened to that free-throw?!". The other general moment was our inability to break down Brazil's defense, when they were down to 10 men, which was unfathomable, Brazil playing defensively?!



Korea had a good run in this tournament, beating Italy to make the semi-finals. This 7 minutes video shows a game that is everything that you expect from the World Cup, and is very entertaining to watch:



Ahn Jung Hwan who became the hero by scoring the game-winning goal, was fired by his Italian boss! (He was playing for Perugia at the time). Take note of the journeyman coach of Korea, Guus Hiddink, he's got the Midas touch, and I think it's a shame that he couldn't get Russia through the playoffs, because I've no doubt they would have won a few games, no disrespect to Slovenia.

Finally, Ronaldo had his day, if not a hair-stylist, it was a mundane final, but an inevitable result:

World Cup Memories: France '98

For some reason, I remember more about France '98 than I do with any other World Cup, I think it has something to do with being in college, and having all the time in the world for the games.

The game in which England got knocked out managed to capture two emotional extremes, and that was before half-time. First, the low, Beckham's moment of idiocy:



Then the high. It's fitting that the second best world cup goal ever came only second to a goal scored in another Argentina-England game. Thankfully, this time, we were the punishers...or rather, Michael was. He wasn't even a starter, being one of the youngest forwards to be capped for England. He came on to score against Romania in the group stages, and two games later, he gave my generation our piece of history:



I still get shivers every time I watch that goal, *every* *time*. The rest of the drama was in extra time, where Sol had a headed goal ruled out for an obscure infraction, Michael had another run and shoot that went wide, and the penalties, the damn penalties.

When I think of France '98, other than England, the other memories that spring to mind are: French forwards, Kluivert's miss, and Denilson's stepovers.

That the French won was surprising considering they had the most useless strike-force in my memory. Henry was a young winger (it was Wenger who put him up front), Ginola was frozen out, and what they had left amounted to nothing, to the amusement of everyone but the Geordies. Guivarc'h was the example here, the forward that Newcastle bought before the World Cup sunk to the lowest form of his life that nothing could resuscitate. As it happened, they had the midfield of dreams that still makes me salivate when I think of it (Viera, Petite, Karembeu, Djorkaeff, and Zidane). Even their defence was scoring goals, and Lilian Thuram had probably the best goal celebration of the tournament:



The Dutch should have won everything in France '98. We remember that Brazil were outplayed in the final, but I thought they were outplayed in the semis too. Holland vs France should have made for a more entertaining final given Ronaldo's "absence", and I think the French wouldn't have been able to handle Bergkamp and Kluivert. As it happened, despite Kluivert's headed goal that tied the game, the one image I have in my mind is Kluivert's headed miss, when he was wiiiide open, and to this day, I don't forget the look on Kluivert's face.

There were three players of that time, who, for me, were a step above everybody else when it came to flowing with the ball in the midst of a game: Zidane, Ronaldo and Patrick Kluivert. Of those three, Kluivert was the one who never reached the pinnacle.

Dennis Bergkamp left his own indelible mark too (take note of the great cross-field pass):



Denilson, an upcoming star, subbed in to the final in the second half, must have performed the most useless series of step-overs I've seen in my life, he did about 7 or 8 of them whilst standing still in the French box, and it was so ineffective, it was comical, everybody just stood there and watched him. I can't find videos of this moment unfortunately.

And Ronaldo? He had his day, he had to wait for it.

World Cup Memories: USA '94

Again, as an Englishman, the first thing I thought about with this Cup was how the English didn't even make it, courtesy of the Dutch, Graham "Do I not like that?" Taylor, and some dodgy refereeing, but of course.

As a British nation, we found ourselves rooting for the Irish. They surprised Italy with a 1-0 win in the first round, progressed to the quarters only to meet Italy again the Netherlands. I can remember that game, cheering them on as they were trying to come back from 1 2-0 down, hopelessly valiant as they seemed.

Cameroon vs Russia in the group stages had the distinction of having two records made in the same game. Roger Milla, again, became the oldest player in the history of the World Cup to score a goal (1:13 mark) and Oleg Salenko still holds the record for the most goals in one game (5).



Saudi Arabia were a surprise in this tournament, spear-headed by Saeed Al-Owairan, who went coast-to-coast against the Belgians to score one of the tournaments best goals:



Maradona was gone, being sent home after two games for failing a drug test. I don't remember the goal he scored against Greece, but certainly the celebration, see at the 0:38 mark of this video:



I remember the final being one massive "miss", and all the more so, as it was a match-up of Romario and Baggio, who had the biggest impact on all the games they played in, until the last one. Romario missing the most opportunities, Baggio with a bum hamstring, and thus it was the first World Cup Final With No Goals (Yawn!). The game is best remembered for its last kick:



The Italians really could have made someone else have a go, given his leg, and yet, in my mind at the time, seemed ready to concede the cup by letting Baggio take that penalty. They gambled and lost, the ponytail wasn't so divine after all.

The third place playoff is always worth mentioning because of a potential defensive collapse from a team that has stopped concentrating. In this case, it was Bulgaria, who were another surprise, led by Hristov Stoichov, a Golden Shoe winner; but they reverted to form in a 4-0 loss to Sweden. The Swedes had a talented playmaker who looked like he was equally comfortable eating donuts. Tomas Brolin went on to play for Leeds, abysmally so, and Stoichov made a name for himself with the Fire here in Chicago.

Finally, we cannot forget the ultimate own-goal. Andres Escobar was gunned down in his native Columbia, for scoring one for the USA (not shown out of respect).

World Cup Memories: Italia '90

I'm so looking forward to this new World Cup coming up, I was remembering how much I enjoyed discussing the games I saw at the last World Cup, and decided to re-ignite a World Cup-specific blog. The ensuing pages will be my opinion on the football, comments welcome.

First off, say hi to Sockie, my personal mascot, courtesy of my kids. I had to go with Soccer and Duckie merged, for the name, because I couldn't well merge Football and Duckie. Come to think of it, I could teach my kids that but I don't think Erika would approve at all.

The first few posts, leading up to the event, are going to be about memories of my own, from the past World Cups, just to wet our tastebuds. I'll be reading some of the tournament summaries to refresh my memory, and trying to find various videos on youtube (though my memory of some big misses can't seem to be retrieved), but it'll be my perspective, and so these posts will be dominated by England's lack of progress, of course.

And, no, I don't remember "poco con la mano de dios", or that goal. I was too young then, I only know about Maradona's rampage through the inevitable folklore that followed, and watching youtube videos.

Italia '90
This is the earliest World Cup I remember, I was 11 years old then, and the first thing that comes to mind is Gazza's tears:



You'll see the agony on his face at the 1:50 mark. I remember Lineker's goal celebration, and I remember that we lost the shoot-out, but I don't really remember how it all ended, because my memories are dominated by this guy crying his heart out before the game was over. It came to resemble the heart of a nation, given we went on to lose to our old enemy. For the uninitiated, Gazza had just gotten his first yellow card of the game, but the one card that would mean he'd miss the Final.

I do also remember the most atrocious tackling laid down by the Argentinians in the final, as West Germany laid waste to them. Looking back, it was like a bad soap opera of a game. The attached video doesn't even give the event any justice, the tackle (at the 1:05 mark) being "off-the-ball", but it is amusing to see Maradona hustling the ref.



A big "hit" from this tournament was the advancement of Cameroon, on the back of an old forward: Roger Miller. His corner-flag dance is now World Cup Lore. There's a good example of it after this goal at the 1:05 mark of this game against Columbia: