As the group stage of the World Cup winds down, the teams who are qualified to continue on to the elimination stage have been all but decided. While it would have been glorious if the home side of South Africa could have advanced, or even more than one team from the host continent (at this writing barring a miracle only Ghana will advance), the fact they were in a position to host the games at all is something to be celebrated.
All credit for making the decision to award them the hosting duties has to be given to the governing body of international football - Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) - when they could have easily made a safe decision and kept them in Europe or given a South American country a turn. In the weeks and months leading up the match newspapers have been filled with stories expressing concerns about violence in South Africa, lack of proper facilities, transportation, and a raft of other problems besetting the host nation.
It was almost impossible to find anyone willing to write something positive about the fact the games were being held here. Even South African's football fans came in for criticism because of their use of the "horrible" vuvuzela, a plastic replica of a traditional tribal horn, that makes an ear-splitting din. Commentators have sniffed that they won't be able to hear themselves speak (as if anything most sports commentators have to say is of any real value), or even worse they drown out the traditional sound of fans singing at matches. As that's only really a tradition in England and some of the European countries, that's not really much of a loss, especially when you consider some of the drivel sung by team supporters in the United Kingdom. Quite frankly fans blowing trumpets that make an ear-splitting noise are a minor inconvenience when compared to the nightmares that British team supporters used to cause when they made their annual raiding trips to the continent. It's amazing how all the British tabloid press who have been raising dire warnings about South Africa have forgotten how fans from the United Kingdom were banned from traveling abroad after their rioting resulted in 39 people dying in Belgium in 1985.
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Article comments
1 - Philip Tortora
The World Cup soccer tournament ought to be played every two years, and should double the number of teams involved.
2 - Zedd
Nice treatment Richard.
So relieved that the coverage doesn't involve wild animals and montages of poor kids 3000 miles away in some other part of the continent.
3 - Dr Dreadful
Well, there are some shots of antelope and zebra in ESPN's opening titles, Zedd, but those animals are indigenous to the country after all.
Also prominent are shots of some quite amazing scenery, which makes me want to drop everything and go there now. And I'm sure I'm not the only person thinking so.
Hopefully the economic benefits South Africa receives from hosting the World Cup will last for quite some time.
4 - Dr Dreadful
As for Philip's suggestion (#1), there are many reasons why holding the tournament every two years and doubling the number of participants is not a good idea.
There's a good case to be made that even the current 32-nation format is too many, making for an unwieldy, bottom-heavy tournament with a lot of mediocre teams. It also places a huge financial, infrastructural and administrative burden on the host country.
The traditional 16-team format, which was used until 1978, is admittedly too small considering not only the number of nation-states there now are but also the rapid development of the sport on the Asian, African and North American continents.
I think the 24-team format which was used from 1986 to 1994 gave a good balance: it led to more excitement in the group stage, since even some of the countries finishing third in a four-team group still had a chance to advance to the knockout rounds.
Another objection is the near-impossibility of fitting a bi-annual World Cup into the already crowded football calendar. Philip does not take into consideration that the six continental confederations all hold their own international tournaments, not to mention the various national leagues and the continental championships that take place at club level. You'd have to somehow fit a qualifying competition into all of that, although admittedly it would require fewer matches than it currently does because of the increased number of places available at the Finals.
The demand on the players would lead to increased rates of exhaustion and injuries and you'd see a far greater number of disappointing performances at the World Cup, by both teams and their star players.
We already see this. Africa has produced some of the finest players in the world in recent decades, but their challenge at the World Cup suffers in part because of the CAF's insistence on holding the African Nations' Cup every two years, rather than every four as is the case with most of the other confederations.
Lastly there's the obvious point that having the World Cup with 64 teams every two years would just devalue the specialness of the tournament.