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Some thoughts on the World Cup
Topic Started: Dec 13 2009, 11:53 PM (191 Views)
rollingstone
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Next summer, football’s World Cup will arrive in all its splendour. 32 nations will, over the course of a month, battle it out to become world champions while over 1bn viewers tune in to see the results. This is football at its finest; where legends are made, nations unite, and football’s hierarchy is mechanised with beautiful effect.

Without a doubt, South Africa will play host to the grandest show in football, and indeed maybe on earth. But there is unquestionably room for improvement. While the game appears to be flourishing domestically with heavy injections of cash facilitating club expansions, football’s international sphere appears somewhat less fluid. Indeed, outside the European and South American elite core, who else really has the power to mount a meaningful challenge on this world stage?

Since the tournament’s inception, winners have hailed only from South America or Europe. The ‘world’ aspect of the tournament, apparently brought to the table through the inclusion of minnows such as New Zealand (World Ranking: 77), quickly evaporates following the completion of the group stages. Upon which time, the ‘competition proper’ begins as the top teams are finally challenged because, well, they start playing each other.

The World Cup can become more competitive, more interesting, and therefore an even greater spectacle. It can become the all-encompassing, inter-continentally competitive tournament that the term ‘World’ Cup would, at first glance, imply. The simple reason for this lies in the key principle separating international football from club football: the principle of nationality.

The World Cup is not like club competitions, such as the Champions League, where a certain cohort of clubs will always be the strongest challengers. In this context, clubs such as AC Milan and Real Madrid act as monopolists, where rich histories and footballing legacies permit them to draw the world’s top footballers and managers to their set-up. Countries cannot simply recruit talented players as a means of maintaining or enhancing world dominance. Rather, countries are limited by their natural resources; or, more simply, the players they can produce.

Talent, by virtue of nature, is not something constricted to certain races or regions. There is no reason as to why natural, ‘God-given’ footballing ability, and here I mainly mean brainpower and co-ordination, should be more plentiful in one nation rather than another. For every Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi produced in Europe and South America respectively, there must surely be someone of near-to equal natural-born talent living life away from the limelight in places like New Zealand, Korea, Japan etc.

Such talent can be exploited; this is no unrealistic idea. Anyone who needs proof of this should simply note just how many quality African players are starting to swell the ranks of Europe’s top sides. English viewers have witnessed the incredible performances of Barcelona and Inter Milan’s Samuel Eto’o for the last 5-6 seasons, and Chelsea’s Didier Drogba hasn’t been far behind him of late. Add the names Seydou Keita, Emmanuel Adebayor, and Michael Essien to these stars and the point only becomes clearer. African talents are being capitalised on, and as a result African football is moving forwards; Eto’o’s Cameroon now rank 11th in FIFA’s world rankings, while Drogba’s Ivory Coast recently moved up to 16th.

The present African situation surely gives hope to those who long to see a truly internationally competitive World Cup. And who knows, perhaps in 30 years’ time a nation will break the Euro-South American domination over the world’s greatest event. The solution, though, surely rests with the motivation and financial capacity of football’s governing body: FIFA.

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Edited by rollingstone, Dec 14 2009, 01:41 AM.
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Artrun
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Great thoughts mate, top stuff. I can't wait til an African team wins it for the first time, imagine the party! :wipeee:
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elcule
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Oddly socialist for you mate :tongue:

Not sure I like it tbh, it would have been really good if you'd come up with some solutions, but as it is I think you're ascribing too much blame to (or looking for too many answers from) FIFA. You've listed what you perceive to be a flaw in the elitist nature of the world game and basically said "do something FIFA".

Fact is, there's not much more they can do, they've tried explanding the amount of participants, going to locations such as Africa, the US and Korea/Japan to try and raise the game's profile but they can't change a culture. Look at the amount of money that has been pumped into the US, it just doesn't seem to work.

For me, it's a good thing, I think it helps preserve a variety of sports on the planet. For all your talk of wanting to abolish the Euro-South American 'monopoly' on the interntaional game, surely this will come at the expense of other sports? The power hierarchy will simply have shifted from a trans-continental duopoly over one sport to a footballing monopoly over the entire sporting world. Indians taking up football over Cricket, New Zealanders doing likewise over Rugby, Canadians with Ice Hockey, Russians with Gymnastics, the Japanese with Martial Arts (the last three were horrific stereotypes btw) would just weaken the quality of these other sports if these nations' cultures altered to give primacy to football.

There still remain plenty of great teams at the World Cup, you're gripe is similar to wishing for 32 amazing people to contest the US Masters. It would be nice, but it just won't happen, there isn't enough talent to go around. Anyway, I'm not really up for seeing Amir Patel bursting down the wing for Barcelona, call me conservative but it wouldn't look right.

Also, does anyone know if Middle Eastern and South Asian people are just naturally shit at sport?
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Winner.

"If I go to Anfield and someone puts the ball into the box and Carragher hammers it out of play the fans applaud. At Camp Nou you would never be applauded for that." - Xavi
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rollingstone
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elcule
Dec 14 2009, 03:35 PM
For me, it's a good thing, I think it helps preserve a variety of sports on the planet. For all your talk of wanting to abolish the Euro-South American 'monopoly' on the interntaional game, surely this will come at the expense of other sports? The power hierarchy will simply have shifted from a trans-continental duopoly over one sport to a footballing monopoly over the entire sporting world. Indians taking up football over Cricket, New Zealanders doing likewise over Rugby, Canadians with Ice Hockey, Russians with Gymnastics, the Japanese with Martial Arts (the last three were horrific stereotypes btw) would just weaken the quality of these other sports if these nations' cultures altered to give primacy to football.

There still remain plenty of great teams at the World Cup, you're gripe is similar to wishing for 32 amazing people to contest the US Masters. It would be nice, but it just won't happen, there isn't enough talent to go around. Anyway, I'm not really up for seeing Amir Patel bursting down the wing for Barcelona, call me conservative but it wouldn't look right.

Also, does anyone know if Middle Eastern and South Asian people are just naturally shit at sport?
I don't think that's the case. Consider the wealth and variety of sport in England for example. We have a mere 60m to draw from, yet we manage to field a decent football side, an occasionally exceptional rugby team, a world class cricket outfit, and our golf/tennis set-up is improving. Also bear in mind that we persistently produce brilliant athletes in most Olympic games fields, as shown by our elevated finish in 2008. Obviously, though, this has taken up huge amounts of resources and vast injections of cash.

But if it can be done with only 60m, then I'm sure India's 1bn or so could manage to field a far better football side than it ddoes presently without hindering the growth of its cricket game.

What I'm saying is that most countries aren't yet producing to their 'sporting maximums', so there's no need to assume any sort of trade-off. There's plenty of talent to go around, and I think it's a shame that our generation probably won't get to revel in football's proliferation.
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Scholes
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rollingstone
Dec 14 2009, 04:58 PM
elcule
Dec 14 2009, 03:35 PM
For me, it's a good thing, I think it helps preserve a variety of sports on the planet. For all your talk of wanting to abolish the Euro-South American 'monopoly' on the interntaional game, surely this will come at the expense of other sports? The power hierarchy will simply have shifted from a trans-continental duopoly over one sport to a footballing monopoly over the entire sporting world. Indians taking up football over Cricket, New Zealanders doing likewise over Rugby, Canadians with Ice Hockey, Russians with Gymnastics, the Japanese with Martial Arts (the last three were horrific stereotypes btw) would just weaken the quality of these other sports if these nations' cultures altered to give primacy to football.

There still remain plenty of great teams at the World Cup, you're gripe is similar to wishing for 32 amazing people to contest the US Masters. It would be nice, but it just won't happen, there isn't enough talent to go around. Anyway, I'm not really up for seeing Amir Patel bursting down the wing for Barcelona, call me conservative but it wouldn't look right.

Also, does anyone know if Middle Eastern and South Asian people are just naturally shit at sport?
Consider the wealth and variety of sport in England for example. We have a mere 60m to draw from, yet we manage to field a decent football side, a world class cricket outfit,
:hysterics:
Scholes
 

Seriously, Frank Lampard is an absolute legend of the game. He needs to be recognised in some way eg. Frank Lampard OBE, Sir Frank Lampard or some kind of lifetime achievement award.

AntMcfc
 
Greatest ownage machine: Scholes. Absolute animal when he was a regular poster, I always knew I was in the right when he was backing me up, and I couldn't wait to read a topic that he was posting in because I knew he'd be tearing someone apart
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elcule
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rollingstone
Dec 14 2009, 04:58 PM
elcule
Dec 14 2009, 03:35 PM
For me, it's a good thing, I think it helps preserve a variety of sports on the planet. For all your talk of wanting to abolish the Euro-South American 'monopoly' on the interntaional game, surely this will come at the expense of other sports? The power hierarchy will simply have shifted from a trans-continental duopoly over one sport to a footballing monopoly over the entire sporting world. Indians taking up football over Cricket, New Zealanders doing likewise over Rugby, Canadians with Ice Hockey, Russians with Gymnastics, the Japanese with Martial Arts (the last three were horrific stereotypes btw) would just weaken the quality of these other sports if these nations' cultures altered to give primacy to football.

There still remain plenty of great teams at the World Cup, you're gripe is similar to wishing for 32 amazing people to contest the US Masters. It would be nice, but it just won't happen, there isn't enough talent to go around. Anyway, I'm not really up for seeing Amir Patel bursting down the wing for Barcelona, call me conservative but it wouldn't look right.

Also, does anyone know if Middle Eastern and South Asian people are just naturally shit at sport?
I don't think that's the case. Consider the wealth and variety of sport in England for example. We have a mere 60m to draw from, yet we manage to field a decent football side, an occasionally exceptional rugby team, a world class cricket outfit, and our golf/tennis set-up is improving. Also bear in mind that we persistently produce brilliant athletes in most Olympic games fields, as shown by our elevated finish in 2008. Obviously, though, this has taken up huge amounts of resources and vast injections of cash.

But if it can be done with only 60m, then I'm sure India's 1bn or so could manage to field a far better football side than it ddoes presently without hindering the growth of its cricket game.

What I'm saying is that most countries aren't yet producing to their 'sporting maximums', so there's no need to assume any sort of trade-off. There's plenty of talent to go around, and I think it's a shame that our generation probably won't get to revel in football's proliferation.
I thought you'd come back with the England example; for me I think you have to consider how much better England's other sporting teams would be if football was not the country's most popular sport. Conjecture maybe, but I think you only have to look at our footballing first team of last season, the core of which were proficient at more than one sport but chose football because of its greater popularity - eg Paddy, Lord, Stu, Lloyd, Tuffley for example. Without football, these players may well have ended up greatly enhancing the hockey / rugby sevens teams that were played in the same term.

So yeah, I think football may well deprive other sports played in England of world class stars, just as basketball does the West Indies cricket team. It's evidently it's difficult to balance out all this talent and, for me at any rate, I don't have any real complaints at how the talent is divided between sports, I wouldn't like to see an awful All Blacks rugby team at the expense of New Zealand being ranked 30th instead of 77th.

You also seem to have skirted over the amount money pumped into British sport, taking it slightly for granted. It's something that some countries, regrettably, don't have, and in that sense I'd agree that some countries haven't reached their 'sporting maximums'. That's not really a job for FIFA though.

England has 47m people btw :thumbsup:
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Winner.

"If I go to Anfield and someone puts the ball into the box and Carragher hammers it out of play the fans applaud. At Camp Nou you would never be applauded for that." - Xavi
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elcule
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(The article was really nicely written btw, the paragraphing was good, made it much easier to read and, as ever, your command of English is unrivalled) ...almost
Edited by elcule, Dec 14 2009, 06:45 PM.
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Winner.

"If I go to Anfield and someone puts the ball into the box and Carragher hammers it out of play the fans applaud. At Camp Nou you would never be applauded for that." - Xavi
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AntMcfc
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Wow, you actually wrote that?! I thought that was some average writers attempt at sounding articulate, now that I've found out it's yours I can safely say that's way below your own standards.
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rollingstone
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Always nice to have praise from Uncle Ant
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Scholes
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Look at Rolling taking it as a compliment, must be in a good mood.
Scholes
 

Seriously, Frank Lampard is an absolute legend of the game. He needs to be recognised in some way eg. Frank Lampard OBE, Sir Frank Lampard or some kind of lifetime achievement award.

AntMcfc
 
Greatest ownage machine: Scholes. Absolute animal when he was a regular poster, I always knew I was in the right when he was backing me up, and I couldn't wait to read a topic that he was posting in because I knew he'd be tearing someone apart
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rollingstone
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Scholes
Dec 14 2009, 11:17 PM
Look at Rolling taking it as a compliment, must be in a good mood.
:clown:
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Artrun
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I think Rolling is right here. It's ridiculous to say football is taking talent away from other sports, because it is evidently not as evidenced by Rolling's examples of our proficiency as a nation in many sports apart from football. Besides, it's a choice, people aren't press-ganged into professional football. There's plenty of talent to go round and to be honest, Rolling's example of the increasing prominance of African teams in the WC is proof that it's mainly down to funding rather than talent levels.. Every country has the same potential relative to its population size imo.
Edited by Artrun, Dec 14 2009, 11:26 PM.
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AntMcfc
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rollingstone
Dec 14 2009, 11:14 PM
Always nice to have praise from Uncle Ant
It's still obviously a good article, but I'd expect better from the forum's second best writer. Elcule would have done a better job imo, not winding you up either.
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rollingstone
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AntMcfc
Dec 14 2009, 11:46 PM
rollingstone
Dec 14 2009, 11:14 PM
Always nice to have praise from Uncle Ant
It's still obviously a good article, but I'd expect better from the forum's second best writer. Elcule would have done a better job imo, not winding you up either.
Yeh probably. TBH I was trying not to use really pretentious language after all the stick I've been getting from you and Alfie of late. But yeah it could obvs be better anyway
Edited by rollingstone, Dec 14 2009, 11:49 PM.
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