Has The Element Of Surprise Gone For Good From The World Cup?
Ukraine aside (and seeing as their squad contains some of Europe’s top players we can’t really call them a surprise package), who can be really surprised to see the lineup for the World Cup quarter finals comprising of the following nations:
Germany
Argentina
Italy
Ukraine
England
Portugal
Brazil
France
Six top European countries and the perennial South American heavyweight contingent and on paper we’re set up for a fantastic run in to the World Cup final but why doesn’t it pull at my heartstrings like previous finals?
Cameroon with Roger Milla pulling the 40 year old strings in 1990 in Italy, Bulgaria with the skill of Hristo Stocihkov and the chrome dome trickery of Yordan Letchkov in USA 1994, Croatia’s third place in France in 1998 and Turkey and South Korea battling it out for third place in Japan/Korea last time round in 2002. Underdogs with the skill and fighting spirit to push the established big money nations to the side and carve their names in World Cup history.
As Paula Cole sang “Where have all the cowboys gone?” International football needs cowboys like the Cameroon side who surprised us all, we love to see the South Koreans buck the trend of early exit to use their home support to push them on to untold heights and we can’t get enough of seeing a country so wartorn as Croatia drag itself back up and into footballing legend.
Brazil are uninspiring, England’s fancy dan prima donnas are finding out that maybe they aren’t quite the players their wage packets tell them they are and the plucky Aussies almost finsihed off a lacklustre Italy side. Now that would have given us something to aspire to, 32 years after last qualifying and putting out Italy would have given us a fine underdog to support in these days of big money and big reputations.
Ukraine just don’t do it for me. Any country that’s led by a man who at almost 30 years of age has just been bought by the great evil of Chelsea for £30m don’t deserve my adoration for their underdog qualities. I’ll keep watching it until the end but it just isn’t the same these days. Maybe I’ve got old and cynical or maybe the money has changed the way the competition works. I think I know which one I’ll blame it on.
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POSTED IN: Past World Cups
4 opinions for Has The Element Of Surprise Gone For Good From The World Cup?
Bald Man
Jun 28, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Being on familiar turf has been good for the old guard. I’ll be very interested to see what happens in 2010. Was Korea/Japan a wayward blip? Or are the playing fields a bit more level outside the old world?
Alan
Jun 28, 2006 at 4:21 pm
That’s actually a good point, is the reduction in the chance of an “outsider” doing well simply because they finals are being played in Europe and is it any coincedence then that 6 of the last 8 countries left are Europeans?
The countries outside of the European/Brazil&Argentina hierarchy who could have been expected to make a splash (USA, Mexico, possibly Ghana and the Ivory Coast) didn’t have quite the consistency to make their presence felt despite shining in patches.
With so many African debutants this time around I think the experience level of that continent will have a greater part to play come South Africa in 2010 and maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a little more of an even playing field as opposed to the big boys spoiling it for the neutrals amongst us and steamrolling over the underdogs.
Footie Fool
Jun 30, 2006 at 7:04 am
As far as I am concerned, give me good football. I don’t care whose playing, established superpower or longshot outsider.
Bald Man
Jun 30, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Alan,
I’m betting - and hoping - we see a shake up in 2010. That should cement it in FIFA minds that the Cup needs to be rotated around the world for the good of the global game.
FF,
But that’s just it. There hasn’t been a plethora of good soccer. You’ve seen England and Italy and Ukraine, right?
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