David Beckham had a very nice free kick goal against Barcelona at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., on Saturday, and I wonder if that one play might be enough to get him to the 2010 World Cup.
Could be.
Very few players can do what Beckham did with that ball, driving it from about 25 yards out, outside the circle at the top of the box, and over a half-dozen-man wall ... but with enough overspin that the ball seemed to dive -- while swerving left -- and past Barcelona goalkeeper Jose Manuel Pinto and into the siding of the net.
That sort of deadball threat
-- and execution -- against a team as good as Barcelona certainly will be seen by England coach Fabio Capello and likely will bring Beckham in for the next two England matches in World Cup qualifying ... and maybe into the team for South Africa 2010. (England is close to clinching first place in its group.) I mean, even if the guy can't do much of anything else (defend, score in the run of play, etc.), that sort of active dead-ball threat is huge.
Organizers must hope Becks shows up in South Africa. Considering his name-recognition, etc. (Even if England in any competition means a fair chance of their loutish fans showing up and wrecking a town or three.)
Anyway, yeah. Socoring that goal, against Barcelona, with 93,000 fans watching ... that's the kind of pressure execution that might get a guy a berth in the World Cup. And that was the first thought that popped into my head as the ball settled into the back of the next.
Barcelona ultimately won the club friendly over Beckham and his temporary club team, the Los Angeles Galaxy, 2-1.
Read more!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
World Cup Favorites, 310 Days Out
About six weeks ago, Brazil midfielder Kaka happened to drop the name of "England" into a discussion about favorites to win the 2010 World Cup, and of course the English media spotted it immediately.
The self-styled Masters of the Game always fancy themselves favorites to win the Big Event -- sometimes right up to the moment when they don't even qualify for it, as in 1994, 1978 and 1974.
Anyway, Kaka has his list of favorites, 310 days out.
But we also have our own. We will pick five, in the order of likelihood of winning. (The odds are our own, and not how the gambling public will place its bets.)
1. Brazil, 2-1 (When the World Cup is played outside Europe, Brazil has to be the favorite.)
2. Spain, 5-2 (Yeah, winning the Euro 2008 title was nice, and Spain has been rolling for several years now -- that Confederations Cup loss to the United States, notwithstanding -- but Espana has a long history of collapsing in World Cups, so we can't consider it "most likely" to win in South Africa.)
3. Germany 4-1 (Always rises to the occasion for the big tournaments. Always mentally tough and in marvelous physical condition.)
4. Italy, 6-1 (Defending champs looked old and shaky in the Confederations Cup, but no one is more cynically brilliant at milking results out of World Cup than the Azzurri.)
5. Netherlands, 10-1 (Already has qualified, and the usual collection of great attacking players could be ready to win their first World Cup.)
Darkhorses:
6. Argentina, 12-1. (First, that dope Diego Maradona has to get Argentina into the tournament. Maybe the country can find a real coach, and if it does, these odds will go down, because if Brazil doesn't win it, and the Euros freak out at playing in Africa, Argentina is the logical choice to take it all.
7. France, 12-1. (Again, they have to qualify first, but this is a side that has played with confidence and skill for most of the past decade and change -- aside from that meltdown in 2002.)
8. Ivory Coast, 15-1. (We suspect at least one African team is going to make a deep run into the tournament, and this is our choice.)
And what of England?
Any side that can't seem to find a competent second forward to pair with Wayne Rooney (and no, Peter "The Stork" Crouch doesn't count) and apparently will start creaky ol' David Beckham at right mid ... well, that's not a real contender. Read more!
The self-styled Masters of the Game always fancy themselves favorites to win the Big Event -- sometimes right up to the moment when they don't even qualify for it, as in 1994, 1978 and 1974.
Anyway, Kaka has his list of favorites, 310 days out.
But we also have our own. We will pick five, in the order of likelihood of winning. (The odds are our own, and not how the gambling public will place its bets.)
1. Brazil, 2-1 (When the World Cup is played outside Europe, Brazil has to be the favorite.)
2. Spain, 5-2 (Yeah, winning the Euro 2008 title was nice, and Spain has been rolling for several years now -- that Confederations Cup loss to the United States, notwithstanding -- but Espana has a long history of collapsing in World Cups, so we can't consider it "most likely" to win in South Africa.)
3. Germany 4-1 (Always rises to the occasion for the big tournaments. Always mentally tough and in marvelous physical condition.)
4. Italy, 6-1 (Defending champs looked old and shaky in the Confederations Cup, but no one is more cynically brilliant at milking results out of World Cup than the Azzurri.)
5. Netherlands, 10-1 (Already has qualified, and the usual collection of great attacking players could be ready to win their first World Cup.)
Darkhorses:
6. Argentina, 12-1. (First, that dope Diego Maradona has to get Argentina into the tournament. Maybe the country can find a real coach, and if it does, these odds will go down, because if Brazil doesn't win it, and the Euros freak out at playing in Africa, Argentina is the logical choice to take it all.
7. France, 12-1. (Again, they have to qualify first, but this is a side that has played with confidence and skill for most of the past decade and change -- aside from that meltdown in 2002.)
8. Ivory Coast, 15-1. (We suspect at least one African team is going to make a deep run into the tournament, and this is our choice.)
And what of England?
Any side that can't seem to find a competent second forward to pair with Wayne Rooney (and no, Peter "The Stork" Crouch doesn't count) and apparently will start creaky ol' David Beckham at right mid ... well, that's not a real contender. Read more!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Rats! Rodents 'Running Wild' in SA Cities
Rats are a global issue. Everyone in the United States has heard stories/jokes about rats in New York City that are "as big as (fill in the blank with any animal smaller than a pachyderm)."
Where did I read that something like one-third of India's annual grain harvest is lost to rats?
I recently learned that if you have a fruit tree in your backyard ... you almost certainly have rats. And the odds go up in that tree is a fig tree or an avocado tree.
So, rats in South Africa cities? Doesn't sound like earth-shaking news. But the Johannesburg Sunday Times reports that the rat situation in South Africa cities is getting worse. Well, ahem.
The story suggests that Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban -- each of them home to World Cup venues -- are "in an advanced state of infestation."
No one likes rats. They are living, breathing proof of poor hygiene -- and are likely to contribute to more health problems.
But they are just one more of the issues that will face visitors to the 2010 World Cup. Shaky travel infrastructure, an AIDS epidemic, violent crime, civic unrest, a shortage of hotel rooms and, on top of everything else ... rat infestations.
Just saying. Fans need to think this through before they commit to traveling to the 2010 World Cup. When it comes to clean and tidy, safe and orderly ... well, South Africa will never be confused with, say, Switzerland. Read more!
Where did I read that something like one-third of India's annual grain harvest is lost to rats?
I recently learned that if you have a fruit tree in your backyard ... you almost certainly have rats. And the odds go up in that tree is a fig tree or an avocado tree.
So, rats in South Africa cities? Doesn't sound like earth-shaking news. But the Johannesburg Sunday Times reports that the rat situation in South Africa cities is getting worse. Well, ahem.
The story suggests that Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban -- each of them home to World Cup venues -- are "in an advanced state of infestation."
No one likes rats. They are living, breathing proof of poor hygiene -- and are likely to contribute to more health problems.
But they are just one more of the issues that will face visitors to the 2010 World Cup. Shaky travel infrastructure, an AIDS epidemic, violent crime, civic unrest, a shortage of hotel rooms and, on top of everything else ... rat infestations.
Just saying. Fans need to think this through before they commit to traveling to the 2010 World Cup. When it comes to clean and tidy, safe and orderly ... well, South Africa will never be confused with, say, Switzerland. Read more!
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Maradona Leading Argentina into Trouble
Never thought this made much sense. Diego Maradona as Argentina's national-team coach.
I think he's a dope. And a doper. (Though perhaps he is clean, on the rec drug side of things, after years of substance abuse.)
Let's just focus on his World Cup qualifying record: He and Argentina are 2-2 since he took over the team, and Argentina is, almost unbelievably, at risk of not qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.
Part of the problem seems to be Argentina's reverence for the guy. Even though Maradona's soccer skills clearly outpace his mental abilities. He is doing odd things with the squad (such as not calling in gifted young scorer Gonzalo Higuain) and not being held accountable. Because he is Diego.
So, a 6-1 thrashing at Bolivia, a 2-0 defeat at Ecuador ... it's all good (well, not really, but we're going to pretend not to notice). Fourth place in the South America standings? With Brazil up next? No worries.
(No, really.)
Well, someone ought to worry. You don't get into the World Cup with celebrity amateurs picking the team and naming the starting lineup. You win with real coaches.
It has been well-documented that some of the greatest athletes make the worst coaches/managers. Often because they could barely survive their own celebrity, because they never really worked at greatness or had to learn it. It was just there.
Diego Maradona appears to be one of those guys. And if Argentina loses to Brazil on Sept. 5, and falls from fourth place to somewhere deeper in the standings -- that is, on the verge of not going to South Africa -- maybe Argentina wises up and cuts loose St. Diego. Before it's too late, and we wind up with a World Cup without a two-time champion. Read more!
I think he's a dope. And a doper. (Though perhaps he is clean, on the rec drug side of things, after years of substance abuse.)
Let's just focus on his World Cup qualifying record: He and Argentina are 2-2 since he took over the team, and Argentina is, almost unbelievably, at risk of not qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.
Part of the problem seems to be Argentina's reverence for the guy. Even though Maradona's soccer skills clearly outpace his mental abilities. He is doing odd things with the squad (such as not calling in gifted young scorer Gonzalo Higuain) and not being held accountable. Because he is Diego.
So, a 6-1 thrashing at Bolivia, a 2-0 defeat at Ecuador ... it's all good (well, not really, but we're going to pretend not to notice). Fourth place in the South America standings? With Brazil up next? No worries.
(No, really.)
Well, someone ought to worry. You don't get into the World Cup with celebrity amateurs picking the team and naming the starting lineup. You win with real coaches.
It has been well-documented that some of the greatest athletes make the worst coaches/managers. Often because they could barely survive their own celebrity, because they never really worked at greatness or had to learn it. It was just there.
Diego Maradona appears to be one of those guys. And if Argentina loses to Brazil on Sept. 5, and falls from fourth place to somewhere deeper in the standings -- that is, on the verge of not going to South Africa -- maybe Argentina wises up and cuts loose St. Diego. Before it's too late, and we wind up with a World Cup without a two-time champion. Read more!
Friday, July 31, 2009
Africans Not Buying Tickets to SA 2010
This isn't how this was supposed to work out. But it probably shouldn't be a surprise.
It costs real money to go to a World Cup. Especially one outside your country.
Turns out, the Johannesburg Sunday Times writes, Africans aren't buying many World Cup tickets, according to 2010 World Cup organizers. Most of the tickets being bought from out of the country, so far, are going to Europe and to the United States. To places where people have money, that is.
Which makes sense, considering Africa is the poorest continent on the planet ... that it has several countries with a per capita income of about $200. (That's $200 per year.) ... Considering that air travel within the African continent is dangerous and sketchy, often involving flights out of Africa, and back to Europe, to get to Johannesburg.
(Imagine living in New York and having to fly to Mexico to get a plane to take you to Washington. Pretty much the same thing.)
Anyway, yes, it's a shame that so few Africans will be at SA 2010. Or so it seems.
Organizers hold out hope that sales will go up when the five other African teams that will play in South Africa 2010 are identified, in the next few months.
But when the options are "World Cup tickets" and "eating this month" ... well, sensible people all over the globe are going to make the sane decision. Read more!
It costs real money to go to a World Cup. Especially one outside your country.
Turns out, the Johannesburg Sunday Times writes, Africans aren't buying many World Cup tickets, according to 2010 World Cup organizers. Most of the tickets being bought from out of the country, so far, are going to Europe and to the United States. To places where people have money, that is.
Which makes sense, considering Africa is the poorest continent on the planet ... that it has several countries with a per capita income of about $200. (That's $200 per year.) ... Considering that air travel within the African continent is dangerous and sketchy, often involving flights out of Africa, and back to Europe, to get to Johannesburg.
(Imagine living in New York and having to fly to Mexico to get a plane to take you to Washington. Pretty much the same thing.)
Anyway, yes, it's a shame that so few Africans will be at SA 2010. Or so it seems.
Organizers hold out hope that sales will go up when the five other African teams that will play in South Africa 2010 are identified, in the next few months.
But when the options are "World Cup tickets" and "eating this month" ... well, sensible people all over the globe are going to make the sane decision. Read more!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Urban Unrest Convulses South Africa
Does this look like a country ready to host a World Cup?
I would imagine that even the poorest of South Africa's legion of impoverished people are pleased the World Cup is coming to their country in 2010.
But in the meantime, lots of people living in the nation's infamous shantytowns are ticked off by a government that continues to promise much and deliver little.
In this Los Angeles Times story today, it is clear that the issue involves tens of thousands of demonstrators and as many as 20 "townships" -- as the shantytowns are generically known.
Here is another look at what is going on there, a 14-part slide show of photographs of demonstrators. (Note that demonstrators are carrying vuvuzelas in several photos.)
Here is a link to a photo gallery appearing on the (Johannesburg) Sunday Times Web site. The newspaper, which I am coming to believe is the best in South Africa, has coverage of the upheaval, but it isn't particularly well-placed. Which indicates to me that 1) this sort of disorder happens fairly often and, thus, is only second-tier news or 2) they are trying not to make too big an issue out of it, 300-plus days before the World Cup is scheduled to begin.
If that kind of civil disobedience were racking any Western government, we would call them "riots." In Europe, under the parliamentary system, a government might fall over this kind of unrest.
Anyway, the World Cup:
Should the event even be allowed in a country which admits to 23.6 percent unemployment, has an unequally distributed per capita income of $10,000 -- and now has daily riots in the streets that South African experts suggest will only intensify?
Attention, FIFA boss Sepp Blatter: Better have that Plan B for the 2010 World Cup in the top drawer of your desk. And make sure potential organizers in England or Germany or the United States are on "speed-dial."
You gambled on taking the World Cup to Africa ... and at the moment, that gamble seems like a bad one. Read more!
I would imagine that even the poorest of South Africa's legion of impoverished people are pleased the World Cup is coming to their country in 2010.
But in the meantime, lots of people living in the nation's infamous shantytowns are ticked off by a government that continues to promise much and deliver little.
In this Los Angeles Times story today, it is clear that the issue involves tens of thousands of demonstrators and as many as 20 "townships" -- as the shantytowns are generically known.
Here is another look at what is going on there, a 14-part slide show of photographs of demonstrators. (Note that demonstrators are carrying vuvuzelas in several photos.)
Here is a link to a photo gallery appearing on the (Johannesburg) Sunday Times Web site. The newspaper, which I am coming to believe is the best in South Africa, has coverage of the upheaval, but it isn't particularly well-placed. Which indicates to me that 1) this sort of disorder happens fairly often and, thus, is only second-tier news or 2) they are trying not to make too big an issue out of it, 300-plus days before the World Cup is scheduled to begin.
If that kind of civil disobedience were racking any Western government, we would call them "riots." In Europe, under the parliamentary system, a government might fall over this kind of unrest.
Anyway, the World Cup:
Should the event even be allowed in a country which admits to 23.6 percent unemployment, has an unequally distributed per capita income of $10,000 -- and now has daily riots in the streets that South African experts suggest will only intensify?
Attention, FIFA boss Sepp Blatter: Better have that Plan B for the 2010 World Cup in the top drawer of your desk. And make sure potential organizers in England or Germany or the United States are on "speed-dial."
You gambled on taking the World Cup to Africa ... and at the moment, that gamble seems like a bad one. Read more!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
FIFA Signs Off on Controversial Horns for 2010
They are called vuvuzelas, and they are the audio cockroaches of stadium sports.
If you watched any of the Confederations Cup, played in South Africa last month, you couldn't escape them. Unless you had the audio on "mute."
The vuvuzela is a plastic horn that South African soccer fans apparently love. They're cheap (actually, they were given away free during the Confederations Cup), and disposable, and they make quite a racket when someone blows into the mouthpiece.
Get enough of them together, and a whole stadium sounds like it has been infested with hornets. A vuvuzela produces a sort of buzzing drone, rather than some trumpet-like bray.
Some people hate them. European broadcasters and players, in particular ... who said, during the Confederations Cup, that vuvuzelas were a sort of aural pollution that screwed up TV broadcasts and made it hard for players to communicate on the field.
There was hope, in some quarters, that vuvuzelas would be banned at the 2010 World Cup, but FIFA has signed off on vuvuzela sales and usage in stadiums. And that means that endless drone will be the official background "music" to the 2010 World Cup.
I don't have a major problem with this. I can't tell you exactly which American venues use these (or used to), but I am almost certain there are some baseball or football stadiums in this country that have had variations of the same one-note instrument blaring at us.
Eventually, it becomes a sort of white noise ... something you don't really hear unless someone mentions it.
As a FIFA spokesman put it, banning the vuvuzela would be something like banning cowbells at Switzerland games or singing at England games. The vuvuzela is what South Africans do.
The teams that succeed will be those who make a point of not spending any mental energy worrying about this. Read more!
If you watched any of the Confederations Cup, played in South Africa last month, you couldn't escape them. Unless you had the audio on "mute."
The vuvuzela is a plastic horn that South African soccer fans apparently love. They're cheap (actually, they were given away free during the Confederations Cup), and disposable, and they make quite a racket when someone blows into the mouthpiece.
Get enough of them together, and a whole stadium sounds like it has been infested with hornets. A vuvuzela produces a sort of buzzing drone, rather than some trumpet-like bray.
Some people hate them. European broadcasters and players, in particular ... who said, during the Confederations Cup, that vuvuzelas were a sort of aural pollution that screwed up TV broadcasts and made it hard for players to communicate on the field.
There was hope, in some quarters, that vuvuzelas would be banned at the 2010 World Cup, but FIFA has signed off on vuvuzela sales and usage in stadiums. And that means that endless drone will be the official background "music" to the 2010 World Cup.
I don't have a major problem with this. I can't tell you exactly which American venues use these (or used to), but I am almost certain there are some baseball or football stadiums in this country that have had variations of the same one-note instrument blaring at us.
Eventually, it becomes a sort of white noise ... something you don't really hear unless someone mentions it.
As a FIFA spokesman put it, banning the vuvuzela would be something like banning cowbells at Switzerland games or singing at England games. The vuvuzela is what South Africans do.
The teams that succeed will be those who make a point of not spending any mental energy worrying about this. Read more!
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