Maradona Hoping for Divine Intervention

This can't be good: Your coach is asking for the intervention of the Almighty to get his team to South Africa 2010. It's come to that?

Yes, we have more on Diego Maradona, who seems to fascinate the soccer world. Maybe because he has stood at such heights but also plumbed such depths?

That's the big picture. The smaller one, and more relevant to this discussion, is his role as coach of Argentina's struggling national team.

Maradona is now asking for God to take sides, at least when it comes to his team.

Argentina, one of the dozen most significant soccer-playing countries on the planet, has two South America qualifying matches left, and it could see its 2010 World Cup situation go one of three ways -- one good, one less good, one quite bad.

To wit:

1. Argentina wins one of South America's four guaranteed berths in South Africa by gaining at least one draw from its next two matches -- and getting help (from Uruguay or Chile) against Ecuador, currently sitting fourth. How much help depends on whether Argentina accrues six points, four points, three points, two points or one point from its games -- at home Oct. 10 vs. Peru, on the road Oct. 14 vs. Uruguay. For example: One point requires that Ecuador lose twice (for starters, because Uruguay, Venezuela and Colombia remain in contention). Six points means Argentina is in the top four unless Ecuador also wins twice (or Chile loses twice).

2. Argentina finishes fifth and moves into a home-and-home playoff with the No. 4 team out of Concacaf, which could be the United States, Mexico, Honduras -- but most likely Costa Rica. Argentina will be favored to advance, in this scenario, but given what it has done of late ...

3. Argentina finishes sixth, and is done until the 2014 World Cup.

The story here is that Argentina is in trouble, at all. Here are the standings in the continental qualifying.

Finishing behind Brazil; no shame there.

It's the idea of finishing sixth, behind some good-but-not-great soccer powers (Paraguay, Chile, Ecuador and, say, Uruguay) that has the soccer world puzzled.

In terms of the standings, it's simple: Argentina has lost four of its last five qualifiers, under Maradona (four of six since he was named coach, in November of last year), including a 6-1 drubbing at Bolivia and a 3-1 home spanking at the hands of Brazil. Which is why Argentina is 6-4-6 (victories, draws, defeats) and has slipped to fifth place.

Maradona has been down the road with God before. At least in his own mind. He prefers the description "hand of God" when referring to his handball that was erroneously counted as a goal against England in the 1986 World Cup semifinals. Maradona may see God's handiwork there, but we are fairly certain Providence would not show his favor by allowing you to cheat successfully.

Our sense always has been that supernatural beings are hands-off, when it comes to sports results. They leave it to simple humans to figure it out. To suggest God or Allah or Yahweh (et al) wanted you to win and saw to it that you did ... is more than a little insulting to the other sides. (God hates loves Diego and Argentina but hates Ecuador?)

Argentina will rise of fall on the merits of its players, which are obvious and well-known, or the merits of the team's coach -- which are questionable and, apparently, require divine intervention as part of the program.
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Fabio Capello: England's Hard Man

Fabio Capello won't be taking any grief from England's players before or during the World Cup, according to Stuart Pearce, an assistant coach.

Capello, England's coach from Italy, already is on record about severely limiting World Cup access to players by "WAGs" -- the English acronym for "wives and girlfriends." WAGs were an ongoing story at the 2006 World Cup, to the detriment of the national side, some believev.

Capello said players and WAGs will be in contact only on the day after World Cup matches, at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Now, Pearce has been quoted as saying Capello will boot from the squad any player found guilty of breaking team rules twice.

This probably is a good idea. The scrutiny of English players is enormous and eternal, with the numerous, competetive and aggressive English media responsible for much of it. But, too, this is a country that invented the game and wonders why it hasn't won a World Cup since 1966.

Keeping English players focused on tasks at hand would seem to be Job 1, and Capello is acting as if he understands that.

Pearce said that players will be warned after their first breach of the rules, and will be gone after the second.

Still, we have to wonder if, say, top scorer Wayne Rooney, will be treated quite as harshly as a lesser member of the squad.

Perhaps so. If nothing else, England's romp through qualifying has given Capello so much credibility, so much coaching capital, that he can threaten ... and probably even carry out those threats ... without great harm to his status.

Perhaps an indication of his current power? Two newspapers issued apologies to Capello for publishing photos of him and his wife taking a mud bath during a vacation in Italy last week. English newspapers generally don't apologize for anything.

Thus, for now, Capello seems to be setting himself up as the hard man of English soccer. The coach who will not be putting up with even the mildest hijinks from the lads.
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Still Talking about Argentina: Higuain Added

For months now, almost no national team has engendered as much conversation as that of Argentina.

Why? Because Argentina is one of the planet's leading soccer countries ... is coached by one of the sport's greatest stars ... and is at risk of not qualifying for South Africa 2010.

Hence, it is no surprise that the announcement of Argentina's player pool for its final two World Cup qualifying matches ... is a significant news story.

The biggest news here?

The call up of 21-year-old forward Gonzalo Higuain.

Argentina has been starved for goals, and Higuain already is getting lots of playing time with Real Madrid. So his addition to the team, by coach Diego Maradona, makes sense.

Argentina's situation: It is fifth in the South America standings. The top four finishers, after the matches of Oct. 10 and 14, go to South Africa. The No. 5 team enters a home-and-home playoff with the No. 4 team out of Concacaf for a berth in the 2010 finals.

Argentina is home to Peru on Oct. 10, and finishes at Uruguay on Oct. 14. The first match should be easy; the second could decide who finishes fourth, fifth -- or worse.

So that's why we are paying attention to Argentina's every move. It is impossible to think of the 2010 World Cup without it ... but it is quite possible to see how it could finish sixth in the South America standings.
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SA Columnist Warns Readers of 2010 'Aliens'

Now, here is some genuine cross-cultural ... oh, humor? Attempt at humor? Proof that what outsiders don't know about South Africa and what a sports columnist doesn't quite know about foreigners ... is truly a vast tract of intellectual territory.

A columnist named Carlos Amato has done a bit of satire, appearing on the Johannesburg Sunday Times Web site, on some of the visitors South Africans can expect to see during the World Cup in 2010. The are described as "aliens" in the secondary headline, and we can be fairly certain we are meant to think of "extra terrestrials" even before we conjure up another meaning. That is, foreigners.

I admire writers/journalists who attempt satire. Being funny -- and there is wit here -- is hard. In any language. I've been there, done that, and not always successfully. American actor and comedian Steve Martin once declared that "comedy is not pretty," and he has that right.

Anyway, it's always a bit tricky when you start slinging national stereotypes. Missing the mark is a near-certainty, especially if the prose is examined from outside the writer's immediate readership. And it is his immediate readership that is, by far, best-positioned to recognize the South African terms he uses, and who are familiar with local-culture pop references that non-South Africans can only guess at. (Do the Spice Girls have some history with Nelson Mandela?)

But it also shows that we can be looking into voids of misunderstanding even when speaking in the same language, more or less.

Let's look at some of his (yes, broad and overstated) ideas about the fans of several national teams.

Starting with the English.

He opens with a riff on the Spice Girls, who he has decided should be known as the Spice Tannies, and those of us who can form a mental picture of stick-thin Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham can see humor in the author's suggestion that the "Tannies" can "convert their sunglasses into improvised shacks."

Then there is a bit about a presumably typical English soccer lout, this one a man named Barry who weighs 200 kilograms (440 pounds) and has passed out from over-indulgence and needs to be revived via mouth-to-mouth ministrations. (OK, gross humor; some comics make a career of it.) Meanwhile, the South African Good Samaritan tries not to look at the enormous breasts of this particular drunken soccer lout who has, on each breast, "a life-sized tattoo of Alan Shearer nailed to a cross." (Alan Shearer is a former English soccer great.)

The author moves on to American soccer fans, and his depiction of 18-19-year-old dreadlocked Coloradoans is peculiar. Very. Perhaps the only Americans the author has seen in South Africa are college-age backpackers? Amato suggests the Americans will be more interested in hacky-sack (a fad that seems to have disappeared years ago, by the way). "Already, these American kids secretly prefer hacky-sack to soccer, because they understand the rules better. You will see groups of them in Gautrain station platforms, kicking a hacky-sack. If you participate, they will befriend you, and bore the living crap out of you. Do not participate."

He also suggests that, in 2011, the dreadlocked American hacky-sack fans "will all go to college, where they will realise that soccer is a sport for socialists, Latinos and cannibals."

Hmmm. Well. Yes, some Americans are massively disinterested in soccer, but they will not be among those fans roaming South Africa next summer. Americans already have bought twice as many 2010 World Cup tickets as any other national group, and the people using those tickets will be quite serious soccer fans, actually. Have to be, to go all the way to South Africa from North America, at great expense.

There is a line about Dutch fans and hashish and mayonnaise, a suggestion that Italian fans will be interested in "seducing your mum," a riff about North Korean fans wanting to visit a power station (to spy on it?) and a half-sentence about how South Africans can expect to "hear Nigerian fans long before you see them."

And an unfortunate line about local citizens needing to make sure they "do not accuse visiting Egyptians of sleeping with prostitutes merely because you think it's possible they did." A reference to a Confederations Cup scandal centering around Egyptian national team contentions that players had personal items stolen while in a South Africa hotel, and South African authorities suggesting the problem was about Egyptian players inviting prostitutes into their rooms.

Actually, the piece is fascinating, in a cultural forensics sort of way. Because the Joburg Sunday Times is one of the best newspapers in the country, we have to assume that the author is considered amusing. And that he knows the boundaries of good taste vs. bad taste, in his community.

But, clearly, only certain bits of humor successfully cross oceans, or national borders.

The column does accomplish this: It reminds us that the sort of labeling/stereotyping most of us do when trying to boil down foreign cultures ... well, it's easy to be wrong. Maybe even offensive. (Anyone in Egypt laughing at the "prostitute" line?)

I don't want to be a scold, because I've been on the other side of a self-righteous scolding more times than I can count. Just saying ... this is the sort of subject to be approached with delicacy.

I recommend you read the Amato column. And, for your information, a "lilo" is an inflatable air mattress. And I assume a "stoep" is what we would call a "stoop" in America, Canada and England. That is, the Dutch-rooted word for "a small porch, platform or staircase leading to the entrance of a house or building."
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Oh, and Make Sure Your Tickets Are Legitimate

As if the would-be traveler to the 2010 World Cup didn't already have enough to worry about ...

Apparently, cyberspace is rife with people and sites keen to sell bogus World Cup tickets to football fans.

The Times of London today reported that New Scotland Yard has "closed more than 100 sites so far" that were trying to cheat fans eager to buy tickets to the event in South Africa next year.

Taking money and returning fake tickets -- or not even that.

The Times writes that "FIFA executives fear that these fraudsters are only the pioneers of an internet crimewave that will become more severe as the World Cup approaches.

"It is not only English fans who stand to suffer ... but thousands more around the world, with South Africa expecting up to 500,000 supporters from the 32 participating nations.

"FIFA has no precise figures, but it is thought that thousands of fans may already have handed over money for tickets that do not exist. But New Scotland Yard's cyberpolice ... are thought to have saved many more from parting with their cash and are leading the chase to make sure South Africa is not flooded next year with supporters holding worthless tickets and with no games to go to."

Let's put down a few simple ground rules, if you plan to buy tickets.

--If a ticket deal seems too good to be true, it is. Show some personal responsibility here.

--Unless you are buying from the authorized FIFA site, be very careful. Make sure the purveyor is a recongized, established tour operator or ticket broker. (And even then ...)

--Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.

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Crime Up: Attend SA 2010 at Your Own Risk

We can't sugarcoat this.

Any fan planning to attend the 2010 World Cup in South Africa should realize ... the country isn't safe.

It isn't safe by even the violent standards of, say, the United States. Or Russia. Or of a bunch of other countries known for violent crime. South Africa is way out there.

The Johannesburg Sunday Times this week wrote about national officials announcing South African crime statistics, and nearly every sort of violent crime is up -- often dramatically -- from the previous year (ending in February), with the exception of murder. Which is down, we are happy to note, 3.4 percent from a year ago.

Still, there were 18,148 murders in South Africa over the past year. Which works out to about 50 murders in the country ... every day of the year.

How does that compare to the rest of the world?

Badly.

South Africa not only is No. 2 in the world for most murders per capita, according to this Web site we just linked to (and those numbers indicate one out of every 2,000 citizens in South Africa was murdered in the previous year) ... South Africa is No. 4 in the world in total homicides (click on the "Total" stat on the site).

In murders per capita, South Africa ranks behind only Colombia, a state still in thrall to narco-terrorists ... and in sheer number of homicides, South Africa trails only India, Russia and Colombia. But India has 23 times South Africa's population of 50 million, and Russia has three times South Africa's population.

Anyway, look at those other stats, from the Joburg Sunday Times story. Business robberies, home invasions, carjackings ... all up. And steeply, in most cases. The country is going through an epidemic of mall robberies and attacks on armored cars and, deeper in the story, a business group suggests the government is undercounting some crimes.

What is behind those numbers? Generic lawlessness, clearly. But also poverty. Bad government. Social pressures. Gangsterism. Tribalism.

The Joburg Sunday Times was so agitated by all this that it wrote an angry/exasperated editorial about how Something Must Be Done. And the newspaper is right, if a little hazy on the details of how this something will be done, aside from more police in the streets.

Anyway, consider this: The United States is (fairly) regarded as a violent and dangerous country. But a person in South Afria is 12 times more likely to be murdered in South Africa as he or she is in the U.S. And compared to orderly and peaceful countries such as Switzerland and Japan ... South Africa is the Wild Wild West times about 100.

A couple of more disturbing stats:

1. If 50 people are murdered in South Africa every day, that means some 1,550 will be murdered during the 31 days of South Africa 2010;

2. The most dangerous province of them all? Gauteng, which happens to be where Johannesburg and Pretoria are located, and those two cities are the sites of three of the 10 stadiums that will play host to World Cup matches. And Johannesburg is the main air entre pot to the rest of the world. That is, a large proportion of fans and tourists will arrive in South Africa via Joburg.

So, as we have written here before, anyone planning to drop in for the 2010 World Cup, should go to South Africa knowing it is the most dangerous place in the world that isn't Colombia. That is, don't show up thinking you're in some sort of threat-free World Cup bubble. Because there aren't enough police in the country to safeguard tourists once they are away from the venues.

I'm not saying "don't go." In fact, given the chance to go, I will.

Just saying, "be aware." Go in with your eyes open and your guard up.
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Unrest in Honduras May Force Move of U.S. Match

Honduras is something of a mess, at the moment. A coup ousted the president, who snuck back into Honduras this week, and he is holed up in the Brazilian Embassy.

There is unrest in the streets, with supporters of the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, confronting the police and armed forces.

Meanwhile, Honduran airports are closed, as are ports, and the only way into the country apparently is an overland route from neighboring El Salvador.

Political tension could make for sports improvisation, the Associated Press is reporting. To wit: The scheduled Oct. 10 match between Honduras's surprisingly formidable national team and the United States, scheduled at San Pedro Sula, the second city of Honduras, may have to be moved. Perhaps out of Honduras entirely.

According to the New York Times, Neil Buethe, a U.S. Soccer Federation spokesman, said, "We are obviously monitoring the situation closely and are in discussions with the appropriate officials with Concacaf and FIFA, who will determine if the location of the match will be moved outside of Honduras."

Where might the match be moved? The New York Times suggests Guatemala. The consensus seems to be it would be held somewhere in Central America, to give Honduras as big an advantage as possible -- given the situation. Though NYT notes that Honduras had lots of support when it played the U.S. in Chicago, in June.

The game is important on a really basic soccer level because the U.S. and Honduras are two of the four teams atop the close Concacaf qualifying table. With only two matches left.

The top three finishers are guaranteed berths at South Africa 2010. The No. 4 team goes to a home-and-home playoff with the No. 5 team out of South America.

Clearly, it is better to finish in the top three than to finish fourth.

The United States could clinch a top-three finish with a victory. Honduras would move very close to doing the same, were it to win. And the Hondurans would be favored in this match, under normal conditions, having won all four of their home matches in qualifying, to date. But the coach of the national team, Ramon Maradiego, said players are suffering from "constant uncertainty."

There is precedent for FIFA moving a qualifying match because of violence or upheaval in a country -- and in this qualifying phase, too. ESPN.com notes that, in 2007, a qualifier between China and Myanmar was staged in Malaysia after Myanmar's military broke up pro-democracy rallies, killing at least 10 people.

And NYT recalls that a 1996 U.S. match scheduled to be played in Guatemala was moved to El Salvador, "switching to a neutral site after a stadium stampede two months earlier in Guatemala City led to 84 deaths."

The World Cup is important. But not more important than the rise and fall of a government, and not more important than violence in the streets. You can't play a match when the rest of the city/country is in upheaval.

If Honduras doesn't settle down, and soon, look for that Oct. 10 match to be moved. Somewhere. Read more!