I'm on record predicting that an African team will make the semifinals of South Africa 2010.
But those who have watched the Cup of African Nations, the biennial continental tournament, seem to be fairly unanimous in their disappointment over the level of play. And organization. And spirit.
Egypt won the thing tonight, defeating Ghana 1-0, and was easily the most impressive side in the tournament. African title No. 7 for Egypt, and its third straight.
The Egyptians, however, are not in the World Cup. They stumbled early in qualifying, rallied to force a one-match playoff with Algeria (the infamous Match of Hate) in November, and lost it ... and all they had to play for this year was the CAN, which they won. Grand. See you in 2014.
Anyway, one columnist at the Johannesburg Times, in South Africa, is depressed/disappointed.
A writer named Bareng-Batho Kortjass watched the tournament up through the semifinals, and he didn't like what he saw.
In the link, under the title of "So much for an African contender come June ..." he goes down the list of the African qualifiers for South Africa 2010 and tells you what is wrong with them.
He believes Ivory Coast has an inferiority complex ... and also has an issue with not being tricky enough to finesse someone to death, but not rough and tough enough to overpower opponents, either. Hmmm.
As for Cameroon (one of the two African teams to make the quarterfinals, in 1990; Senegal did it in 2002), the author suggests they got old suddenly in the back, turning them into a defensive sieve ... and the lack of a playmaker of any talent deadens the offense by starving Samuel Eto'o of the ball.
The author seems annoyed by Nigeria, which, as he notes, has 150 million people, all of whom think they know more about football than their coach. A team of individuals who collectively are inferior to their parts. The Super Eagles, he says, are now known as the Super Chickens back home. They went out in the semis to Ghana's Kiddie Korps.
Ghana made the final, but the author doesn't much like the Black Stars, either. Too young. Too offensively challenged.
And then there is Algeria, which got to the semifinals only to be undressed, 4-0, by Egypt, in an ugly game in which the contentious Algerians ended the match with eight (!) players on the pitch. He asks, and it is a fair question, how seriously anyone can take a team that loses its composure so completely.
As for South Africa? The Bafana Bafana didn't even qualify for the Cup of African Nations, and watched it from afar. So how good can they be?
I still believe at least one African team will catch fire, come June, and become the darling of South African fans, and will ride that momentum deep into the tournament -- until a Brazil or an Italy ushers them out.
But the people actually on the continent of Africa ... don't seem to agree with that assessment.
Read more!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Smart Way to Approach the World Cup
This is how you handle the long run-up to the World Cup. This is how it is done.
Be modest. Talk your team down a little. Better yet, talk about how good everyone else is.
Have to give credit to Greece's goaltender, Kostas Chalkias. He gets it. In this story you can almost hear him sigh and see him shrug and talk about what a tough group Greece has been drawn into.
But this isn't about hopelessness.
The Greeks know what they can do. What is essentially the same team, six years later, won the 2004 European championship. And also qualified out of a tough group last year (by winning a second-place playoffs from the Ukraine) to make South Africa 2010.
My guess is that inside the team, the Greeks are quietly confident. These guys have won before. And if you can win the Euro championship, you certainly are a contender for the World Cup.
Now, few of us really want that. Greece, under coach Otto Rehhagel, has been about sitting back and counter-attacking and winning 1-0 games of the sort that would make calcio fans yawn. But it works for this group.
Greece is a little bit under the radar for this World Cup. Chalkias said nothing to change that. In fact, he reinforced it. "We did well to get here," etc.
Talking down your chances even when you have some fairly recent history of significant success ... that's how you go to a World Cup. Not like Japan's coach, who says the semifinals are his team's goal. Not like the entirety of England, which is talking about who the Three Lions will get in the semifinals.
Like Kostas Chalkias. "Hmm. Gonna be tough. We'll be happy to survive the group phase." And then, on a team that knows what it is about, that understands how it plays, with a proven formula for success ... anything can happen. We may be surprised, but the Greek team won't be. Read more!
Be modest. Talk your team down a little. Better yet, talk about how good everyone else is.
Have to give credit to Greece's goaltender, Kostas Chalkias. He gets it. In this story you can almost hear him sigh and see him shrug and talk about what a tough group Greece has been drawn into.
But this isn't about hopelessness.
The Greeks know what they can do. What is essentially the same team, six years later, won the 2004 European championship. And also qualified out of a tough group last year (by winning a second-place playoffs from the Ukraine) to make South Africa 2010.
My guess is that inside the team, the Greeks are quietly confident. These guys have won before. And if you can win the Euro championship, you certainly are a contender for the World Cup.
Now, few of us really want that. Greece, under coach Otto Rehhagel, has been about sitting back and counter-attacking and winning 1-0 games of the sort that would make calcio fans yawn. But it works for this group.
Greece is a little bit under the radar for this World Cup. Chalkias said nothing to change that. In fact, he reinforced it. "We did well to get here," etc.
Talking down your chances even when you have some fairly recent history of significant success ... that's how you go to a World Cup. Not like Japan's coach, who says the semifinals are his team's goal. Not like the entirety of England, which is talking about who the Three Lions will get in the semifinals.
Like Kostas Chalkias. "Hmm. Gonna be tough. We'll be happy to survive the group phase." And then, on a team that knows what it is about, that understands how it plays, with a proven formula for success ... anything can happen. We may be surprised, but the Greek team won't be. Read more!
Friday, January 29, 2010
SA2010 Dolls Being Made in Chinese Sweatshop
Not exactly the feel-good story of the day. It seems as if the "Zakumi" dolls being churned out for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa are made in a sweatshop outside Shanghai.
But for anyone who has paid any attention to the exploitative practices of big bosses in China -- who are beginning to make capitalist oppressors look like amateurs -- we can't really call it a surprise.
According to what appears to be a major investigation by an English newspaper not normally known for quality journalism ... the people who are making the official mascots of South Africa 2010 labor and live in wretched conditions and net 23 Rand a day -- which converts to $3.
But the dolls will be sold ... for $48. Each.
The Johannesburg Times picked up the story from the News of the World and got some outraged remarks from South Africa's labor union.
What do we take from this?
Mostly cynical stuff.
Such as ...
Never be surprised when a poor nation is particularly bad about taking advantage of its workers. You would think there would be some collective sense of "we all were poor, a couple of years ago" ... but the new rich, connected to the government or to the Party or both ... seem to have no qualms about taking advantage of their countrymen.
Never be surprised by the grim details of the production of any knick-knacks you buy around a sports event. Think "poor country, wretched conditions, negligible pay" and remember that some huge fraction of the purchase price is going to middle men and licensees. (Which reminds me; all those bobbleheads U.S. ball teams give away? Nobody got rich from making those.)
There is some irony, as several of the people who commented on the Times story noted, that a country with an often-exploitative economy (see: miners) decided to go to China for its dirt-cheap labor. Why not stay local for dirt-cheap?
Anyway, if you go to South Africa 2010 ... or if you just want one of the "official" Zakumi dolls ... the ones that light up ... pause a moment to recall the poor creatures back in the Workers Paradise who slapped those things together. Read more!
But for anyone who has paid any attention to the exploitative practices of big bosses in China -- who are beginning to make capitalist oppressors look like amateurs -- we can't really call it a surprise.
According to what appears to be a major investigation by an English newspaper not normally known for quality journalism ... the people who are making the official mascots of South Africa 2010 labor and live in wretched conditions and net 23 Rand a day -- which converts to $3.
But the dolls will be sold ... for $48. Each.
The Johannesburg Times picked up the story from the News of the World and got some outraged remarks from South Africa's labor union.
What do we take from this?
Mostly cynical stuff.
Such as ...
Never be surprised when a poor nation is particularly bad about taking advantage of its workers. You would think there would be some collective sense of "we all were poor, a couple of years ago" ... but the new rich, connected to the government or to the Party or both ... seem to have no qualms about taking advantage of their countrymen.
Never be surprised by the grim details of the production of any knick-knacks you buy around a sports event. Think "poor country, wretched conditions, negligible pay" and remember that some huge fraction of the purchase price is going to middle men and licensees. (Which reminds me; all those bobbleheads U.S. ball teams give away? Nobody got rich from making those.)
There is some irony, as several of the people who commented on the Times story noted, that a country with an often-exploitative economy (see: miners) decided to go to China for its dirt-cheap labor. Why not stay local for dirt-cheap?
Anyway, if you go to South Africa 2010 ... or if you just want one of the "official" Zakumi dolls ... the ones that light up ... pause a moment to recall the poor creatures back in the Workers Paradise who slapped those things together. Read more!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Criticism of South Africa 2010 Valid?
So, this is going to be a great, fantastic event.
No, actually, this event will be a mess.
Pick your narrative.
Here is a story on England returning 6,000 unsold tickets to Fifa, which certainly doesn't sound like good news.
And here is a story on Fifa and South African officials complaining about negative media coverage and suggesting that some -- many of them in England and Germany -- have already decided 2010 will be a failure.
Well, let's consider some concepts.
Africa as a continent doesn't have much of a track record for international events. A rugby World Cup, and what else? No Olympics. No World Cups. Those are facts. Until now, neither the IOC nor Fifa felt confident enough in African bids to accept them -- and there haven't been many, actually.
Factor in South Africa's crime rate (particularly its daily average of 50 murders, second-highest rate in the world), and the terror attack on the Togo team while it was in Angola this month, resulting in three deaths ... and a reasonable person might be expected to wonder if it is a safe destination.
And certainly, it seems hard to discount the reality that getting to South Africa will be quite expensive for people from Europe, which constitute the hard core of international fans, or from the United States, which has more money than the rest of the world.
On the other hand ... the European media does have a reputation for trashing any events set outside its borders. Even events in the U.S., Canada and Japan -- First World countries all -- get attacked by European media, particularly from England and France. That's what they do. If it's not Euro, it sucks. That's the point of departure.
In 1994, the World Cup in the U.S. was widely predicted to be a failure, and it set an attendance record (with fewer matches than currently are scheduled) that still stands. Japan and South Korea put on a fine World Cup in 2002.
But, and this is a big but ... Africa has no track record of successful global sports events. There is no history. South Africa can change that. But for now, it probably needs to show a little tougher hide when it comes to criticism. The country will have a month to show what it can do. Read more!
No, actually, this event will be a mess.
Pick your narrative.
Here is a story on England returning 6,000 unsold tickets to Fifa, which certainly doesn't sound like good news.
And here is a story on Fifa and South African officials complaining about negative media coverage and suggesting that some -- many of them in England and Germany -- have already decided 2010 will be a failure.
Well, let's consider some concepts.
Africa as a continent doesn't have much of a track record for international events. A rugby World Cup, and what else? No Olympics. No World Cups. Those are facts. Until now, neither the IOC nor Fifa felt confident enough in African bids to accept them -- and there haven't been many, actually.
Factor in South Africa's crime rate (particularly its daily average of 50 murders, second-highest rate in the world), and the terror attack on the Togo team while it was in Angola this month, resulting in three deaths ... and a reasonable person might be expected to wonder if it is a safe destination.
And certainly, it seems hard to discount the reality that getting to South Africa will be quite expensive for people from Europe, which constitute the hard core of international fans, or from the United States, which has more money than the rest of the world.
On the other hand ... the European media does have a reputation for trashing any events set outside its borders. Even events in the U.S., Canada and Japan -- First World countries all -- get attacked by European media, particularly from England and France. That's what they do. If it's not Euro, it sucks. That's the point of departure.
In 1994, the World Cup in the U.S. was widely predicted to be a failure, and it set an attendance record (with fewer matches than currently are scheduled) that still stands. Japan and South Korea put on a fine World Cup in 2002.
But, and this is a big but ... Africa has no track record of successful global sports events. There is no history. South Africa can change that. But for now, it probably needs to show a little tougher hide when it comes to criticism. The country will have a month to show what it can do. Read more!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
England Fans: Known Hooligans Must Stay Home
England fans ... all the rage on this blog.
England is working on plans to seize the passports of some 3,200 soccer fans considered hooligans. Doesn't seem quite democratic, but England has been embarrassed by yobs too many times in the past.
Certainly, the heyday of English hooligans is long past. The infamous book, "Among the Thugs," published in 1991, now is much more about English history than it is current events.
No doubt, however, that hooliganism was a significant problem for a decade or four. England fans raised havoc on the other side of the channel (getting their club teams banned from Europe for nearly five years following the Heysel Stadium Disaster of 1985, when 39 Italian fans died) and were a menace at the 1990 World Cup, when they gave Sardinia a fairly thorough rubbishing.
There was undisguised glee among organizers in the United States, in 1993, when England failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, which was played in the States. The thinking was quite simple: We won't have to spend a lot of time and energy heading off England's drunk-and-disorderly yahoos.
Perhaps the last gasp of England's yobs was after the Three Lions' first match in the 1998 World Cup in France, after England defeated Tunisia, 2-0 ... prompting some of their sociopathic followers to battle local French residents of North African origin in what was later remembered as The Battle of Marseille.
In the past decade, England's fans seem to have grown much more sedate. Is it about authorities tracking down ringleaders? A change in stadium security precautions? Or some more subtle change in the English populace?
Perhaps someone can research it and give us a guess why.
Anyway, England is collecting 3,200 passports to keep thugs from going to South Africa. Twenty years ago, they probably would have to pick up 32,000 passports, to be safe. Read more!
England is working on plans to seize the passports of some 3,200 soccer fans considered hooligans. Doesn't seem quite democratic, but England has been embarrassed by yobs too many times in the past.
Certainly, the heyday of English hooligans is long past. The infamous book, "Among the Thugs," published in 1991, now is much more about English history than it is current events.
No doubt, however, that hooliganism was a significant problem for a decade or four. England fans raised havoc on the other side of the channel (getting their club teams banned from Europe for nearly five years following the Heysel Stadium Disaster of 1985, when 39 Italian fans died) and were a menace at the 1990 World Cup, when they gave Sardinia a fairly thorough rubbishing.
There was undisguised glee among organizers in the United States, in 1993, when England failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, which was played in the States. The thinking was quite simple: We won't have to spend a lot of time and energy heading off England's drunk-and-disorderly yahoos.
Perhaps the last gasp of England's yobs was after the Three Lions' first match in the 1998 World Cup in France, after England defeated Tunisia, 2-0 ... prompting some of their sociopathic followers to battle local French residents of North African origin in what was later remembered as The Battle of Marseille.
In the past decade, England's fans seem to have grown much more sedate. Is it about authorities tracking down ringleaders? A change in stadium security precautions? Or some more subtle change in the English populace?
Perhaps someone can research it and give us a guess why.
Anyway, England is collecting 3,200 passports to keep thugs from going to South Africa. Twenty years ago, they probably would have to pick up 32,000 passports, to be safe. Read more!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
2010 World Cup Too Expensive for England Fans?
Last week it was Franz Beckenbauer who suggested that the apparent disinterest among Germany fans for buying World Cup tickets was a matter of economics, and we wrote about it on this blog ...
And now we have someone at the Times of London reporting the sobering numbers that a firm has crunched, about how much it would cost to follow the English team all the way to the final. (As if, but let's just go with the idea ...)
So, how much to see the Three Lions through to the imaginary final?
A whopping 6,400 pounds sterling. Or $10,300 at current exchange rates. That includes airfare, tickets and housing -- and it appears as if housing is the backbreaking part of this deal.
England, also, has tickets left over from its allocation. Something like 6,000. Which seems almost unimaginable, considering the madness of English fans -- until you begin to check the cost.
Note that the story mentions that SA2010 is going to announce a new ticket system tomorrow ... and that there may be excess tickets floating around during the tournament.
Which strikes me that ... if you are brave (or foolhardy, perhaps) ... buy nothing ahead of time ... and just show up.
Buy a plane ticket in early June, turn up in Johannesburg a day or two before the June 12 match against the U.S.. Get tickets from touts at the last minute. Just show up at hotels that, a month before the event, realize they outpriced the market and stay for far less than they are charging all these worry-wart months-ahead itinerary freaks ...
And it might be only horribly expensive. Not ruinously expensive.
The story also notes the obvious: If fans from First World countries can't afford SA2010, how are the African and Latin fans going to be able to pay?
(And thanks to David Lassen for pointing out to me the Times story.) Read more!
And now we have someone at the Times of London reporting the sobering numbers that a firm has crunched, about how much it would cost to follow the English team all the way to the final. (As if, but let's just go with the idea ...)
So, how much to see the Three Lions through to the imaginary final?
A whopping 6,400 pounds sterling. Or $10,300 at current exchange rates. That includes airfare, tickets and housing -- and it appears as if housing is the backbreaking part of this deal.
England, also, has tickets left over from its allocation. Something like 6,000. Which seems almost unimaginable, considering the madness of English fans -- until you begin to check the cost.
Note that the story mentions that SA2010 is going to announce a new ticket system tomorrow ... and that there may be excess tickets floating around during the tournament.
Which strikes me that ... if you are brave (or foolhardy, perhaps) ... buy nothing ahead of time ... and just show up.
Buy a plane ticket in early June, turn up in Johannesburg a day or two before the June 12 match against the U.S.. Get tickets from touts at the last minute. Just show up at hotels that, a month before the event, realize they outpriced the market and stay for far less than they are charging all these worry-wart months-ahead itinerary freaks ...
And it might be only horribly expensive. Not ruinously expensive.
The story also notes the obvious: If fans from First World countries can't afford SA2010, how are the African and Latin fans going to be able to pay?
(And thanks to David Lassen for pointing out to me the Times story.) Read more!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Add to Missing Players: Paraguay Striker Shot
Knee injuries. Ankle injuries. Those happen to soccer players, and we are trying to keep track of them for you as they relate to the World Cup.
But getting shot in the head while sitting in a bar with your wife? Not remotely as common. Thank goodness.
Paraguayan standout forward Salvador Cabanas was shot in a Mexico City bar early Monday morning and is in serious condition -- with a bullet still in his skill.
It brings to mind that playing soccer can be a dangerous life, in Latin America.
One of Colombia's starting defenders, Andres Escobar, was shot to death outside a bar in Medellin in 1994. Some believe he was killed because he allowed an own goal in the 1994 World Cup, just a few days before, leading to a 2-1 defeat vs. the United States and to Colombia leaving the tournament after group play -- when no less an authority than Pele had suggested Colombia could win the tournament.
But others suggest Escobar's slaying was just a shootout outside a bar (not an uncommon event in Colombia, then or now), and Escobar was hit.
What Cabanas shares with Escobar, besides coming from South America, is that he was in a dangerous place when he was shot -- a bar in a Latin city known for drug trade/wars.
(Cabanas is in Mexico City because he plays for Club America, based in the Mexican capital.)
It now seems as if Cabanas will do well to survive the attack. Thinking that he will be able to play for Paraguay in South Africa 2010 is getting ahead of a sad story. Read more!
But getting shot in the head while sitting in a bar with your wife? Not remotely as common. Thank goodness.
Paraguayan standout forward Salvador Cabanas was shot in a Mexico City bar early Monday morning and is in serious condition -- with a bullet still in his skill.
It brings to mind that playing soccer can be a dangerous life, in Latin America.
One of Colombia's starting defenders, Andres Escobar, was shot to death outside a bar in Medellin in 1994. Some believe he was killed because he allowed an own goal in the 1994 World Cup, just a few days before, leading to a 2-1 defeat vs. the United States and to Colombia leaving the tournament after group play -- when no less an authority than Pele had suggested Colombia could win the tournament.
But others suggest Escobar's slaying was just a shootout outside a bar (not an uncommon event in Colombia, then or now), and Escobar was hit.
What Cabanas shares with Escobar, besides coming from South America, is that he was in a dangerous place when he was shot -- a bar in a Latin city known for drug trade/wars.
(Cabanas is in Mexico City because he plays for Club America, based in the Mexican capital.)
It now seems as if Cabanas will do well to survive the attack. Thinking that he will be able to play for Paraguay in South Africa 2010 is getting ahead of a sad story. Read more!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
