Does the identity of a national team captain matter? Can argue this either way, and I will do that now.
In practice, a captain doesn't do much. The guy wearing the armband gets to yak at referees a bit longer before a yellow card is shown. He leads the First XI when it steps out onto the pitch. He might make a few more media appearances.
But, then ... sometimes a captain is a sort of global shorthand for what your team is about. Big or fast. Cagey or slick. Inspirational or experienced. The guy with the armband ... is supposed to reflect what is best about your team.
And that is why England coach Fabio Capello stripped John Terry of his captaincy today. Because Terry had reached a point where he was an embarrassment to English soccer rather than an inspiration.
Terry had some rough patches before. When he got caught in a sting by a newspaper for taking money to allow a tour of Chelsea's training grounds. When his mother was caught shoplifting and his father trying to sell illegal drugs.
But what made him ex-captain was the sex scandal he is caught up in.
It appears that Terry had an affair with the girlfriend of a former England and Chelsea teammate, Wayne Bridge. Who might end up at South Africa 2010. With Terry and England.
Bridge is not happy that he lost his girlfriend, Vanessa Perroncel, a French model, to the blandishments of Terry, and apparently is not interested in playing on the same team with him. And then there is the sort of cloud of "he's the kind of guy who will steal your girlfriend" thing, and that's not something you do to one of your "bros."
And, too, you don't want the world to see your team march into a World Cup stadium and have hundreds of millions of fans around the world say, "and their caption is the guy who stole a teammate's girlfriend."
That probably is the bigger issue. The guy who is your captain does, then, matter. He doesn't have to be a perfect angel. In fact, he might be the hardest man on your team. But he shouldn't be best known for a high-visibility personal indiscretion. And that is where John Terry is right now.
England shouldn't be damaged by this. Rio Ferdinand is the new captain, and he should do fine. A guy respected by his peers. Respect. Something John Terry no longer could command.
Read more!
Friday, February 5, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Profiteering: Now It's News
A few days ago, it was a columnist bemoaning price-gouging for the 2010 World Cup.
Now the Johannesburg Times has a news story on the topic.
This is a bit of a predictable story, with an arc that we can anticipate. We've seen this before at other host countries at the Olympics and World Cup.
Here's how it goes:
Prices get jacked up as people in the host country anticipate insane demands for all services. A few saps pay those high prices.
But mostly, they scare off potential buyers. Hoteliers, air-carriers, ticket touts ... try to hold the prince line. People will come around, they figure. The fat cats will emerge, and we will shear them. We just have to hang tough. And they wait. And wait.
About a week before the Big Event, with all sorts of inventory stacked up, the whole travel/tourism crew panics. The foreigners aren't coming. The Russian oligarchs or American hedge-funders or Saudi princelings. They aren't showing up in the numbers everyone anticipated. And prices tumble.
Some of the greedy get burned. They wait too long, and they don't fill rooms and don't fill planes and don't sell tickets. And tough for them.
And at the last minute, some brave and resourceful fans slip in and buy during the trough of panic and actually see the World Cup for a reasonable rate.
Right now, South African merchants still believe they can turn the World Cup into a gold mine. But they forget about the scope of the global recession. They neglect to take into account that not a single country with significant wealth is within a 10-hour plane ride of Johannesburg. They are pricing out the African fan, who is close by but doesn't have much money, as well as the European fan, who has some cash but sees ruinous airfare costs and difficult commutes.
The Times, however, has figured this out. And perhaps the story we linked to will bring around some of the greediest. Read more!
Now the Johannesburg Times has a news story on the topic.
This is a bit of a predictable story, with an arc that we can anticipate. We've seen this before at other host countries at the Olympics and World Cup.
Here's how it goes:
Prices get jacked up as people in the host country anticipate insane demands for all services. A few saps pay those high prices.
But mostly, they scare off potential buyers. Hoteliers, air-carriers, ticket touts ... try to hold the prince line. People will come around, they figure. The fat cats will emerge, and we will shear them. We just have to hang tough. And they wait. And wait.
About a week before the Big Event, with all sorts of inventory stacked up, the whole travel/tourism crew panics. The foreigners aren't coming. The Russian oligarchs or American hedge-funders or Saudi princelings. They aren't showing up in the numbers everyone anticipated. And prices tumble.
Some of the greedy get burned. They wait too long, and they don't fill rooms and don't fill planes and don't sell tickets. And tough for them.
And at the last minute, some brave and resourceful fans slip in and buy during the trough of panic and actually see the World Cup for a reasonable rate.
Right now, South African merchants still believe they can turn the World Cup into a gold mine. But they forget about the scope of the global recession. They neglect to take into account that not a single country with significant wealth is within a 10-hour plane ride of Johannesburg. They are pricing out the African fan, who is close by but doesn't have much money, as well as the European fan, who has some cash but sees ruinous airfare costs and difficult commutes.
The Times, however, has figured this out. And perhaps the story we linked to will bring around some of the greediest. Read more!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
'Greed Killing Our World Cup'
Yikes. The columnists at the Johannesburg Times aren't shy about criticizing events inside their own nation, and bravo for that. That's what a good and responsible media outlet does.
In this column, Peter Delmar is good and convinced the country is gearing up for some intensive price-gouging and, in the process, is scaring off fans from around the world. And especially from Europe, where enthusiasts are thought to have money and be willing to spend it.
If you didn't follow the link, here is some of his choice stuff:
He says most South Africans are "jostling with their snout in the trough to milk fans, who are all supposedly as rich as Croesus, for six weeks or so. And now their chickens are coming home to roost. We've realised with a nasty shock that even the Germans, the richest soccer fans in the world, can't afford us.
"Thanks to those who're dead set on bleeding this soccer tournament dry, we're going to be stuck with half-empty stadiums, half-empty aircraft, half-empty rooms and a mountain of unsold Chinese sweatshop-manufactured Zakumis that an ANC MP got the contract for.
"And the local organising committee didn't see this coming? Like no one told them about the worldwide economic meltdown?"
Pretty tough stuff. And the column was filed a day before the news story about a half-dozen airlines being investigated on suspicion of colluding to fix prices (high, of course) for travel during the World Cup.
Read about that one here.
And then there is the daily Jacob Zuma stuff. This time around the country's president admits, in a statement, he fathered his 20th (or so) child out of wedlock, insists it says nothing about the dangerous of "unprotected sex" in an AIDS-ravaged country ... and seems to suggest that by publicizing child's mother's name that the South African media could be in some trouble.
That sounds like a threat, actually. The fault is the Johannesburg Times reporting on the life of the country's president ... not the president's lack of good judgment. Yeah. Right.
Not a pretty picture down there, at the moment. Read more!
In this column, Peter Delmar is good and convinced the country is gearing up for some intensive price-gouging and, in the process, is scaring off fans from around the world. And especially from Europe, where enthusiasts are thought to have money and be willing to spend it.
If you didn't follow the link, here is some of his choice stuff:
He says most South Africans are "jostling with their snout in the trough to milk fans, who are all supposedly as rich as Croesus, for six weeks or so. And now their chickens are coming home to roost. We've realised with a nasty shock that even the Germans, the richest soccer fans in the world, can't afford us.
"Thanks to those who're dead set on bleeding this soccer tournament dry, we're going to be stuck with half-empty stadiums, half-empty aircraft, half-empty rooms and a mountain of unsold Chinese sweatshop-manufactured Zakumis that an ANC MP got the contract for.
"And the local organising committee didn't see this coming? Like no one told them about the worldwide economic meltdown?"
Pretty tough stuff. And the column was filed a day before the news story about a half-dozen airlines being investigated on suspicion of colluding to fix prices (high, of course) for travel during the World Cup.
Read about that one here.
And then there is the daily Jacob Zuma stuff. This time around the country's president admits, in a statement, he fathered his 20th (or so) child out of wedlock, insists it says nothing about the dangerous of "unprotected sex" in an AIDS-ravaged country ... and seems to suggest that by publicizing child's mother's name that the South African media could be in some trouble.
That sounds like a threat, actually. The fault is the Johannesburg Times reporting on the life of the country's president ... not the president's lack of good judgment. Yeah. Right.
Not a pretty picture down there, at the moment. Read more!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
More Zuma: Outrage from Columnist
South Africa seems to be annoyed, mostly, with President Jacob Zuma. Or maybe it's just their version of the chattering classes.
He managed to make some news, anyway. That 20th (or so) child he sired, at age 67. And now there are stories suggesting he intends to marry the child's mother -- the daughter of one of his former best friends, apparently -- which would be his sixth marriage and give him four wives concurrently.
Anyway, a woman who writes for the Johannesburg Times pretty much went off on the Prez today. Suggesting he has more sperm cells than brain cells. And like that.
You can see that column here. It's the one under the headline, "A Taint on Our Highest Office."
She suggests that "as a woman and a South African, I am outraged."
Meanwhile, the expected support from Zuma sycophants is building. A student group with connections to the government suggested to report on Zuma's latest conquest shows a lack of respect for the elderly. Really. If you don't believe me, here's the link.
Anyway, Zuma is getting a lot of attention. (The Times notes in this story how much reaction is going on, some of it from overseas.)
Lots of attention. Nothing to do with the World Cup, though. Except a sort of odd guilt by association. Read more!
He managed to make some news, anyway. That 20th (or so) child he sired, at age 67. And now there are stories suggesting he intends to marry the child's mother -- the daughter of one of his former best friends, apparently -- which would be his sixth marriage and give him four wives concurrently.
Anyway, a woman who writes for the Johannesburg Times pretty much went off on the Prez today. Suggesting he has more sperm cells than brain cells. And like that.
You can see that column here. It's the one under the headline, "A Taint on Our Highest Office."
She suggests that "as a woman and a South African, I am outraged."
Meanwhile, the expected support from Zuma sycophants is building. A student group with connections to the government suggested to report on Zuma's latest conquest shows a lack of respect for the elderly. Really. If you don't believe me, here's the link.
Anyway, Zuma is getting a lot of attention. (The Times notes in this story how much reaction is going on, some of it from overseas.)
Lots of attention. Nothing to do with the World Cup, though. Except a sort of odd guilt by association. Read more!
Monday, February 1, 2010
President's 20* Children, 5 Wives, 1 Baby Mama
* = "about"
Different people, different cultures.
Well, that's one way to look at the president of South Africa, one Jacob Zuma, who has had five wives (only three currently), approximately 20 children and a mistress who just gave birth to a child he fathered.
Turns out it is a scandal, even for a Zulu (the tribe practices polygamy) because, clearly, the president was having unprotected sex in one of the world capitals of HIV/AIDS. Not exactly setting a good example for the nation, now is he.
The story was broken by my favorite South African newspaper, the Johannesburg Times, but this link will take you to a Bloomberg story that is a bit more accessible to those of you who haven't been keeping score of Zuma's wives/kids at home.
This isn't about the World Cup, exactly. Aside from the fact that Zuma will throw out the first ball, or something, when the tournament opens on June 11 in Jo-burg.
The fact that he is the Brigham Young of South Africa, well ... it might not be such a significant story except for that AIDS angle.
As the Bloomberg story notes, "In 2006, he was tired and acquitted of having raped an HIV-positive family friend half his age. He testified that his accuser had consented to having sex and he had not used a condom because he did not have one available. He said he took a shower after the act to minimize the chance of infection."
Um, yeah.
The story also notes that about 11 percent of the South African population of some 50 million is HIV-positive. Which makes it something close to the AIDS epicenter of the planet.
The government has, in the past, denied that the disease was transmitted sexually and did little or nothing to treat it on a national level. The previous president wasn't willing to concede it existed, so Pops Zuma being on board with the reality of the concept ... well, that's positive movement, right?
There's cultural differences, and then there is just wrong ... and I don't think you have to be a prudish Westerner to think the Prez is a bit indulgent and reckless when it comes to matters of the, uh, heart.
Ladies and gentlemen, the president of your 2010 World Cup hosts! Read more!
Different people, different cultures.
Well, that's one way to look at the president of South Africa, one Jacob Zuma, who has had five wives (only three currently), approximately 20 children and a mistress who just gave birth to a child he fathered.
Turns out it is a scandal, even for a Zulu (the tribe practices polygamy) because, clearly, the president was having unprotected sex in one of the world capitals of HIV/AIDS. Not exactly setting a good example for the nation, now is he.
The story was broken by my favorite South African newspaper, the Johannesburg Times, but this link will take you to a Bloomberg story that is a bit more accessible to those of you who haven't been keeping score of Zuma's wives/kids at home.
This isn't about the World Cup, exactly. Aside from the fact that Zuma will throw out the first ball, or something, when the tournament opens on June 11 in Jo-burg.
The fact that he is the Brigham Young of South Africa, well ... it might not be such a significant story except for that AIDS angle.
As the Bloomberg story notes, "In 2006, he was tired and acquitted of having raped an HIV-positive family friend half his age. He testified that his accuser had consented to having sex and he had not used a condom because he did not have one available. He said he took a shower after the act to minimize the chance of infection."
Um, yeah.
The story also notes that about 11 percent of the South African population of some 50 million is HIV-positive. Which makes it something close to the AIDS epicenter of the planet.
The government has, in the past, denied that the disease was transmitted sexually and did little or nothing to treat it on a national level. The previous president wasn't willing to concede it existed, so Pops Zuma being on board with the reality of the concept ... well, that's positive movement, right?
There's cultural differences, and then there is just wrong ... and I don't think you have to be a prudish Westerner to think the Prez is a bit indulgent and reckless when it comes to matters of the, uh, heart.
Ladies and gentlemen, the president of your 2010 World Cup hosts! Read more!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Africa's Year? Columnist Says No
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!
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!
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!
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