A World Cup without Becks

We vowed to try to keep you up to date on the injury situation as South Africa 2010 comes into view. And here is a guy who won't be playing. Not that he's a great player. But he is a great showman, and will be missed ...

As every soccer fan in the world has heard by now, David Beckham suffered an Achilles tendon rupture during a match with AC Milan last night.

That means that the one of the best-known players in the world won't be at South Africa 2010, an event he seemed primed to take over by force of personality during the draw back in December.

No one would suggest he is one of the planet's great players. Even when he was in his prime he had severe limitations.

But his star power ... that will be missed.

Where do we go from here?

--Good thing it was his left Achilles. Some snarky critics suggest Becks' left leg exists only to keep him from falling over. All that "bending" he did? ... Right leg.

--We have an opening for Aging Icon of 2010. Michael Ballack has been playing like he's 35, so maybe he could contend. If Carlos Dunga calls in Ronaldinho, the Brazilian wheeze/whiz could be in there. And is anyone quite sure that Roger Milla is done playing for Cameroon? Gary Lineker? Eric Wynalda?

--Becks is going to be out a minimum of three months, the medical people say. But that must be only because he will spend his convalescence at Lourdes. Last time I checked, a blown Achilles is more like a one-year injury. And with a year off, he will be nearly 36. At which point his relevance for any team (English national, AC Milan, even the L.A. Galaxy) seems minimal.

--Beckham's career with England is presumably over. Unless the side feels a need for a one-dimensional right wing during qualifying for the 2012 Euro Cup. He won't get the all-time record for England appearances, but he is No. 1 among outfield players with 115 caps.

--Back in Los Angeles, Galaxy lawyers are going over that five-year, trillion-dollar contract (or whatever it is), looking for a way to void it a couple years early. Though it's not as if Beckham was playing more than a couple of months for the American club, anyway.

--The World Cup did get a bit duller. Beckham is one of those handful of players who generates an opinion from everyone. Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Kaka ... take it away. If you can.

If this is it for Becks, we have to concede that he may be the all-time one-trick sports pony. He parlayed one amazing skill -- an ability to strike a soccer ball at rest and put it almost anywhere he wanted up to, oh, 30 yards -- and became a global personality. A global brand. That takes perseverance, a famous wife and a really capable PR crew.

We can take comfort in the fact that Becks presumably can still sell cologne and watches and maybe even soccer camps, even with a bum leg. Hurry back Becks.
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Africa and Its Foreign Coach Preoccupation

It's not just Africa. Asia is pretty deeply into this. The Middle East, too.

"It" being a preoccupation with the idea of a foreign coach running the national team. Africa has a bad case of it. Perhaps the worst, especially in World Cup years ... and with teams that have made the World Cup.

The Johannesburg Times, my favorite South African newspaper, has done a think piece on the topic of African nations being unwilling to hire African coaches.

Of the six African teams in South Africa 2010, guess how many hail from Africa? Go ahead. Guess.

Did I hear "one" somewhere in the back? Well, sir, you are correct. One. Of Six.

That would be Rabah Saadane of Algeria. Mr. Saadane is from Algeria. Yes. And somehow Algeria made the World Cup, despite the burden of not having a non-African coach.

Africa is just mad about European coaches. And the occasional Brazilian.

Cameroon has Paul Le Guen, a Frenchman.

Ghana has Milovan Rajevac, a Serb.

Nigeria has Lars Lagerback, a Swede.

South Africa has Carlos Alberto Parriera, a Brazilian.

And Ivory Coast had Vahid Halilhodzic, a Bosnian, until a few minutes ago, when the Elephants fired him. They took a run at Guus Hiddink, a Dutchman, and now are considering Philippe Troussier, a Frenchman. With Sven-Goran Eriksson, a Swede, in the wings.

The Joburg Times has some interesting stats in its "foreign coaches" story.

One of them: When SA2010 begins in three months, 36 African teams will have qualified for the finals in World Cup history ... and only 11 of them will have shown up with an African coach.

Wow.

One really interesting quote on the topic, from a former Cameroon national team player, Joseph Antoine Bell: "I wish someone could explain why, after 60 years of independence, 60 years of football, a child (in Africa) has not been born who has played football and is deemed able to understand football like a European."

An interesting sidelight to this: Africa so often is so keen to shed any ties to its colonial past. Changing the names of cities, or the countries themselves. Changing street names.

But when it comes to soccer coaches, it's like it's 1930 all over again, and Africans don't seem to believe they can do it as well as Europeans. Rather curious, but not new, and not changing.

Unless, maybe Saadane and Algeria have a great World Cup. Read more!

Ivory Coast Whiffs on Guus Hiddink

Well, now the Ivorians look a little silly. Ivory Coast chased Guud Hiddink for their coaching opening almost to Ides of March, and Guus today told them "thanks but no thanks" in a newspaper column.

Hmmm. Kind of a punking there. And, it's getting late. Eighty-nine days till South Africa 2010.

When we think about this a bit more, Hiddink probably didn't make much sense for Ivory Coast. Or vice versa. And here's why:

Guus was previously engaged. In a couple of directions.

For one, he is under contract with Russia through the World Cup. Even though Russia isn't in it. The idea that the Ivory Coast might have to buy out the rest of the contract and, well, it just starts getting messy.

Second, Guus is about to take charge of Turkey. Once the World Cup is over. In theory, he had a window there when he could coach Ivory Coast, before he took over Turkey, but he wrote today that he wants to follow Turkey during its trip to North American in May. When he would, otherwise, be trying to whip Ivory Coast into shape.

The Ivorians ran out their big guns. Didier Drogba, whom Hiddink coached at Chelsea, lobbied him to take over the Elephants. Guus had conversations with the head of the federation.

Let's assume Guus was at least tempted. Let's assume he wanted to take a team to the World Cup for the fourth consecutive quadrennium. (Netherlands in 1998, South Korea in 2002, Australia in 2006.) And Ivory Coast has some guys who can play. He would have had a good chance to continue his streak of always getting out of group play ... and a puncher's chance to get to the semis, as he did in 1998 and 2002.

But it ... just ... got ... complicated. In the end, it was far easier to pretend to finish off his obligations to Russia and then shift into the Turkey gig.

So, where does Ivory Coast go now? Philippe Troussier, a Frenchman who has coached no fewer than five African national teams. They are (deep breath) Ivory Coast (in 1993), Nigeria (1997), South Africa (1998), Burkino Faso (1997-98) and Morocco (2005). As well as Japan for four years through the 2002 World Cup, when he got Japan into the knockout phase.

Anyway, Troussier seems to be the top candidate. Doesn't hurt that he is a Muslim convert and Ivory Coast is about 25 percent Muslim.

After Troussier? Sven-Goran Eriksson is, perhaps, the backup to the backup plan.

For sure, we know Ivory Coast is not getting Guss. Sort of the Cristiano Ronaldo of this coaching transfer window. Ivory Coast now looks for some lesser light.
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Brazil President Cocky, But Not That Cocky

The way it is being pitched in this story ... Brazil's president is so sure his country's team will play in the World Cup final, on July 11, that he already is planning to be there for the match.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said "I'm so optimistic that ... I'm going to the final."

Which sounds a little arrogant, except for this:

Lula would be at the final anyway because Brazil is host of the 2014 World Cup, and generally the head of state of the next host country shows up for the final of the preceding World Cup.

That would be Lula, at the end of SA2010.

So, he's not necessarily tempting fate, not risking bad karma ... he's going to be at the match anyway. He may as well say "it's because I expect us to play in the final."

But, yes, it does seem of late that a lot of coaches and players -- and now a president -- are talking up their chances of having a nice World Cup. It isn't going to work out that way. Read more!

Lippi, Higuain Set Lofty Goals

No point in saying "we're just going to show up and see how things go," is there?

Well, that's how Marcello Lippi and Gonzalo Higuain are looking at it, anyway.

England's coach and Argentina's striker both have set some high goals for South Africa 2010, and did it within a day or so of each other, so we will combine them here.

And what do they intend, for SA2010?

For Lippi, it is England in the semifinals, "minimum."

England has been playing well, and the semifinals don't seem like that high a goal, but England last got to the final four in 1990. So it doesn't happen like clockwork.

Lippi also believes a European team will win a World Cup outside Europe for the first time, and his dream matchup would be an England-Italy final. Lippi is Italian, after all.

Meanwhile, Higuain is out to win the Golden Boot. He didn't use the expression, but he said he wants to "be the top scorer at the World Cup," and that's the Golden Boot. In English, anyway. As in-form as he has been, it's possible.

Assuming Diego Maradona doesn't do something so incredibly silly that Argentina doesn't last deep into the tournament, and Higuain doesn't get enough matches to pile up goals. That's possible, too. Read more!

Harsh Words on the SA Political Front

This isn't about soccer, really. It's about South Africa. Which is going to host the World Cup in 90-some days.

South Africa is a place of some fairly intense political rhetoric. Given its history, understandably. But the place seems to move forward when it does its best to look ahead, not back.

And in this case we have the loose cannon of the African National Congress, name of Julius Malema, president of the ANC's youth league, singing a song about killing Boers in a public appearance at a university in Johannesburg.

"Boer" is the name usually given to the (mostly) Dutch settlers who dominated the country for about 400 years.

What does this mean for the World Cup?

Probably nothing. Governments of all stripes tend to put aside their internal rivalries when a huge event comes to their country. They declare a sort of truce until the event is complete.

That said, it's getting late for South Africa to have some fairly significant political turmoil. With some calling for the censure of president Jacob Zuma for various and sundry personal failings, and now we have one political figure laying "a criminal charge" against Malema (who may also be a crook, but that's another story) ... for inciting violence against Boers.

Malema apparently led a chorus of an apartheid era song that includes lyrics pertaining to killing the Boers -- who these days generally are known as farmers. Who are, in fact, sometimes victims of violence, as the linked story noted.

So, yes, fairly provocative. Where does it all go? Perhaps heated rhetoric is what South Africa does. I've been following the country only since last summer. Maybe it means nothing significant.

To those of us of a literal bent, a song that advocates killing on a race basis ... is pretty strong stuff. It would be the end of a politician's career in, say, the United States.

In South Africa, perhaps not. But it gives us a bit more insight into the backdrop on which the 2010 World Cup will be played out, three months hence. Read more!

SA2010 Mascot Sweatshop Shut Down

This could be one of the seedier stories of South Africa 2010, and here's the latest:

The Chinese factory making "Zakumi" mascot dolls has been shut down, and we would like to think because it was paying its workers next to nothing. (Well, about $3 a day, actually.) And maybe that is the case.

It gets a little cheesier than the overt exploitation of Chinese workers.

Some of the workers are children.

As the story notes, the factory in/near Shanghai is owned by an ethnic Chinese who now lives in South Africa and in a member of parliament for the ruling party, the African National Congress.

Hmm. Not a great example. And the organizers haven't been exactly diligent, have they, about seeing where the contracts for dolls have gone.

Cosatu, the umbrella labor organization in South Africa, is not happy about any of this. It believes all souvenirs pertaining to the World Cup to be made in South Africa. For a decent wage. There has been talk of boycotts, etc.

And Fifa alleges to be shocked (shocked, I tell you) that this is going on. It took newspapers investigating to bring it to light, but at least Fifa didn't quite have the brass to say, "So what," issuing statements about how all the other souvenirs are legit.

However, the story quotes the owner as suggesting that the sweatshop will be open again soon. See, they're paying the folks more, etc.

This isn't over. Not if tens of thousands of figurines from exploited workers are knocking around South Africa and selling for something like 100 times what they cost to be made.

The irony of this is that China, a worker's paradise, is the country doing the exploiting, and South Africa, in theory a capitalist country, is the place with labor unions complaining. The world is upside down.
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