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World Cup 2010 Thoughts
By Samir | July 11, 2010
Now that it’s over, and Spain has emerged triumphantly, I have to say I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching the 2010 World Cup. FIFA, despite its obvious luddite, technological shortcomings, have put on a great show. Of course being half-Italian, and with Italy being the team I cheer on, it was a disappointing tournament at the beginning, but as you may have seen in a previous post, I really don’t attach much importance to nationality and I was just happy to see a high-calibre game compared to what I’m used to (Montreal Impact…)
That said, I think the 2010 WC will be a seminal one in many ways. Here are things that germinated in 2010 that will be much more prevalent in Brazil 2014:
The end of negative football - The three best teams in this tournament are all the ones who avoided negative football - Germany, Spain and The Netherlands. All three played thoroughly offensive styles and did not just load 9 men in the box, only to relentlessly clear the ball to the other side’s keeper all game long. Whereas in 1994 we saw Italy play super-max defense and let Roberto Baggio carry the offensive load all on his own, defenses today are just to good for the 5-4-1 formation. It’s no coincidence that teams that rely on invididualism for offense got nowhere : to wit, Portugal with Cristiano Ronaldo, Argentina with Lio Messi, Ivory Coast with Didier Drogba; all were knocked out earlier than they’d expected. The best teams were those that played as a team, that understood no man can run faster than a pass travels. To play as a team up front, a cohesive, ball-controlling attacking strategy is needed with very versatile midfields (Fabregas, Podolski, Xavi, Arjen Robben and Mesut Oezil come to mind). Perfect. As other nations will emulate Spain, mostly, I truly hope to see much less negative football in 2014.
Curtailed diving- We still saw some truly shameful diving. Keita and Fernando Torres, in particular, manufactured red cards against their opponents which were a black mark on the entire game. However, I was delighted in many instances to see the referee implore players on the ground to play on. In some instances, he didn’t even bother stopping the play. Each time a player writhes on the ground at a most opportune moment, only to get up due to a miraculous recovery, soccer’s credibility takes a hit. In this edition of the world cup, the referees allowed players to mount legitimate challenges and no important goals were scored as a result of a manufactured foul - as Zidane’s penalty kick was against Italy back in 2006. Keep it up.
The end of the dark ages- Rule enforcement changes are coming to FIFA. Believe it. With hundreds of millions watching, Frank Lampard was deprived of a goal and who knows what might have been for England? Though we had the best officials in the world, it’s easy to make mistakes officiating a game with such fast-paced action on such an expansive field. With the world watching, FIFA got major egg on its face so many times it will have no choice but to capitulate to reality. If it wants the game to grow in America, it will have to place the emphasis on fair outcomes rather than a free-flowing game. In (North) America, we have baseball with constant stoppages and unlimited time-outs. We have football, where coaches can dictate when a play is reviewed. And we have hockey, which pioneered goal-line technology. It’s clear that the mentality on this side of the ocean is fairness first and justly so - these men sacrifice so much to win at any level! Athletes only get 2-3 shots at a World Cup in their playing lifetimes. Frank Lampard won’t be playing for England in 2014. What, oh, what might have been in 2010?
Sadly, one thing won’t be back in 2014:
The Vuvuzela- Almost everyone hated it. I loved it. I felt it gave the games such a unique, African flavor. Let’s face it - chanting is European, cheering is American and nothing is more African than unbridled chaos. I always love watching the ITV feed of Formula 1 because I can feel how much more the British announcer is absorbed by the race. I can’t watch hockey on FOX because they’ll talk about anything but actual hockey - whereas on CBC, they don’t talk about anything else BUT hockey. It’s small touches that we’ll remember and a few years from now, we’ll still be remembering the much-maligned Vuvuzela. Well, at least I’ll remember it fondly, it was nice to have something “different” from the Ole Ole-style stuff this time around.
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