SPORTS> Off the Pitch
|
SPORTS> Off the Pitch
|
|
What's happened to soccer's new world order'?
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-06-30 11:21 So whatever happened to soccer's new world order? The quarter-final line-up at the World Cup, featuring all six of the former world champions playing in Germany, is made up entirely of traditional European and South American powers. It's hardly the exotic mix-and-match seen in the first Asian World Cup in Japan and South Korea four years ago when five continents were represented in the last eight for the first time. Argentina, Brazil, Germany, England, Italy and France, who have won 15 of 17 World Cups between them so far, including every tournament from 1954 onwards, are familiar faces who will appear once again in the quarter-finals. The only non title-winners are Portugal, semi-finalists in 1966, and Ukraine, playing at their first finals as such though players from the new republic did form the base of some of the celebrated Soviet Union teams of the past. It all looked so different four years ago. Champions France went out in the group stage without scoring a goal. Tournament favourites Argentina also failed to reach the last 16 and Italy, the only other team supposedly backed by smart money, were eliminated in the second round. Unlikely outsiders It was the tournament of the unlikely outsiders. Co-hosts South Korea, who had never won any of their 14 games at previous finals, stormed all the way to the semi-finals. Underdogs Turkey joined them there and Senegal, World Cup debutants, and the United States, a country in which soccer ranks well down the sporting pecking order, made it into the quarter-finals. |
