SPORTS> Off the Pitch
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SPORTS> Off the Pitch
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What's happened to soccer's new world order'?
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-06-30 11:21 Excluding Mexico as hosts in 1970 and 1986, only two teams from outside Europe and South America had reached the last eight of the World Cup since World War II - North Korea in 1966 and Cameroon in 1990.
Suddenly in 2002 there were three of them all at once (South Korea, Senegal and United States) and a distinct shift in soccer's world power balance appeared to have taken place. If most neutral football fans are glad to see mouth-watering quarter-final clashes like Germany v Argentina and Brazil v France, most would also want to see an exciting newcomer, an Ivory Coast or a Ghana, mixing it at this stage with the heavyweights. So what has happened in Germany? Did the old order merely reassert itself or was 2002 a soccer third world firework display that burnt itself out instantly? FIFA president Sepp Blatter, for one, has expressed his disappointment with the performance of the underdogs. "A little of the internationalism has been lost because none of the African or Asian teams have made it and the strong European and South American teams have got through," he said this week. "It's a bit disappointing that the other teams did not give the stronger teams a tougher challenge." But Blatter did imply that naive tactics had not helped the cause of the underdogs. "Some of the new teams played very well and Ivory Coast were unlucky they were in such a strong group," he added. "But they also have to learn that at the World Cup you need 11 men to defend and 11 men to attack." Lennart Johansson, UEFA chief and chairman of FIFA's World Cup Organizing Committee, took a different view, attributing the old order's revival to FIFA's decision to impose a post-season break from May 15 to give players a rest before the tournament, which started on June 9. "It's not a surprise the senior teams are in the quarter-finals," he said. "The standard of football is very high and that shows that the decision to ensure teams had a break before the World Cup has paid off."
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