EURO 2008 or why WOrld CUp needs some tweaking

Euro 2008

 

Original @ www.inseadblogger.com

 

I know this is an MBA related blog and about life, but nobody should forget about the world’s biggest sport. I am talking about football. First of all let me clarify, it is not called soccer.

 

It is called basketball because the primary instruments are a ball and a basket. Handball is like football but players only use their hands and a ball. Baseball players need to use bases and a ball. Every normal person will call football- football.  For our American friends football is called by ROW(rest of the world). I am pasting wikipedias reference to how the world is derived and how it is used generally.

 

The rules of football were codified in England by the Football Association in 1863, and the name association football was coined to distinguish the game from the other forms of football played at the time, specifically rugby football. The term soccer originated in England, first appearing in the 1880s as a slang abbreviation of the word "association", often credited to former England captain Charles Wreford-Brown.[45]

Today the sport is generally known simply as football in countries where it is the most popular football code. In countries where other codes are more popular, the sport is more commonly referred to as soccer, and indeed is referred to as such in the official names of the governing bodies in the United States and Canada. FIFA, the sport's world governing body, defines the sport they govern as association football in their statutes,[46] but the term most commonly used by FIFA and the International Olympic Committee is football.

 

There is no dispute that Football is the world’s most popular sport. The world cup gathers twice the audience the Olympics gathers. There is only one problem with the World Cup. First of all some countries complain that Europe is over-represented in this competition consisted of 32 teams. Europe sends 14 teams at the World cup. Almost 45%. The critics argument is that Europe which has such a smaller population dominates the world cup.

 

Well let me tell you that they are wrong. No offence but with the exception of Latin America there are no other good teams around the world. Japan is trying but it is just an average team(worldwide). Japan may crush its Asian Neighbors but that simply proves the point that the competition in Asia needs to raise its game. Then you have S. Korea which I consider an OK team but worldwide they only have Word Cup 2002 to showcase and one may argue that during that Cup they were scandalously helped by the referees. China is a big country but that doesn’t make it a force in football. In 2005 I went to watch a friendly game between Shanghai’s best team versu the Beijing dragons(or something like that). The worst 90 minutes game I ever watched. I was surprised. I had low expectations but what happened during those 90 minuets can be put in this sentence: 22 people got divided in 2 teams, were given a ball and started hitting it and running up and down. IT seems “control” in china is still an unknown technique.

 

Africa is a rising force but unless they learn there is more to football than running up and down they will never mature. Iran is a middle east football powerhouse along with Saudi  Arabia. They should be getter get back to drill more oil and leave the game to professionals. North America, a special case. You have Mexico(which some Americans consider part of Latin/central America) which is a pretty good team actually, then CHAOS. USA is the only place(along with Canada) probably where football is not the Nr1 sport(maybe in China basketball is number 1, Japan football is number 2 after baseball). We Europeans have a theory about that….. Americans simply suck at football and pretend they do not care about it. I guess football needs something more than armor and muscles. On top of that in football we do not use cheerleaders or quarterbacks so the system wouldn’t survive the American high school culture. Enough with my venom though.

 

Euro 2008 is coming up! I prefer the Euro cup because only European teams are allowed which raises the level of the competition. Brutal facts: England (a football powerhouse) didn’t make it. Group A consists of Holland, France, Italy and Romania. If that was the World Cup one might get groups like : European country A, Iran, Trinidad & Tobago and an ok Latin American team. The Euro Cup is exciting the day it starts. In the world Cup I personally wait for the real competition to start( elimination phase). 

 

 

The world has to thank Argentina and Brazil for having GREAT times and therefore give a raison de entre to the world cup, although the rest of the latin America teams cannot be compared to the European ones. Here are the latest FIFA rankings, count the European teams.

 

FIFA Rankings as of April 9/2008:

1. Argentina (1519)

2. Brazil (1509)

3. Italy (1391)

4. Spain (1309)

5. Germany (1261)

6. Czech Republic (1234)

7. France (1205)

8. Greece (1187)

9. Portugal (1125)

10. Netherlands (1124)

 

By the way Greece is number 8! Why? Because greece’s record since 2002 is increasing non stop.  Number 1 spot and Number 2 spot go to Argentina and brazil since when they have their own cups they have less competition to worry about in their own backyard.

 

For all the haters out there, who believe Greece does not deserve a spot in the top ten - I hear a lot you know what from the English, and the Portuguese fans - you must ask yourself some questions:

1. Is it our fault England could not beat France in their recent friendly? NO.

2. Is it our fault England couldn’t qualify for EURO 2008? NO.

3. Is it our fault Nani and Ronaldo didn’t play against Greece? NO. [To be honest I think Ronaldo knew the Portuguese would lose, so he backed out (no