Archives for category: FIFA

Goodbye South Africa, Hello Brazil!

July 13, 10 //
3

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Spain has done it! They have become the 8th country in the history of the World Cup to proudly boast a star on their roja shirts! I am very happy for Iniesta who scored the winning goal. First of all he proves wrong all those that think that you need to have a body builded corpulence to make it in football. Then I like this player’s style. He plays forward, knows when to pass the ball and when to keep it and is one of the rare confrontational dribblers out there. In my mind he was the best player of the final. Another decisive factor in Spain’s win was Fabregas’s entry. He brought fast forward movements to the Spanish side who I felt was sometimes playing too laterally with Xavi.

I was very disappointed by the Dutch. Where have they left their flamboyant football? It is now the second time that they leave a violent mark on the World Cup, the first time being the infamous eighth final against Portugal in 2006. The quatuor which I had thought could make the difference was unable to get sufficient ammunitions from the midfield and Van Persie was transparent.

Apart from the final, here is my take on this 19th World Cup:

  • There were no new revolutionary or even marked evolutionary strategies.
  • The first round was as non-Cup like as usual.
  • I missed one single breathtaking game like Germany-Italy in 1970, Argentina-Peru in 1978, France-Germany in 1982, France-Brazil in 1986, England-Cameroon in 1990. The closest was probably Uruguay-Ghana for the incredible cliff-hanging suspense of that game.

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Letter to Sepp Blatter

July 2, 10 //
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The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci

Dear M. Blatter,

You are a lucky man, millions, no billions of people cherish the sport you are at the head of. I am part of those, ever since I first went to the Parc des Princes stadium when I was 5 or so. I have cried, laughed, supported, gone wild, criticized, shown compassion, replayed legendary matches in my mind, you name it, all the emotions that football fans undoubtedly go through. You have a dream job M. Blatter.

Recently though I have started to sense that the sport we so enjoy is in danger of becoming forever changed, distorted, destroyed by events that you need to take action against. If you don’t, then I fear that football will become a living nightmare, a sporting equivalent of Blade Runner, an unworthy MMOG.

The most imminent and prominent danger is what I call the demand for instant gratification. We live in an era of the instantaneous. Instant access to information, instant pleasure, instant emotions, instant relief, instant everything…Now you will ask me what does this have to do with football? The fiery debate about the use of video to “help” referees has all to do with the search for instantaneity. The Video God freezes a football action to bring an instant picture of “truth” to the millions, billions of people watching the most popular sport in the world. We want to know the truth and we increasingly rely on machines to hand it to us; right away. Is this the way to go M. Blatter?

Football is a played by humans. With their qualities and shortcomings. That is why this blog has the tagline “Football is the universal sport because it is the closest to human nature.” Some cheat and then geniously make up for it, others have the highest sense of ethics, and the majority just do the best they can. The good and the bad have been part of this sport since its start somewhere in Middle Age Britain unless it was in some Tuscan village. Forwards have scored goals “outside of this world” while others have missed the unthinkable. Defenders have shown incredible bravery while others displayed remarkable actor talents…

The character who orchestrates that this commedia dell’arte is played according to the rules is another human; namely the referee. He is almost alone to do this helped in his task by 2 side line referees. These 3 people have to keep a hawks eye on 22 players, knowing that thousands in the stadium and billions behing their tv sets are ready at any moment to hunt them down as soon as the first blunder materializes. Enters the video. The hunters want to rely on the image freeze magic to instantaneously condemn the man in black. The machine made truth replaces the human factor. Is this the way to go M. Blatter?

M. Blatter, you are probably asking then what is the God sent solution here? Don’t blame the men in black as you did after the Mexican and English events at the World Cup. Reinforce the human factor as Michel Platini advocates by adding more referees – one behind each goal post – so that the men in black become a team in themselves. Football is a collective sport which ironically has less referees than the individual sport tennis is. Help referees by betting that the collective judgement of 5 well trained professionals will make for better human backed decisions; not machine ones please M. Blatter!

Maracanazos will always defend the human factor.

The 3 ideas I would implement if I where FIFA’s President

December 18, 09 //
1

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Sepp Blatter

If I where in the shoes of Sepp Blatter, here are the 3 ideas I would implement now:

  1. Impose a minimum 3 year contract for footballers playing in professional teams. That would bring about less of a market-driven, show me where the money is, type of behaviour that has transformed some players – and their agents – into mercenaries looking for the next good deal. I strongly believe that the spirit of a team comes with fans identifying with a somewhat stable group of players over a couple of years. There are still too few Rauls and Tottis around these days; players like them help their clubs build a spirit and a long-term relationship with the club fans. It brings identity.
  2. Get rid of the FIFA Confederations Cup. The only country level Cups that matter are the World Cup and the continental ones. The Confederations Cup is a farce and taking it away goes in the sense of my less is more post.
  3. Do not use video and go now for Michel Platini’s plan of having 5 referees.

Maracanazos like to dream once in a while.