Thirty-two teams, comprising 736 men, will play 64 games in 11 Russian cities. But do we really need so much football?
The modern World Cup is a bloated affair, with diplomatic correctness dictating that spots be given to the historically underrepresented nations of Asia, Africa and the non-Latin Western hemisphere. More teams mean more games, which also mean more flabby games between mediocre teams. So even as we salivate at the prospect of Portugal vs. Spain, we brace ourselves for Panama vs. Tunisia.
To help navigate this sporting sprawl, here is a POLITICO primer, a list of some salient themes and characters you’ll encounter as the tournament feints forward.
A is for notable absentees, teams without which the World Cup might seem insipid: Italy, four-time winners of the cup, hurtling downhill since 2006, its football as dysfunctional as its politics; the Netherlands, three-time finalists (and third in 2014), who bring a riot of orange to every cup (but not to this one); and the U.S., whose embrace of the game has brought American money to football, along with American passion. (The Americans will be present in 2026, we now know, as hosts. That’s one way to ensure you don’t get knocked out.)
B is for Brazil and Belgium. It’s redemption time for the former, laid waste by Germany in the last cup’s semi-finals before a home crowd that became deranged with grief. Its manager Tite — mononymous in that endearing Brazilian way — has transformed his side into one that resembles the purring, unstoppable Brazil of old. The Belgians, by contrast, have to prove once more that they’re not the perennial dark horse that can only hobble out of the paddock.
C is for Cristiano Ronaldo, the only great player in the game’s history who receives as much derision from fans as he does adulation. His combination of good looks and outrageous talent make him insufferable in the eyes of opposing supporters. Conventional wisdom says this is his last World Cup, but he’s the fittest 33-year-old in the world, so expect him to lead Portugal out in 2026.
D is for the draw, which assigns teams into eight separate groups, including one that is always dubbed the “group of death” by virtue of its difficulty. This year, fittingly, it’s group D, all four of whose teams (Argentina, Croatia, Iceland and Nigeria) are good enough to progress to the next stage. Wouldn’t it be stirring if Iceland were one of them?
E is for England, from whom on-field competence is no longer expected even by its most hardcore fans. Gareth Southgate’s squad has a sweet sprinkling of world-class players: striker Harry Kane and midfielders Raheem Sterling (a much better player for being coached by Pep Guardiola at Manchester City) and Dele Alli. But do we want England to win? The nation dined out for decades on its triumph in 1966. A repeat could be insufferable.
F is for FIFA, governing body of the world game, whose knavish and unscrupulous former president, Sepp Blatter, conspired to award this World Cup to Russia. He will attend the final on July 15 as a guest of a still-grateful Vladimir Putin. The visit, Blatter said, will be “a sporting and diplomatic mission.” And a spasiba for services rendered.
G is for Germany, the most infuriatingly consistent team in football. Its roster of relentlessness: four-time winners, four-time runners-up, semi-finalists in every cup since 2002. Flawlessly balanced, as if put together by unerring technocrats, the team has cultivated a more cuddly image of late. It calls itself Die Mannschaft (or “the Team”), with Turkish and African players alongside a solid Germanic core. Yet non-Germans remain unprepared to give them love.
H is for hooligans, who haven’t been a major World Cup problem since 1990, in Italy. The European Championships in 2016 saw the irruption of hair-raising violence between thugs from England and Russia, with the French police unable to cope. Will this Cup be marred by ultras bent on mayhem? We predict not. One advantage of a repressive host is that nothing untoward can happens if the ruler stands for no nonsense.
I is for immigration, which has re-engineered Europe’s game. The National Front (sorry, National Rally) isn’t enamored of the French team because only three white Frenchmen are likely to start. Les Bleus reflect French history and demography, chockful of players descended from the French Empire. Belgium, England, Portugal and Switzerland reflect, also, the Great Incoming of post-war Europe. The contrast with teams from “new Europe” like Poland could not be more eye-catching.
J is for Boris Johnson, who, when asked if the Russian World Cup had echoes of Hitler’s Olympics, said: “I think the comparison with 1936 is certainly right. I think it’s an emetic prospect, frankly, to think of Putin glorying in this sporting event.” The British foreign secretary has been erratic (and embarrassing) of late, but these words were right on target.
K is for Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic, who roused an injured and jetlagged Egyptian football star from his hotel bedroom to pose with him before crowds in Grozny. The player, Mohamed Salah, is being pilloried in some quarters for lending sheen to a strongman, but critics should understand that in Grozny, only madmen say no to Kadyrov.
L is for the stars left out. Every World Cup has its vaunted players who fail, somehow, to be picked for their national squads. Howls of anguish accompanied the non-selections this year of Radja Nainggolan (Belgium), Leroy Sané and Mario Götze (both of Germany; the latter scored the winner in the 2014 final), Karim Benzema (France) and Alvaro Morata (Spain).
M is for Lionel Messi, the greatest player of his generation, whose claim to ultimate transcendence is blocked by his inability to deliver victory for Argentina on the world stage. He has never won a title for his country, and that is why — for all his genius — many judge him the inferior of Pele and Maradona. This is his last chance to join the magical Brazilian and Argentine on football’s pinnacle, but he needs his team to get him there.
N is for national anthems, that range from the rousing (“Le Marseillaise”) to the astonishingly florid (if you understood Korean, you’d see what we mean). The Latin American anthems all sound as if they are the work of minor, early 18th century opera composers; but our favorite is the Polish anthem, “Poland is Not Yet Lost,” with a lovely tune and words that sound much less fatalistic in the original (we’re told) than in English translation.
O is for the offside rule, so simple yet so hard to explain to the lay-watchers who flock to football every time there’s a World Cup. Our advice: Read an essay by football historian Jonathan Wilson, published in the Guardian on April 13, 2010, titled “The Question: Why is the Modern Off-side Law a Work of Genius?” Then give thanks you didn’t watch footie in the 19th century.
P is for Putin, the presiding deity, malign and self-satisfied. He wanted the cup for Russia, and he made sure FIFA gave it to him. What better way to whitewash your reputation as an autocrat than by throwing your doors open to the world for a month of vodka and football. Russia, and Russians, will be on their best behavior. We have seen it reported that train and bus conductors in all the host cities are being taught how to smile.
Q is for Qatar, where the show goes in 2022, thanks again to the benighted Blatter. However misguided the choice of Russia as host, Qatar’s selection beggars belief. Small, hot, and largely bereft of human rights, the sheikhdom has no football tradition and will hold the cup in winter, wreaking havoc on Europe’s leagues. There’s still time to take the cup away from Qatar.
R is for the referee, the thankless traffic cop and judge rolled into one athletic figure who needs to have eyes in the back of his head, a heart of stone and a hide as thick as a hippo’s. The ref needs to be especially alert to players diving, when, to quote the Italian scholar Claudio Magris out of context, he must know “the difference between being and acting, between life and performance.”
S is for sobriquets, the colorful nicknames that many national teams go by. Our favorites are the Tunisian “Carthage Eagles,” followed closely by Morocco’s “Atlas Lions.” The Egyptians are, predictably, the “Pharaohs,” while the Japanese strut by as the “Samurai Blues.” Some nicknames are downright silly, “Danish Dynamite” for instance. Why couldn’t the Danes be the Vikings instead?
T is for Telstar 18, the official ball of the tournament, touted by its maker, Adidas, as the most flawless ball ever made. Early reports in British tabloids suggest that the claim may not stand up to scrutiny. The ball doesn’t seem to swerve and dip on free kicks, and goalkeepers (a grumpy bunch at the best of times) complain that it’s hard to grip.
U is for Uruguay, which would be largely (and, perhaps deservedly) anonymous were it not for its football exploits. The tiny country has won the World Cup twice, admittedly in those emaciated early tournaments. But it’s also made it to the semis three times, most recently in 2010. And in Luis Suarez, it has a fiercely talented striker who hasn’t bitten another player in nearly four years.
V is for VAR, the “video assistant referee” technology that’s being used at a World Cup for the first time. VAR has been deployed in other old-fashioned sports with notable success — particularly cricket. Yet that hasn’t stopped footie Luddites from moaning about how it will kill the game’s spontaneity. We disagree and await its use with cautious optimism. Games already stop for long periods when players are injured or feign injury. Football will get used to it.
W is for Robbie Williams, the British pop star who will headline the opening ceremony in Moscow. “I’m so happy and excited to be going back to Russia for such a unique performance,” the crooner gushed, drawing the ire of critics who say he’s gilding the Putin regime. To be sure, Williams stands to rake in the rubles — even as he’s declared morally offside.
X is for xenophilia. You’ve read that right. Football has its share of nationalist nuts and jaundiced jingoists, but the overwhelming tenor among real aficionados is a love of excellence and style, no matter its origins. A football fan is more prone than fans of other team sports to love the Other as much as he loves his own.
Y is for Yugoslavia. Look at the line-ups for this Cup and marvel at how good that old Balkan portmanteau-nation would have been had it still existed. Croatia is here, as is Serbia, and the Swiss team is virtually a Kosovar side. The Croatian midfield is, arguably, the best in the world. It has to be the slivovitz.
Z is for Zabivaka, the mascot. Described as a “charming wolf” — Putin’s idea of a joke, perhaps — he’s not the most execrable mascot ever to have been inflicted on a football-watching world. That prize still belongs to Ato, Kaz and Nik, grotesque computer-generated creatures given to us by the Japanese and South Koreans in 2002.
Original Article
Source: politico.eu
Author: Tunku Varadarajan and Satya Varadarajan
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