Wednesday 22 November 2006

Football World Cup

Three Brazillian players found themselves on the treatment table on Wednesday following the Selecao's qualification for the quater finals with a 3-0 victory over Ghana on Tuesday, acording to the Brazillian football federation [CBF] Defender Lucio and midfielders Kaka and Emerson were all forced to undergo treatment, but the CBF did not give any hint as to whether the injuries are likely to throw their participation in the quarter final against France on Saturday into doubt.Both Emerson and Kaka complained of pains in their right knee, whilst Lucio picked up a knock on his thigh. Meanwhile, Robinho continues to struggle with his thigh problem, and the striker underwent intensive treatment on Wednesday as he continues his battle to be fit for the France game.When striker Michael Owen was stretchered off in England's 2-2 draw against Sweden after just four minutes, the chap behind me in the pubAs the greatest sporting extravaganza (leaving aside the Olympics), the football World Cup 2006 comes to an end, leaving aside the 'finer' aspects, a few observations come to mind.First: The refereeing needed much to be desired. Most of the dubious but crucial decisions of the referees went in favour of the so-called football superpowers like Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Germany and France. Why this bias? Teams like Australia, Ghana, and Portugal were all at the receiving end. When players of such countries fall it is theatricals, diving and simulation, all deserving yellow cards. But when players of the 'high status countries' as listed earlier, fall, it is because of the fouls committed on them by players of the 'lesser' countries. Years of training went in tears and despair because of poor decisions in a number of cases.Second: The (mis)behaviour of the British and 'neutral' spectators towards Cristiano Ronaldo in the last two matches was unsporting, shocking and disgusting to say the least. Both, Rooney and Ronaldo, geniuses in their own right are known to be impetuous and hot blooded in nature. But why target only Ronaldo when even the English (Swedish) coach and the Argentinean referee acknowledged that Ronaldo was not at all responsible for Rooney's red card? Cannot defeat be taken honorably, without searching for scapegoats? Why do only some countries always sport the poor-looser tag? Resorting to SMS campaigns, booing and preparing to teach Ronaldo during the English Premiership League, all smacked of pride and contemptuous attitude.Third: Probably for the first time in recent times there was a universally accepted unanimous title favourite - Brazil. Well, nothing more be said about it - the rest as they say is history.Fourth: India is far, far behind to the standards of the World Cup teams in terms of fitness, skill levels, bench strength, etc. etc. It is really a tragedy that a country with a population of over a billion is practically an unknown entity on the global football map in contrast to 'tiny' countries like Togo, Switzerland and Trinidad and Tobago. The need of the hour in India is to encourage our youth back to the playgrounds (that is whatever are left of them after all the concrete jungles that have mushroomed!!). if not they will be involved in wasteful pastimes and admiring the World Cup's on television only. Kudos for all the efforts and commitment of patrons, clubs and associations like Sporting Clube de Goa, Dempos, Salgaoncars, Chowgules, Churchill Brothers, Vasco Club, TFA , Mahindras and the like. shouted, "bring on Sol Campbell!"Ronaldo inscribed his name into football's history books on Tuesday by scoring a record-breaking 15th FIFA World Cup™ goal to take him clear of Gerd Muller as the tournament's all-time top marksman. The strike set Brazil on the road to the quarter-finals with a 3-0 win over Ghana, and it came eight years and 11 days on from O Fenômeno's first in this great competition, which by coincidence also came in a 3-0 win over African opposition. Afterwards, he reflected on the achievement: "How do I make history? It's tough, difficult, it's not easy. You need a lot of sacrifice and a lot of work. This is the product of many, many years of effort." There was, though, no suggestion that it would satiate the thirst of a player not yet satisfied with his extensive list of achievements. "What do I want from now on?" he said. "More, more and more. I want to keep scoring, as I still have much left to give." Here, FIFAworldcup.com looks back on the fantastic 15 that have cemented Ronaldo's status as one of the game's all-time greats.Goal 15, 27 June 2006, Brazil 3-0 Ghana:One goal, 5 minutesThe goal that broke Muller's record from the 1970 and 1974 tournaments was classic Ronaldo. Timing his run to perfection to spring the Ghanaian offside trap, he raced onto a sublime through-ball from Kaka and, faced with a one-on-one situation with the goalkeeper, provided the inevitable conclusion. Cool, calm and collected, he left Richard Kingson sprawling with a clever shimmy, dragged the ball round the keeper and, with a defender rapidly closing in, flicked out his right boot to send the ball home. History was thus made. Goals 13 and 14, 22 June 2006, Japan 1-4 Brazil: Two goals, 46 and 81 mins Ronaldo's first goal at Germany 2006 boosted his waning confidence and silenced the critics who had poured scorn on his apparent lack of pace and co-ordination. Although crucial to both Ronaldo and Brazil, the finish itself was more straightforward than spectacular, with Ronaldo glancing in a header to level the score at 1-1 just before half-time. The striker’s inspired second goal sealed Brazil's emphatic victory. Collecting the ball with his back to the goal outside the area, he turned and found the net with laser-like precision, leaving goalkeeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi sprawled helplessly across the turf. With these two goals, Ronaldo equalled Muller's record of 14 FIFA World Cup goals. Goals 11 and 12, 30 June 2002, Germany 0-2 Brazil: Two goals, 67 and 79 mins In the Final of the 2002 FIFA World Cup, Ronaldo scored the two most important goals of his career to secure for Brazil a record fifth world title. For the first, he won the ball on the edge of the area before laying it off for Rivaldo to unleash a powerful shot. The ball rebounded off goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, leaving Ronaldo to tap it into the net and give his country the lead. The second goal saw Kleberson surge down the right wing before finding Rivaldo on the edge of the box, who dummied cleverly and let the ball run into the path of Ronaldo. From the edge of the area, the tournament's top scorer made no mistake, finding the bottom left-hand corner with a low-struck shot. Goal 10, 26 June 2002, Brazil 1-0 Turkey: One goal, 49 mins A goal of quality and skill in the semi-final: Ronaldo entered the area on the left-hand side and beat two defenders before flicking the ball past goalkeeper Rustu Recber. Goal 9, 17 June 2002, Brazil 2-0 Belgium: One goal, 87 mins Ronaldo's goal brought relief to Brazil after a tough match against a dangerous Belgium side in Kobe. Kleberson broke free on the right and delivered a cross to Ronaldo who had the time and space needed to pick his spot and wrap up the win for Brazil. Goals 7 and 8, 13 June 2002, Costa Rica 2-5 Brazil: Two goals, 10 and 13 mins Early in the first half, Ronaldo struck the first of two goals after connecting with a cross from Edilson. The second goal came from a corner and saw Ronaldo pick up the ball in the area, shake off his marker and hit a weak but well-placed shot between the keeper and the near-post. Goal 6, 8 June 2002, Brazil 4-0 China: One goal 55 mins After a powerful run down the right wing that left two men in his wake, Cafu picked out Ronaldo, who comfortably steered the ball past goalkeeper Jiang Jin for his sixth FIFA World Cup goal and Brazil’s fourth of the match. Goal 5, 3 June 2002, Brazil 2-1 Turkey: One goal, 50 minutes Before this match, many doubted whether Ronaldo could light up another the FIFA World Cup, with the striker only recently recovered from a series of career-threatening knee injuries that had plagued him for much of the preceding two years. Five minutes into the second half, however, and just three minutes after Brazil had fallen behind, Ronaldo made his mark, stretching to get his foot to a Rivaldo cross and steer the ball into the net. Goal 4, 7 July 1998, Brazil 1-1 Netherlands (4-2 PSO): One goal, 46 mins The fourth and last of Ronaldo's goals at France 98 closely resembled the others he had scored at the tournament. In the semi-final against Netherlands, Ronaldo beat Frank de Boer and slid the ball under goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar, who was racing out to close off the angle. Goals 2 and 3, 27 June 1998, Brazil 4-1 Chile: Two goals, 45 and 70 minsRonaldo's second FIFA World Cup goal came from a penalty on the stroke of half-time in Brazil's Round of 16 tie against Chile – their third of the game. His side's fourth and final goal also came from Ronaldo, who picked up the ball in space and showed a remarkable burst of speed to beat goalkeeper Nelson Tapia. Goal 1, 16 June 1998, Brazil 3-0 Morocco: One goal, 9 mins An unused squad member at USA 94, Ronaldo had to wait until the second match of his second FIFA World Cup before finally opening his account, the bustling centre-forward putting his country in front with a well-struck volley at the start of a group match against Morocco.Heavyweight Samba star Ronaldo has warned Brazil's rivals his appetite for goals and glory has not been satisfied just yet.The Real Madrid striker carved a special niche in World Cup history for himself on Tuesday, barging his way past Germany's Gerd Muller to become the most prolific marksman in finals combat.Ronaldo's eye-catching early effort against Ghana was his 15th in three tilts at the major prize, which has so far brought him two medals, as a winner and a runner-up.With first France, then either England or Portugal to face, few would bet against the 29-year-old appearing in his third successive final in Berlin on July 9.And Ronaldo is still hungry enough to ensure they get there."I want more, more and more," he said. "I want to go on scoring goals and winning titles. I still have plenty to give to this team and only those with something to give can expect to receive."With three goals in two games, Ronaldo has rammed the taunts of his many critics straight back down their throats.Indeed, should Brazil make it to the final, the legendary forward could yet become the first player in history to finish top scorer in two World Cups.Merely having the chance to do so is amazing considering he spent the second half of the Spanish season being jeered by his own supporters, with constant sniping about his weight and the effect the extra pounds was having on his game.The excess around his waist remains but the famous toothy grin is back now too and Ronaldo is eagerly looking towards the next landmark."To make history is very difficult," he said. "You need to work hard and make sacrifices."Beating the record for goals in World Cup finals was never my main aim, it has just happened that way. All I want to do now is continue helping the team."A bit like England, the South Americans are yet to hit top form. Ghana created plenty of chances against them in Dortmund and with better finishing could have provided much more of a threat.However, in stark contrast to Sven-Goran Eriksson's men, Brazil are moving in an upward direction.Ronaldinho may not be quite as influential as he is at Barcelona but he still gets on the ball often enough to represent constant danger.Kaka has consistently been Brazil's best player, Cafu and Roberto Carlos still bomb down the flanks with gusto and in Adriano, they have a player capable of taking some of the goalscoring responsibility away from Ronaldo.Crucially, Brazil are also getting a bit of luck when required, particularly on Tuesday when John Mensah's downward header fortuitously came bouncing back of Dida's legs when Ghana looked certain to equalise.France's veteran star Zinedine Zidane came through for his team in their 3-1 victory over Spain.His free kick pass to Patrick Vieira gave France a 2-1 lead in the 83rd minute while the legendary star scored a goal of his own to put the game away in the 90th minute.The slick play ensured French fans would not have to say a final farewell to Zidane just yet as he is set to retire this year.After the game, Zidane remained optimistic that France can repeat their championship run from eight years ago."The adventure continues,'' he said. "We didn't want it to stop.''"We feel as though a common cause has been born in the team. We are very happy to be through to the quarter-final.''But the star will have to again perform at his best when France meets Brazil in the quarter-finals on July 1st.The quarter-final matches -- Germany vs. Argentina, Italy vs. Ukraine, England vs. Portugal, and Brazil vs. France - will begin on June 30 after a two-day match hiatus.Compared to four years ago, when half of the quarter-final teams were World Cup virgins, the tournament heavyweights are back on top.The mostly European roster will face strong challenges from favoured Brazil and from Argentina but the historical odds favour a team from Europe.No non-European team has won the championship on European soil since Vicente Feola's Brazil beat Sweden back in 1958.Despite the pressure on players, it might be match officials who come under the most intense pressure during the remaining playoff games.Critics have called into question the record number of red and yellow cards that officials have distributed along with a slew of questionable decisions. Regardless, FIFA says they will not use two referees on the field during future World Cup games.This has been a typical World Cup. While it started with bags of goals, tons of cards and plenty of excitement - the knock-out stages have seen the tournament degenerate into a negative, joyless, tension-fraught and painful experience.For Argentina, Brazil and Germany this has been their undoing. They've been pushed aside as their creative and attacking qualities have been stifled. For Italy, however, it's been ideal.Think about it, Italy is undoubtedly the greatest nation of defensive players on earth. Serie A is so unbearably dull that most clubs can't get close to filling a stadium except for a local derby. Yes, they scored three past Ukraine - but even Spain managed four.Zidane's brilliance has been enough to get Les Bleus to the final, but even his wizardry and Henry's guile won't get them past Cannavaro and co. It'll be tight, it'll only take a goal, but France won't be the team scoring it and Italy will be world champions. Brazil's soccer player Ronaldo gestures during a news conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Tuesday, July 11, 2006. Ronaldo says critics are too harsh on Brazil for not winning the World Cup "even though we're the best team in the world." Favored to win a record sixth World Cup in Germany, Brazil was knocked out in the quarterfinals 1-0 by France, which was runner-up to Italy. "I've seen and heard the criticism, and it all seems very exaggerated," Ronaldo said at a news conference on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)July 17, 2006"IT took just four minutes for Portugal's star-studded attack to stamp its presence on the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany," gushed the official tournament website before offering an ecstatic description of Pauleta's early tap-in during his side's opening match with Angola."From that point on Luiz Felipe Scolari's men never looked back and set off on a FIFA World Cup journey that would win them admirers from across the globe."What could Scolari's defensive bunch of divers have done to earn such a eulogy? They won the World Cup's Most Entertaining Team award, that's what, attracting 47 per cent of votes in an official online poll. Second was Italy. The stirring Germans? They got 4 per cent and Argentina received 3 three cent.There are lies, therefore, damned lies and FIFA statistics. Numbers in football are like attack-minded goalkeepers -- you have to be careful about playing with them -- but viewed carefully, they can reveal.Perhaps the most intriguing World Cup stat has not been published by FIFA but was confirmed after doing an inventory of all 147 goals scored in Germany. The set-piece is now king of the game. Bolton manager Sam Allardyce is a seer.Fifty goals were scored from dead-ball situations: 13 from penalties, six direct from free-kicks, 14 indirectly from free-kicks, 15 from corners, two from long throw-ins. This amounted to 34 per cent of the goals scored, more than the proportion in the English Premiership last season (30 per cent) and slightly above the norm in the Champions League.This suggests that in the modern game, the higher the stakes and the more elevated the level, the more sides struggle to break down opponents without the aid of rehearsed, usually aerial plays.Now here are the striking stats: in the knockout stages of the World Cup, set-piece goals accounted for 13 out of 30 scored (43 per cent), while three of five goals in the semi-finals and final were set-pieces (60 per cent).The depressing corollary of the rise of the dead ball is the decrease in goals from passing movements, flowing attacks, thrilling breaks -- in other words, open play.It's no coincidence that four of the best games -- Argentina v Serbia & Montenegro, Germany v Costa Rica, Germany v Sweden and Germany v Italy -- featured 16 goals, not one of them from a set-piece.These days, the number of set plays rises the higher the level. For a few years in the Champions League the percentage dropped, but now it's on the rise."Maybe it's to do with a simple word: caution," said Andy Roxburgh, the UEFA technical director who formed part of FIFA's technical study group at the World Cup. "Both goals in the final and the one that decided the France v Portugal semi were set-pieces."The Italy v Germany semi-final had two goals from open play, but they came at the end of extra-time. In the 90 minutes of normal time the game had been compelling, but without featuring many chances."After an initial flourish it was a bad World Cup for attacking generally. The goals' total was the lowest in a 32-team tournament and the goals-per-game ratio worse than every finals except the 0-0 strewn Italia '90.Miroslav Klose, with five strikes, was the lowest-scoring Golden Boot winner since 1962. The player with the most shots was a guy who never looked like hitting the net: Frank Lampard."We didn't see a massive amount of goals," Roxburgh said. "It was a combination of good defending, caution in general and individual factors: some of the top strikers in Germany were simply not on form."The large number of teams playing with just one striker was blamed, but there's never one generalisation you can make. One striker doesn't always mean caution -- look at Holland, who used two wingers. It's more to do with intent. I saw 22 of the 32 teams and there were periods where you'd see certain sides leave six or seven men behind the ball when they were in possession."There were a lot of well-organised defences and they tended to play deeper than normal, staying nearer their own box and declining to push up high for offside, so there were fewer strikers bursting through."Exacerbating the unsightliness of the football were problems with discipline. More cards were shown in 2006 than any other finals, with our Portuguese entertainers the worst offenders with 24 yellow and two red cards.Scolari's lot were involved in the most ill-disciplined match in Cup history, their clash with The Netherlands producing 16 yellow and four red cards.It's impossible to put a number on diving, but while Wayne Rooney was subject to 18 tackles, he won only three fouls, whereas Cristiano Ronaldo was tackled 36 times and was awarded a foul 23 times. Hmmm.Despite all this, it was the second-best-attended World Cup (1994 remains top) with an average crowd of 52,609 per match. There is still a thirst for football and the feelgood factor produced by Jurgen Klinsmann's Germany shows what unfolds when you quench it.Oddly, the most fouls (20) were committed by Thierry Henry, who was also offside more than any other player. The Swiss became the first team not to concede a single goal at a finals and still go out, and a new mark was established for the least successful side at penalties in history.Of course he is - he fell for the oldest trick in the book. Can you imagine the fury that would have descended on David Beckham, in the unlikely event of him captaining England in a World Cup final, if he had got himself sent off and cost his team the game just because someone had said something nasty about his dear old mum?The facts of Zidane's ethnic origins and relationship with his mother are basically an irrelevance, as is the precise nature of the insult Marco Materazzi delivered. He was being wound up and should have known better than to respond - end of story. Zidane is a vastly experienced player who spent much of his club career playing in Italy, so he knows exactly what goes on.Whatever Materazzi said, however hurtful, will not have been anything he has not heard before, so why, having given himself a few seconds to think about it, did he blow his top in a World Cup final, 11 minutes and a penalty kick from the end of his professional career?His explanation, that to ignore the remarks would have meant accepting they were true, made no sense. He only had to ignore them for 15 minutes or so and then he might have been able to hit Materazzi over the head with the Golden Ball and the trophy, while the world cheered its approval.If we are to believe he felt compelled to react in the way he did, then it is hard to understand why Zidane has not been sent off in every match of his career.This is not to exonerate Materazzi or approve of football's version of sledging, but it is important to recognise that the Italy defender was not cheating or breaking any rules. He was just acting in a cynical, calculated manner. Nothing new there.Scotland did the same to England in 1967, in their famous Wembley win over the world champions of the day. Jim Baxter and Co spent the entire afternoon asking diminutive, squeaky-voiced Lancastrian Alan Ball whether it was true he was the son of Jimmy Clitheroe.Readers under the age of 45 who have never heard of radio and TV's 4ft 3in Clitheroe Kid, in addition to considering themselves lucky, can be assured this is a much greater insult than being accused of being the son of a terrorist whore. Ball was furious. But he never butted anyone.NoEleven years after Eric Cantona kung-fu kicked his way into the affections of every football fan long wearied by the game's acceptance of bigotry, another son of Marseille has brought refreshing French anarchy to an issue that refuses to die.As brilliantly as they played football, Cantona and Zinedine Zidane will be remembered for gestures that confronted issues beyond the realm of their sport. In a split second, they put football in perspective - for themselves and for millions of decent people who identified with their sentiments.Their courage sprang from their actions. Both knew what they were doing. Both knew that, essentially, they were breaking the rules of accepted behaviour. Both made the sacrifice in order to satisfy their own sense of justice.For placing a kick on a Crystal Palace xenophobe who had abused him, Cantona was fined £20,000, banned for playing for Manchester United for eight months and stripped of the captaincy and his place in the France team.In Zidane's case, he chose the biggest stage possible, his final game of football, in the World Cup final, watched by billions of people around the world. He jeopardised his country's chance of winning the tournament as well as his own place in that quest. Like Cantona, he judged it to be worth it. Whatever Marco Materazzi said, it went beyond what Steve Waugh once characterised as meaningless insults designed to trigger 'mental disintegration'.Cantona and Zidane were temperamental footballers, with ordinary disciplinary records. But they are also sensitive and intelligent individuals, with a hinterland much bigger than a football pitch.Neither sought to justify his crime in the narrow context of the matches they were involved in or in light of the public approbation attached to their violence. But neither had regrets because, as Zidane said last week, to do so would lend legitimacy to the provocation.The argument that, as professionals, they should have kept their discipline is reasonable. But being a professional doesn't mean a player should cut himself off from being true to himself.It might sound flippant to say 'It was only the World Cup' - but that's exactly what it was: an invented competition, the ultimate extension of celebrating and cashing in on what started out as mere game. It is significant that not one of his team-mates thought Zidane was wrong to do what he did.There are many things wrong with football. Zidane, probably the finest player since Diego Maradona, was never one of them.Here are a few things in football worse than Zidane's butt on Materazzi in Berlin last Sunday night:Fifa, Uefa and all their twisting ways; diving; gutless tackling from behind; gutless referees; dodgy agents; xenophobes and drunken sheep who abuse innocent people, throw chairs and chant racist inanities because they think that's acceptable at football; and the same drunken sheep who think you hate football if you dare to point out the game is anything less than perfect. Berlin, July 9: Italy won the World Cup in a penalty shoot-out, beating France 5-3 today after a 1-1 draw through 120 minutes.David Trezeguet hit the crossbar with France’s second spot kick to give Italy their fourth World Cup title, and Fabio Grosso made the deciding kick.Germany have won third place at football's World Cup, beating Portugal 3-1.German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger scored two superb goals, and was instrumental in a Portugal own goal.Germany took the lead when Schweinsteiger cut in from the left and drilled in a swerving shot.The Germans then went two up when the lively Schweinsteiger's free-kick was sliced into his own net by Armando Petit.Schweinsteiger then sealed the victory with another rasping 25-yard shot before Nuno Gomes headed Portugal a late consolation after a Luis Figo cross.Italy and France meet in Berlin on Monday morning (NZT) to determine the top spot in the final.Oliver Kahn retiresGermany goalkeeper Oliver Kahn announced he is retiring from international football, following his team's victory over Portugal.He told ZDF German TV: "That was my last international match. It was a beautiful time but you have to know when it's all over."Kahn, who had 86 caps for Germany, was captain of the team that reached the World Cup final in 2002, where they lost to Brazil 2-0.He won the Golden Ball, an award given to the most valuable player of the 32-team tournament.End of the road for Figo, PauletaPortugal midfielder Luis Figo and striker Pauleta have also announced they are retiring from international football."It is hard for me to end my international career in this way. I did everything I could and the team gave their all," the 33-year-old Figo said.Figo, FIFA's World Player of the Year in 2001, won his 127th cap, a record for Portugal, as a substitute against Germany.Pauleta, 33, is Portugal's all-time leading scorer.Andrea Pirlo, Marco Materazzi, Daniele de Rossi and Alessandro Del Piero also scored for Italy. Sylvain Wiltord, Eric Abidal and Willy Sagnol scored for France.It was the first penalty shoot-out in a final since the 1994 World Cup. Brazil beat Italy 3-2 in that match.Zinedine Zidane gave France the lead in the seventh minute with a penalty, and Materazzi equalised 12 minutes later.Zidane, playing his farewell game at 34, was sent off for savagely headbutting Materazzi in the chest in an off-the-ball incident 10 minutes from the penalty shoot-out. Despite playing with a man more Italy could not make the difference.France’s penalty was given when winger Florent Malouda went down after a challenge from Materazzi and Fabio Cannavaro.Instead of blasting the ball, Zidane chipped it in off the crossbar and just across the line, with goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon already down.Italy quickly equalised when Materazzi rose well above France midfielder Patrick Vieira to head home a perfectly curled corner from Pirlo in the 19th minuteGermany have won third place at football's World Cup, beating Portugal 3-1.German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger scored two superb goals, and was instrumental in a Portugal own goal.Germany took the lead when Schweinsteiger cut in from the left and drilled in a swerving shot.The Germans then went two up when the lively Schweinsteiger's free-kick was sliced into his own net by Armando Petit.Schweinsteiger then sealed the victory with another rasping 25-yard shot before Nuno Gomes headed Portugal a late consolation after a Luis Figo cross.Italy and France meet in Berlin on Monday morning (NZT) to determine the top spot in the final.Oliver Kahn retiresGermany goalkeeper Oliver Kahn announced he is retiring from international football, following his team's victory over Portugal.He told ZDF German TV: "That was my last international match. It was a beautiful time but you have to know when it's all over."Kahn, who had 86 caps for Germany, was captain of the team that reached the World Cup final in 2002, where they lost to Brazil 2-0.He won the Golden Ball, an award given to the most valuable player of the 32-team tournament.End of the road for Figo, PauletaPortugal midfielder Luis Figo and striker Pauleta have also announced they are retiring from international football."It is hard for me to end my international career in this way. I did everything I could and the team gave their all," the 33-year-old Figo said.Figo, FIFA's World Player of the Year in 2001, won his 127th cap, a record for Portugal, as a substitute against Germany.Pauleta, 33, is Portugal's all-time leading scorer.So, that is it for another four years. We can sleep again.A dubious penalty, a well-worked set-piece, a Zidane brain explosion, and a clinically taken set of penalties.Italy are world champions, again. A fourth gold star for their jerseys.As for the game, it was certainly enjoyable, up until the point where the great Zinedane Zidane lost his mind and perpetrated one of the most deplorable (and puzzling) acts ever seen in a World Cup Final. What went on in the lead up to that extraordinary incident, we may find out in the coming days. But it was a very sad sight for a great player to exit the football world in that way.How he still won the Golden Ball award is beyond me.Those who believe in Karma may feel that the penalty awarded to France restored the cosmic balance for that awarded against Australia. Somehow, after Zidane's cheeky conversion, all my parochial antipathy towards the Azzuri evaporated and I watched the rest of the match as a neutral.France, on the balance of play, probably deserved to win it, but the Italian defence once again proved it is the best in the world.And, then, disaster.Zidane's last game was, until then, going well. Some of his old touch was still there and I had the feeling that it was only a matter of time before Zidane, Henry, Ribery or Viera managed to crack the code and unlock the Italians.But it was not to be. Something said by Materazzi upset Zidane so much that he was able to throw away a whole career filled with honour for one dishonourable act. It was a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. My heart sank as I watched him descend to the dressing rooms and into retirement. It may be some time before that one inexcusable act is seen in the context of a long, distinguished career. What a pity.And now for the future. South Africa 2010 and beyond.I think it is a real pity that the most talked about incidents in this World Cup have been the result of referees' questionable decisions. For all the great goals, giant killing heroics and dramatic endings, the things that stick in the mind are dubious penalties, inconsistent interpretations, inconsistent yellow and red card awards, diving players escaping punishment and calls for video reviews.All of this controversy is the result of poor refereeing. When referees are unnoticed, then they are doing their job. If players, spectators and commentators come to see the match officials as a source of contention and injustice, then there is something wrong.Sure, Cristiano Ronaldo, and many others, are at fault for diving, or simulation (really it is cheating) but the referees as as much at fault for not detecting it and punishing it. When players are rewarded for diving, gaining undeserved free kicks and penalties, rather than the yellow cards they deserve, they will inevitably continue to do it. Who can blame them?Referees skilled in detecting such activity would stamp out this blight on the game.How can we make the referees less contentious, more invisible?It seems that many of these refereeing controversies can be explained by a form of stage fright. Just as the players are the best their nations can assemble, so the match officials are selected for their long term performances at domestic level.But on the biggest stage, many referees, human as they are, seem to be intimidated by the occasion, by the crowds, by the big name players and by the big name countries.This problem can and should be attended to in the period before the next World Cup.Here is my suggestion.FIFA should assemble a number ,say twenty, of full time professional officiating teams. Each team would consist of two referees, and four linesmen. That is a total of 120 elite match officials, paid handsomely by FIFA, and under the direction of one FIFA referee coaching structure.Referees would be specialist referees. Linesmen (or referee assistants as they are now known) would specialise as linesmen.Each team would stay together, training together, attending workshops, conferences and coaching sessions together. They would have the best of sports science and sports psychology to help them prepare.Every full international and as many international friendlies as possible would have one of these teams appointed to officiate.That is all very simple, but now for the radical part.Whenever there are no internationals, these teams of officials would rotate through the world's major domestic leagues and club competitions.They would therefore be exposed regularly, as guest officials, to football at the highest club level in Europe, Africa, Asia, North America and South America.They would officiate on a rotating basis in UEFA Champions League, Asian Champions League, Copa America, and so on.Only exposure to this variety of football at the highest levels, on a continuing basis, will equip match officials for their World Cup responsibilities.Exposure to domestic football all around the world will also result in a greater level of consistency. What English referees accept in EPL matches may not be the same as what Japanese referees accept in J-League. The international officials would tend to standardize interpretations worldwide.Surely, if our best officials were working in all of these leagues on a regular basis, not only would they achieve more consistency in internationals, they would also allow footballers across the globe to gain experience of the style of refereeing they can expect at international level.If FIFA implemented a system like this, we could all look forward to South Africa 2010 and at the end of that tournament be talking about the football, the officials having been largely invisible.It’s time for a sports update. Despite his motorcycle accident a few weeks ago, Pittsburg Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger reported that he will be back in time for the upcoming football season. The American League took home the win at the All-Star Game for baseball on last Tuesday. Dwayne Wade made an appearance at the ESPY Awards on last Wednesday night and Heat fans are ecstatic to hear the he will be staying with Miami until the 2010-11 season, if not longer. Barbaro, the beloved Kentucky Derby Champion racing horse, may soon be put down after suffering a right leg injury on Saturday. The Carolina Hurricanes are ready to defend the Stanley Cup come opening day of the National Hockey League on October 4th. Michelle Wie struggled at the John Deere stop on the PGA tour, when she scored six-over par; skeptics wonder if she can handle the pressure.Oh, did I mention that Italy won the World Cup? Scrolling across the bottom of ESPN were the latest MLB scores and updates on the NFL draft. The sports bars were filled with talk of the NBA Finals or the results at Wimbledon. I opened my mailbox to find Lawrence Taylor adorning the cover of my July issue of Sports Illustrated. No offense to Taylor, but Italy just won the World Cup, something that occurs once every four years, and no one seemed to notice.The only thing the United States took notice of was Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt in the 110th minute, maybe because it resembled the violence of American football. French player Zidane decided to drive his head, full force, into the chest of Italy’s Marco Materazzi. Materazzi admits using foul language towards Zidane, but denies saying anything about Zidane being a terrorist or referring to his mother.Plenty of hustle and bustle surrounded the incident, as rumors spread that referee Horacio Elizondo did not actually see the headbutt occur. Fans and viewers were skeptical, claiming that Elizondo had seen the confrontation on video footage prior to distributing the red card.“The incident was directly observed (ie, without the use of a monitor) by fourth official at the pitchside, Luis Medina Cantalejo, who informed the referee and his assistants through the communications system,” FIFA stated.Let’s back it up a little. The predicted victors and defending champions, the members of the Brazilian team, were stunned by French player Thierry Henry’s winning second-half goal and were knocked out by the French; only two games away from the finals.Hometown Germany played its way to the final four, resulting in a third place finish, defeating Portugal 3-1. German player, Miroslav Klose, received outstanding attacking player and the golden shoe award, finishing the tournament with five goals.It all came down to France and Italy. July 9th marked the final game of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Aside from the occasional fans with the Italian flag hanging out their car window, soccer fans were few and far between.Why didn’t anyone care? Where were all the soccer fans? I found them on Channel 54, screaming “GOOOOOL!” I also found them on the following Asian channel, where games were broadcast 24 hours a day. Other countries’ country colors and screaming fans were displayed in the short sports segments on the news. In a country where football and baseball fans are die-hard, it was disappointing to see the lack of support of the United States national soccer team.I’ll take the blame as well. After my Argentines fell short in the final 16, I lost interest; even being a hardcore soccer fan that I am. It became “unpopular” to like soccer, even looked down upon.On July 9th, I sat in my orange chair armed with peanuts and ice cream, preparing for the upcoming battle. I watched the two teams go back and forth, giving everything they had to win. Strike one… strike two… strike three. I sadly watched as my Giants fell short to the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the eighth inning, I received a text message, receiving news that Italy had won the World Cup. Why was it that I chose to go to the Giants vs. Dodger game instead of watch the World Cup final?I guess I’m falling into my own stereotype of careless Americans. I wasn’t sad I missed the game; I was upset I missed Zidane’s headbutt!So farewell to the FIFA 2006 World Cup, here’s the latest soccer report: Zidane won the World Cup Golden Ball, despite his misconduct. Fans still hope that Zidane will be remembered for all his wonderful years dedicated to the sport. Portugal took home the Most Entertaining Team Award, and Brazil and Spain shared the fair play award. Lukas Podolski from Germany received the Best Young Player Award and Gianluigi Buffon from Italy earned Best Goalkeeper. Italy’s 5-3 victory over France in penalty kicks terminates the 18th World Cup.This is it for this season's World Cup. See you in South Africa in four years. Not since the Zapruder film has one media moment generated such a flurry of interpretative activity as famed French football star Zinédine Zidane's head-butt in the final minutes of the 2006 World Cup final. The head-butt seen around the world has even largely eclipsed discussion about Italy's win, suggesting that the iconic image of this World Cup tournament ultimately may not be the Azzurri triumphantly clutching their award in victory but rather a dejected Zidane walking mere feet away from it on the way to the locker room.Not only have the major news outlets already generated endless columns of print attempting to explain Zissou's truly dumbfounding act, but also every genre of blog from sports to pop culture to racial politics has chimed in with its own myriad perspectives ranging in tone from vitriolic condemnations to hesitant defenses. This epitomizes the blogosphere's growing ability to bring to bear the collective analytic skill of a whole range of amateur-media semioticians to a subject. In this case, their curiosity, enthusiasm, and endless capacity to opine allows them to imagine a head-butt in the final minutes of a World Cup -- presumably the epitome of 21st century media spectacle -- as a profoundly human interaction between two frustratingly complex, flawed, and ultimately enigmatic figures caught at the center of a media whirlwind.The surfeit of differing perspectives online and their sometimes serpentine complexity may finally put to rest the quality of concision as a key attribute of news reportage. Zidane's head-butt has been imagined alternatively as emblematic of institutional racism, the intrinsic violence of sports competition, the human capacity for irrational behavior and more. In fact, moral condemnations of or support for Zidane's behavior were often only the first step in bloggers' attempts to find out why it happened in the first place, and ultimately what it all "really" means. Reportage of the head-butt seemed to be trying to respond to a genuine viewer's desire not just to know Zinédine Zidane but to understand him. Could media analysis, which has often been derided by theorists like Noam Chomsky for its crippling limitations, finally be catching up with the complexity of human life as it is experienced? Or does the spinning of each successive story around the Internet campfire just serve to keep us entertained and artificially sustain interest in an event that we will never really understand?For those of us who might have missed the game (the United States), the whole fiasco occurred in the 110th minute of the World Cup final and was over in roughly thirty seconds. During a French shot on goal with the score tied 1-1, Italian defender Marco Materazzi clumsily grabbed a handful of Zinédine Zidane's jersey. After the play, the two players walked back up field exchanging words. Without any further prompting Zidane jogged ahead of Materazzi, turned around to face him, squared up and suddenly thrust his head directly into his opponent's chest. Since three of the four officials seemed to have missed the head-butt entirely, it took some moments before order could be restored and a red card (signaling ejection from the game) issued.The brevity and concision of the whole encounter is part of what makes the head-butt so uncommonly fascinating. Like a miniature pas de deux, Zidane dances ahead of his partner, sharply pivots, and delivers an incredibly economical blow to Materazzi's abdomen. This is no vulgar hockey brawl -- wildly flailing fists and gnashing teeth -- but rather an act of violence as precisely executed as any header Zidane has delivered to the net of an opponent's goal.While plainly shocking, Zidane's outburst is far from unique in the history of sport. Football certainly has had its abundant share of ignominious moments (although admittedly not in the last few minutes of a World Cup final), and so do all of the United States' popular pastimes. Two years ago basketball star Ron Artest went mildly berserk during a fight in Detroit and charged the stands to deliver a faceful of punch to a heckling fan, which resulted in his unprecedented one-year suspension. In 1997, heavyweight ex-champion of the world Mike Tyson bent the rules of boxing by biting off a chunk of opponent Evander Holyfield's right ear in response to an earlier accidental head-butt. Much of the sports industry secretly thrives off these momentary outbursts of violent spectacle that continually threaten to erupt in even the most pastoral of sports, as evidenced by the reams of reportage generated by the periodic bench-clearing brawls that enliven the game of baseball. And while I freely admit to being uninitiated to the pleasures of NASCAR racing, ESPN highlights suggests it is little more than an institutionalized form of rubbernecking.Yet Zidane has become the unwitting focus in a new era of media analysis. A few hours after the game's conclusion, footage of Zidane's head-butt began to circulate far and wide across the Internet landscape, appearing anywhere from official FIFA highlight reels to broadcast excerpts hosted on video-trafficking behemoths YouTube and Google Video. A mere 16 seconds from France's TF1 broadcast, ending with the announcer's decidedly sorrowful plea, "Pour quoi? Pour quoi?!" was enough to convey the quasi-Shakespearian gravitas of Zidane's blunder to any Web surfer, regardless of their previous interest in the World Cup, the players, the teams, or the whole sport of football. Upon watching the clip, like the French announcer, so too did a global audience collectively ask, "Why?"In response to that question, an army of the Internet's best amateur media analysts descended like a cloud of hungry locusts on that weighty question. In the interval between the event and Zidane's explanation several days later, his enigmatic act would quickly become the sports world's Rosebud: an event that demanded to be understood and whose explanation promised to unravel the tightly wound psychology of two of football's greatest players.With clips of the head-butt readily available for obsessive, second-by-second microanalysis by any number of would-be semioticians, both major media and the blogosphere took to dissecting Zidane's skull-punch move-by-move. Did Marco Materazzi really tweak Zidane's nipple on the previous play as ESPN analyst Alex Chick suggested? Did Zidane's delivery of the head-butt to Matarazzi's chest represent an honest attempt to avoid serious damage to Materazzi's face or rather an insidious move to fracture ribs, pierce lungs, and maybe even break his heart? These and countless other questions became worthy subjects for lengthy musings, forum topics, and the occasional AP news bulletin.Unnatural amounts of time and energy were spent trying to determine the degree of pre-meditation in Zidane's outburst. Could he really have looked around in the few seconds before delivering the head-butt to determine whether the referees were actually watching him? Though truly committed supporters of Zidane are few -- at least in the English-speaking press -- those that offered a tempered and apologetic response to the head-butt tended to rely on a defense that closely resembled a temporary insanity plea. Tabula Rasa, at the blog Nomological Net, took the debacle as an opportunity to reflect on our psychological automatic-response mechanism that he claims determines 99 percent of our daily actions. While stopping short of actually commending the act, Rasa expressed pity towards Zidane and empathized with his incapacity to conquer the demons of involuntary reaction with rational thought.Naturally, a great deal of Zissou's guilt and responsibility depended on the conclusions drawn by viewers in response to each of these numerous details. But, nipple-pinching aside, many (rightly, if Zidane's own explanation can be accepted at face value)[OKAY?] assumed that it was Materazzi's words that provoked Zidane to react so violently; therefore a great deal of explication depended on discovering just what words were exchanged between the two players. Unfortunately, while the video provides ample visual clues, the audio track remains inscrutably silent.Zidane's apologetic interview on Canal Plus resolved little, as he explained only that Materazzi cursed at him and slurred his mother and sister but remained tight-lipped regarding the exact words used. While media in Brazil and the UK assembled a crack team of lip readers to try to figure it out (none of whom was able to reach a consensus on what was said) bloggers freely speculated about Materazzi's well-placed barb.The most plausible explanations suggested the insult must have been related to racism, a subject all too familiar in football. Richard Brown at the New Republic Online wrote, "Rumor has it that Materazzi called Zidane's father a 'harki' -- the Arabic term for Algerians who fought for France against Algeria during the occupation." Indeed, for many, racism seemed to be the only category of insult by which Zidane could be pardoned for his act. Abbas Raza at 3quarksdaily wrote, "If he attacked Zidane racially, then Materazzi got what he deserved and should be punished further. Am I excusing Zidane? If he was racially insulted, yes I am." French anti-racism group SOS Racisme also decided to participate in the growing media frenzy. Shortly after the game they claimed that 'well-informed sources' in the world of football told them that Materazzi called Zidane a "dirty terrorist," to which Materazzi innocently replied, "I did not call him a terrorist. I'm ignorant. I don't even know what the word means."On the other hand, many viewers, rather than excavating the video for telling details, instead set about trying to make sense of the event by framing it within a larger narrative schema. Bloggers on either side of the divide compiled less than pristine track records suggesting a long ignominious history for both players. During the 1998 World Cup, Zidane stomped on a Saudi Arabian player who presumably had been baiting him with racial comments throughout the match. To some this act suggested a longer "history of irascibility" for the illustrious French football star. Meanwhile, blogger Mutoni found that many considered Materazzi to be "one of the dirtiest players in Italian soccer" and displayed plenty of clips to prove it.Some went to the trouble of constructing differing edits of the World Cup and posting them to YouTube, casting Zidane alternatively as villain justly exposed to an audience of millions or tragic hero in danger of losing a legacy. Type in "Zidane head-butt" and you are rewarded with a motley crew of sliced-and-diced videos of the event. Absurdly subtitled clips of the players' verbal exchange stand side-by-side with poorly doctored versions whose crooked paint-brushed arrows attempt to point out crucial details (Is Zidane actually smiling just before he delivers the head-butt?) that a less diligent viewer may have missed.While I'm at a loss to explain the particularly popular clip that shows Materazzi bursting into flames upon contact with Zidane's head or the video that frames the head-butt as a Mortal Kombat fatality (not to mention the Zidane-themed online game) others display a more straightforward and easily decipherable opinion on the event. For instance, one version introduces the head-butt with a title card that reads, "Do Not Fuck With This Man!" and concludes with a triumphant highlight reel of Zidane's career-best moments scored to an aggressive techno soundtrack.It seems that, though many may be loath to admit it, these rogue editors of the YouTube frontier are not the only ones who enjoyed Zidane's violent outburst. As the Deadspin blog so eloquently put it, "Even though it was over-the-top and violent and kind of insane…we think it's one of the coolest things we've ever seen in a soccer match."So what does this whole fiasco have to say about the new generation of informed media viewers? It seems few are happy to simply condemn Zidane and have done with it. But rather than throw up the red card of moral relativism and condemn the Internet's growing army of Davids working against the media Goliaths, I might suggest that with each additional recursion in the cascade of interpretations, we look to restore added layers of complexity and ambiguity to the figures in this sports drama. As the original 'real' moment of the head-butt becomes lost in the increasingly dense mediations of the event crowding the Internet, each new interpretation may be paradoxically restoring some of the humanity so often stripped by coherent and easily digestible narratives of good and evil.Of course, none of the uproar will have much of an effect on the official story as determined by FIFA's investigating committee. Appropriate punishments will be designed for Zidane, perhaps with an accompanying wrist slap for Materazzi's unsportsmanlike conduct, and the world of football will continue unabated. FIFA even seems to be cleaning up some of the growing Internet congestion, perhaps suggesting Goliath's last resort against the amateur semoticians -- intellectual property rights. At least one of the YouTube videos I originally bookmarked has already been removed by the copyright owner due to the use of broadcast content without permission.The football world at large is in a state of shock after Brazil’s surprise exit from the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™. In a survey carried out by FIFAworldcup.com, 64 per cent of voters said they were surprised at how the Seleção were unable to defend their FIFA World Cup™ crown.According to the majority of visitors to the site, Brazil’s departure from Germany 2006 at the quarter-final stage was the biggest surprise of the round. As you would expect, readers of the Portuguese-language section of the site were the most affected by Saturday’s events with 70 per cent expressing their surprise at the Auriverde’s premature exit. Over on the French-language page, a mere 50 per cent of fans were surprised by the result, which goes to show the great faith France supporters had in their in-form side.Carlos Alberto Parreira’s team, who came into the tournament as overwhelming favourites to repeat their title success back at Korea/Japan 2002, were downed 1-0 by a flamboyant French outfit, Arsenal striker Thierry Henry landing the killer blow after Zinedine Zidane’s pinpoint free-kick.It is not the first time that les Bleus have proved too tough a nut to crack for the star-studded Seleção. At Mexico 1986, a Michel Platini-inspired French side kept their nerve to defeat Brazil on penalties in the quarter-finals, and the Final of the 1998 FIFA World Cup™ is another particularly painful memory for Brazil fans. At the tournament played on French soil, ‘Zizou’ was also the Brazilians’ bête noire, scoring twice before Emmanuel Petit’s 90th-minute goal sealed a comprehensive 3-0 win.A total of more than 30,000 votes were cast with football fans from all over the globe keen to give their opinions on Friday and Saturday’s last-eight clashes. Argentina’s exit was the second biggest surprise overall, the Albicelestes garnering a high of 31 per cent of votes on the French section but only 13 per cent from Korean-speaking readers.Sven-Goran Eriksson’s England came a steady third in the voting, with similar results across the various language sections. Trailing behind David Beckham and Co was the option “other”, while the elimination of Andriy Shevchenko’s Ukraine was seemingly the most expected - only two per cent of voters saw their exit as the surprise of the round.Berlin, July 9: Italy won the World Cup in a penalty shoot-out, beating France 5-3 today after a 1-1 draw through 120 minutes.David Trezeguet hit the crossbar with France’s second spot kick to give Italy their fourth World Cup title, and Fabio Grosso made the deciding kick.Andrea Pirlo, Marco Materazzi, Daniele de Rossi and Alessandro Del Piero also scored for Italy. Sylvain Wiltord, Eric Abidal and Willy Sagnol scored for France.It was the first penalty shoot-out in a final since the 1994 World Cup. Brazil beat Italy 3-2 in that match.Zinedine Zidane gave France the lead in the seventh minute with a penalty, and Materazzi equalised 12 minutes later.Zidane, playing his farewell game at 34, was sent off for savagely headbutting Materazzi in the chest in an off-the-ball incident 10 minutes from the penalty shoot-out. Despite playing with a man more Italy could not make the difference.France’s penalty was given when winger Florent Malouda went down after a challenge from Materazzi and Fabio Cannavaro.Instead of blasting the ball, Zidane chipped it in off the crossbar and just across the line, with goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon already down.Italy quickly equalised when Materazzi rose well above France midfielder Patrick Vieira to head home a perfectly curled corner from Pirlo in the 19th minuteBrazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira has resigned following his team's failure to win the World Cup.The pre-tournament favourites were knocked out at the quarter-final stage, losing 1-0 to France in Germany.A Brazil statement read: "The coach says he needs to dedicate time to his family after four years leading the Brazilian national team."Parreira, 63, led Brazil to a fourth World Cup win in 1994 and took control for his third stint in charge in 2003.He was also Brazil coach for one year during the mid-1980s and has also managed three other teams at the World Cup - Kuwait (1982), United Arab Emirates (1990) and Saudi Arabia (1998).Among his other honours with Brazil, Parreira also won the 2004 Copa America and the 2005 Confederations Cup, on both occasions beating arch-rivals Argentina in the final.Former Real Madrid coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo, who was in charge of Brazil from 1998 to 2000, and former Sao Paulo and Peru boss Paulo Autuori are the favourites to take over from Parreira.The statement continued: "It was a joint decision and Parreira will no longer have any connection with the Brazilian Football Confederation." With the championship match Sunday, the 25-member European Union will equal the nine Cups won by Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, members of Mercosur (Southern Common Market) along with Paraguay, since the global tournament of national teams began in 1930 in Montevideo. Played every four years, no countries outside these two economic blocs have ever taken home the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Cup title. With its 2-0 victory over World Cup host Germany on Tuesday with last-minute goals, Italy awaits the Wednesday semifinal match between France and Portugal to determine its rival in the final to be played Sunday in Berlin. The Brazilian team, with five World Cups and many players considered among the world's best, was a great disappointment to the country and to football lovers all over the world. Its players, recently ever-present in the media, are now hiding, avoiding any public exposure by leaving hotels and airport terminals through back doors. More than being defeated by France in Saturday's match, the fans will not forgive the Brazilian footballers' "falta de garra" (lack of conviction) shown by stars who earn millions of dollars playing for internationally famous football clubs, and from product endorsements for beverages, sports shoes, banks, and mobile phones. The Brazilian team on the pitch, despite the eye-catching yellow and green uniforms, seemed to reflect the always discouraged and bored appearance of their leader on the sidelines, coach Carlos Alberto Parreira. "A Picture of Apathy" was the headline in the Rio de Janeiro daily O Globo of a report from Frankfurt illustrated with a large photograph of Parreira looking at his watch while his team "dragged themselves around the pitch." Defeat is acceptable in a sport where the favourites often do lose, but it is not acceptable when the national team shows no effort or dedication, agreed many Brazilian commentators. "They lacked soul," summarised Armando Nogueira, the honourary "deacon" of Brazilian sports journalism, who has covered a dozen World Cups. And that is how the Brazilian fans see it too, evident in the contrast with the reception that Argentine fans gave their national team, despite its defeat in a penalty shoot-out against Germany Friday, after a 1-1 tie in regulation time and extra periods. Applause and headlines about honour and pride, "and leaving with the best image", greeted the Argentine footballers when they arrived home. "There are defeats that have more dignity than victory itself," reads an advert of the state-run bank, Banco de la Nación. Argentina gradually rose in the ranks to be included as one of the favourites, after the early matches of the Cup. Brazil, meanwhile, saw its role as a favourite begin to lose shine after the team's poor showings on the pitch, and its ultimate defeat by France. The Argentine players were overwhelmed by the fact that so many people made the trip to the airport to receive them in Buenos Aires, despite having been eliminated from the Cup in quarterfinals. With the two South American giants out of the running, just the four European countries remained. Germany and Italy have each won three times, France once, and Portugal has made it as far as the semifinal round for the first time ever. Germany is out, but Italy could add yet another Cup championship to its tally. In Brazil and Argentina, fans and sports commentators will analyse their losses for years, but the results also reflect the tendency of World Cup hosts to win, in a broader, continental sense. The Europeans have won the Cups played on European soil, with the exception of Sweden in 1958, when Brazil won. But Europe has never won when the World Cup was played elsewhere. >From the Mercosur bloc, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have won nine Cups, mostly when the tournament was played in Latin America. Brazil is the only one to be victorious outside the region: in the United States in 1994 and Korea-Japan in 2002, as well as in Sweden. For its part, Argentina was champion in 1978 when it hosted the World Cup, and again in 1986, in Mexico. Uruguay won the first-ever World Cup on its home pitch in 1930, and in Brazil in 1950 -- the so-called "Maracanazo", beating Brazil in Rio's Maracaná stadium. Paraguay, the fourth full member of Mercosur, qualified for the 2006 World Cup, but didn't make it past stage one. Venezuela officially became Mercosur's fifth full member Tuesday, Jul. 4. Deep-seated football rivalry led many Brazilians to celebrate Argentina's elimination, and vice versa, but there were also plenty of fans who were hoping for a final World Cup match between the two giants, which would have consolidated South America's hegemony for a long time to come. "I don't share the vengeful spirit of celebrating a victory when things go poorly for Brazil," but Brazil deserved to lose the match, because the team "was surpassed by France, which played exquisite football," Pablo Moseinco, an Argentine fan of well-played football, beyond his support for his favourite football club and his national team, told IPS. Football, despite the globalisation of the sport, continues to be dominated by a growing number of European countries and by South America's Southern Cone, specifically Argentina and Brazil, since the decline of Uruguay in the last few decades. The 2006 World Cup in Germany has not altered this "geopolitics" of football, nor has it brought anything new, such as innovative strategies, a brilliant team or noteworthy rallies through the various stages of the tournament by African, Asian or Eastern European countries, as occurred in previous Cups. But of note is the fact that goal keepers have stood out at the 2006 World Cup -- explaining in part the low goal average, but which is also the result of poorer player skills, say observers. The new football "heroes" are Germany's Jens Lehman and Portugal's Ricardo, for their ability to defend their goals against penalty shots. WORLD CUP WINNERS Brazil 5 Italy 3 Germany 3 Uruguay 2 Argentina 2 England 1 France 1 Even on the grandest stage, soccer fails to create excitement.My vacation coincided, for the most part, with the World Cup. The month-long event to determine the best football, er, soccer team on the planet began when July started and ended, well, it has ended, right?Yeah, I know, Italy won the World Cup, outlasting France in penalty kicks in the championship game.');}-->The suspense at the end during the penalty-kick portion of the game was incredible. The skills displayed were, ah, ah, breathtaking. All that was missing was the referee running into the penalty area waving a red card wildly over his head after one of the goalies burped just prior to the opposing player shooting, causing the player to send the ball 35 yards over the top of the goal.No, wait, the goalie faked a burp to draw a red card just like countless other players fell down after getting barely touched or, in some cases, not touched at all during the event held across Germany. It seems as if acting lessons were just as important to teams preparing for the World Cup as long, difficult workouts.And soccer fans here in the United States wonder why the game has never and will never catch on big in this country. They are kidding with that stuff, aren't they? Those people can't seriously believe soccer will ever draw big crowds and huge television ratings ala the National Football League. If they do, I want some of whatever they are smoking.The familiar refrain for at least 20, no, make that 30 years, is just wait until the youngsters playing soccer grow up and have children of their own. That's when soccer will get big, no doubt about it.But a not-so-funny thing has happened since the mid-1970s when Brazilian great Pele came to the United States to fire up the soccer consciousness of the American public. Soccer is still nowhere when it comes to the good, old USA where even the National Hockey League is more popular than the game the rest of the world calls football.Now, before the e-mails and telephone calls start telling me not-so-politely I don't know a thing about soccer, so how can I have an opinion on it, let me briefly talk about my history with the game.I played soccer in high school, college and in a men's league for 10 years while coaching players ranging in age from 6 to 36. I directed a women's team for a season and it's difficult to say who whined and cried the most, the little guys or the ladies. And believe me, the women I directed, including my sister and ex-wife, swore and carried on as well as the men's teams on which I played over the years.That's the rub, by the way, playing or coaching the game is much more fun than watching it. There is little excitement in sitting through a 1-0 or a scoreless game that is ultimately decided by penalty kicks.But, wait, you say, what about 1-0 hockey games? The difference, my friends, is in the number of scoring opportunities you see on the ice compared to the game played on grass. A 1-0 hockey game in which the teams combine for, oh, say, 20 shots, is much more exciting than a soccer match with four or five shots on goal.I admit I did watch parts of two or three World Cup matches until I simply couldn't take it any more and the one aspect of the games that drove me nuts was the fact teams often passed up shots from just outside the 18-yard box, in the 20- to 25-yard range in favor of trying to make the perfect pass for the perfect scoring chance.Why not blast a few shots on goal and see what happens. I know the goalies at the World Cup level are outstanding, but, com'on, they aren't that good. Shoot for crying out loud.So, the every-four-year-attempt at creating World Cup hysteria in this country is over and we can go back to mostly ignoring the game, which is fine as far as I'm concerned. When do NFL training camps begin? I can't wait. vMark Constantine is a sports writer for The Saginaw News. You may reach him by calling 776-9769.ROME • Less than a week after winning the World Cup, Italy mourned the biggest blow to national soccer in decades yesterday after top clubs were ousted from the elite league for match-fixing.An Italian sports tribunal delivered the verdicts late on Friday, punishing Italy’s most successful team Juventus with relegation to Italy’s second-tier Serie B along with Fiorentina and Lazio.The fourth club involved, AC Milan, owned by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, was also heavily penalised, starting next season’s Serie A campaign minus 15 points.“To Hell”, screamed a front-page column in Italy’s leading newspaper Corriere della Sera. It counted 120 hours from Italy’s World Cup win to the moment when “two generations of soccer establishment were wiped out”.As teams prepared their appeals, the country braced for a likely exodus of prized players such as World Cup captain Fabio Cannavaro and goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon.“This sentence on soccer strikes at nearly 20 million fans,” said Berlusconi’s spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti. “Our best players will be forced to play abroad. Well done. Justice served.”Even Italy’s Justice Minister Clemente Mastella weighed in against the verdict, saying it mostly punished fans. “At least I’m not the ‘sports’ justice minister. I can’t agree with the sentence,” Mastella said.“I don’t believe that the whole system is rotten. There are some amputations that need to be made but an Italian soccer that wins the World Cup frankly can’t be great abroad and less than that at home.”Many fans and officials, however, said rough justice was needed to purge the sport of chronic corruption. Prime Minister Romano Prodi said that those guilty “have to pay, even if we are world champions”.The scandal broke in May with the publication of intercepted telephone conversations between a former Juventus official and Italian soccer authorities discussing refereeing appointments.As well as the clubs, the tribunal barred a number of club officials from the game for varying periods.Former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, who was at the centre of the scandal, was banned for five years and ex-Federation president Franco Carraro for four-and-a-half years.Moggi said there had been no wrongdoing. “No match was fixed, no referee was pressured,” Moggi was widely quoted as saying by the Italian media on Saturday.The demotion of Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina is certain to prompt a transfer merry-go-round across Europe. Juventus had eight players involved in the World Cup final and few, if any, will be expected to stay with the Turin club and start next season in Serie B.Real Madrid, whose new coach Fabio Capello (pictured above)guided Juventus to the two championships they were stripped of on Friday, have made no secret of their interest in picking up Cannavaro and fellow Juventus player Brazilian midfielder Emerson.The teams are expected to present their appeals in the coming days. The process has to be hurried so that it can be completed by July 25 — the UEFA deadline for the Italian football federation to submit their list of teams for next season’s Champions League.Italian transfersThe demotion of Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina to Serie B following a ruling by a sports tribunal looking into match-fixing allegations is certain to prompt a transfer merry-go-round across Europe.Juventus had eight players involved in this month’s World Cup final and few, if any, will be expected to stay with the Turin club and start next season in Serie B.The imposition of a 30-point penalty on Juventus for next season means they are almost certain to have to pass at least two seasons in the second tier—a highly unattractive prospect for their top international players.Three of Italy’s hugely impressive World Cup winning defence will likely be looking for new clubs now and there will be no shortage of suitors for Azzurri captain Fabio Cannavaro, goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and attacking full-back Gianluca Zambrotta. Fabio Capello, the coach who guided Juventus to the last two Serie A titles, which they were stripped of on Friday, has already jumped ship, taking over last week at Spanish club Real Madrid and it would be no surprise if he were to look to Juve for defensive reinforcements.Argentine born winger Mauro Camoranesi, who had his ponytail cut as Italy celebrated their World Cup final triumph over France in Berlin on Sunday , is another player who will not find it hard to get a new contract in the top flight in Italy or elsewhere.If there is a top player at Juventus who might stay loyal it is forward Alessandro Del Piero who is an idol of the fans and might also find it tough to find a big name club willing to pay out a large fee for a 31-year-old. Juve’s French trio of defender Lilian Thuram, midfielder Patrick Vieira and striker David Trezeguet will also be attractive targets for the continent’s leading clubs and newspapers have already begun speculating on their likely destinations.Fiorentina striker Luca Toni has already been heavily linked with a move to Inter Milan who have not been involved in the scandal in any way.Fiorentina’s Czech defender Tomas Ujfalusi and Bulgarian striker Valeri Bojinov would also be attractive targets for clubs looking to take advantage of the club’s difficulties.Lazio’s more modest squad has more chance of remaining intact but Italy World Cup squad member Massimo Oddo is unlikely to be relishing the prospect of Serie B football.There is now a question mark over AC Milan’s highly-paid collection of internationals. Even though Milan avoided relegation, a 44-point penalty imposed on last season’s standings means they will miss out on Champions League football.Club owner Silvio Berlusconi has the resources to survive a season without the income from Europe’s premier club competition but an absence from Europe might unsettle some of the club’s top performers such as Brazilian Kaka who has been a reported target for Real Madrid.ROME • Less than a week after winning the World Cup, Italy mourned the biggest blow to national soccer in decades yesterday after top clubs were ousted from the elite league for match-fixing.An Italian sports tribunal delivered the verdicts late on Friday, punishing Italy’s most successful team Juventus with relegation to Italy’s second-tier Serie B along with Fiorentina and Lazio.The fourth club involved, AC Milan, owned by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, was also heavily penalised, starting next season’s Serie A campaign minus 15 points.“To Hell”, screamed a front-page column in Italy’s leading newspaper Corriere della Sera. It counted 120 hours from Italy’s World Cup win to the moment when “two generations of soccer establishment were wiped out”.As teams prepared their appeals, the country braced for a likely exodus of prized players such as World Cup captain Fabio Cannavaro and goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon.“This sentence on soccer strikes at nearly 20 million fans,” said Berlusconi’s spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti. “Our best players will be forced to play abroad. Well done. Justice served.”Even Italy’s Justice Minister Clemente Mastella weighed in against the verdict, saying it mostly punished fans. “At least I’m not the ‘sports’ justice minister. I can’t agree with the sentence,” Mastella said.“I don’t believe that the whole system is rotten. There are some amputations that need to be made but an Italian soccer that wins the World Cup frankly can’t be great abroad and less than that at home.”Many fans and officials, however, said rough justice was needed to purge the sport of chronic corruption. Prime Minister Romano Prodi said that those guilty “have to pay, even if we are world champions”.The scandal broke in May with the publication of intercepted telephone conversations between a former Juventus official and Italian soccer authorities discussing refereeing appointments.As well as the clubs, the tribunal barred a number of club officials from the game for varying periods.Former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, who was at the centre of the scandal, was banned for five years and ex-Federation president Franco Carraro for four-and-a-half years.Moggi said there had been no wrongdoing. “No match was fixed, no referee was pressured,” Moggi was widely quoted as saying by the Italian media on Saturday.The demotion of Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina is certain to prompt a transfer merry-go-round across Europe. Juventus had eight players involved in the World Cup final and few, if any, will be expected to stay with the Turin club and start next season in Serie B.Real Madrid, whose new coach Fabio Capello (pictured above)guided Juventus to the two championships they were stripped of on Friday, have made no secret of their interest in picking up Cannavaro and fellow Juventus player Brazilian midfielder Emerson.The teams are expected to present their appeals in the coming days. The process has to be hurried so that it can be completed by July 25 — the UEFA deadline for the Italian football federation to submit their list of teams for next season’s Champions League.Italian transfersThe demotion of Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina to Serie B following a ruling by a sports tribunal looking into match-fixing allegations is certain to prompt a transfer merry-go-round across Europe.Juventus had eight players involved in this month’s World Cup final and few, if any, will be expected to stay with the Turin club and start next season in Serie B.The imposition of a 30-point penalty on Juventus for next season means they are almost certain to have to pass at least two seasons in the second tier—a highly unattractive prospect for their top international players.Three of Italy’s hugely impressive World Cup winning defence will likely be looking for new clubs now and there will be no shortage of suitors for Azzurri captain Fabio Cannavaro, goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and attacking full-back Gianluca Zambrotta. Fabio Capello, the coach who guided Juventus to the last two Serie A titles, which they were stripped of on Friday, has already jumped ship, taking over last week at Spanish club Real Madrid and it would be no surprise if he were to look to Juve for defensive reinforcements.Argentine born winger Mauro Camoranesi, who had his ponytail cut as Italy celebrated their World Cup final triumph over France in Berlin on Sunday , is another player who will not find it hard to get a new contract in the top flight in Italy or elsewhere.If there is a top player at Juventus who might stay loyal it is forward Alessandro Del Piero who is an idol of the fans and might also find it tough to find a big name club willing to pay out a large fee for a 31-year-old. Juve’s French trio of defender Lilian Thuram, midfielder Patrick Vieira and striker David Trezeguet will also be attractive targets for the continent’s leading clubs and newspapers have already begun speculating on their likely destinations.Fiorentina striker Luca Toni has already been heavily linked with a move to Inter Milan who have not been involved in the scandal in any way.Fiorentina’s Czech defender Tomas Ujfalusi and Bulgarian striker Valeri Bojinov would also be attractive targets for clubs looking to take advantage of the club’s difficulties.Lazio’s more modest squad has more chance of remaining intact but Italy World Cup squad member Massimo Oddo is unlikely to be relishing the prospect of Serie B football.There is now a question mark over AC Milan’s highly-paid collection of internationals. Even though Milan avoided relegation, a 44-point penalty imposed on last season’s standings means they will miss out on Champions League football.Club owner Silvio Berlusconi has the resources to survive a season without the income from Europe’s premier club competition but an absence from Europe might unsettle some of the club’s top performers such as Brazilian Kaka who has been a reported target for Real Madrid.This year’s World Cup has proven once again that football is the world’s most popular sport; it has also proven that football is probably the world’s most globalized profession. It is inconceivable that Brazilian, Cameroonian, or Japanese doctors, computer scientists, blue-collar workers, or bank tellers could move from one country to another as easily as Brazilian, Cameroonian, or Japanese football players do.Indeed, London’s Arsenal football club is composed entirely of foreigners, including a French coach. Even the captain roles are no longer reserved for domestic players: Thierry Henry, a Frenchman, is Arsenal’s captain, Andriy Shevchenko, a Ukrainian, was often the captain of AC Milan and will play next year for the English champions Chelsea. Christiano Zanetti, an Argentine, is captain of Inter Milan. Similarly, dozens of South Americans and Africans play in Russian, Turkish, Polish, and various Southeast European leagues.Football thus provides a glimpse of how true globalization of labor would work. In football, as in other occupations, restrictions on labor mobility came entirely from the demand side. No limits were ever imposed on players’ movements, except by Communist countries. But the demand side was heavily regulated, owing to a rule that clubs could field no more than two foreign players in any single game.The Bosman ruling, named after a Belgian player who successfully challenged the rule’s application to players from other European Union countries, eroded the limit, which collapsed altogether under the onslaught of the richest European clubs’ demand for a free hand in hiring the best players, wherever they might be found.So wherever globalization and full commercialization reign supreme, there is an unmistakable concentration of quality and success. Consider the number of clubs that have qualified for the European Champions’ League top eight slots. If we look at five-year periods between 1967 and 1986, the number of different teams that qualified for the quarterfinals varied between 28 and 30. In the next two five-year periods, however, the number fell to 26, and in the most recent period (2000-2004), there were only 21. The bottom line is simple: fewer and fewer clubs are making it into the European elite.National leagues are similar. Since the English Premier League was started in 1992, only one championship was not won by Manchester United, Arsenal, or Chelsea. In Italy, all but two Serie A championships since 1991 have been won by either Juventus or AC Milan. In Spain, all but three championships since 1985 have been won by either Real Madrid or Barcelona.The reason for this concentration at the top is obvious: the richest clubs are now able to attract the best players in the world. Yet this has arguably been accompanied by improved quality in the game itself, owing to what economists call “increasing returns to scale.” When the best players play together, the quality of each, and of the team as a whole, increases exponentially. When Ronaldinho and Messi, or Kaka and Shevchenko, play together, their combined “output” (number of goals) is greater than the sum of goals that each would score if he played in a different club with less talented co-players.Free mobility of labor in other areas would probably produce the same effect. If doctors, computer specialists, or engineers (let alone the proverbial Polish plumbers!) were allowed to move freely, the concentration of talent in the richest countries would most likely increase. Inequality in the distribution of talent across countries would rise, even if total world output of goods and services, and their average quality, improved, as with football today. Poorer or smaller countries can hardly dream of winning a European championship, as Steaua (Romania), Red Star (Serbia), or Nottingham Forest (now languishing in the English third division) once did.But, while we see inequality and exclusion in club-level football, the opposite is true for competitions between national teams. The average winning margin among the top eight World Cup national teams has steadily decreased, from more than two goals in the 1950’s, to about 1.5 goals in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, and only 0.88 goals in the 2002 World Cup.The same is true of all games played at the final tournament, not only those among the top eight national teams. The decrease in winning margins is all the more impressive because the World Cup has grown from 16 to 32 national teams – many of them new and rather inexperienced. Remarkably, they are not trounced by the traditional powerhouses. On the contrary, the elite eight teams of the last four World Cups have included two “newcomers ” that had never been quarterfinalists, such as Turkey and South Korea in 2002.There are again two reasons for this. First, free movement has meant that good players from small leagues improve much more than they would had they stayed home. A good Danish or Bulgarian player improves much faster if he joins Manchester United or Barcelona.Second, that improvement in quality was “captured” by national teams playing in the World Cup thanks to FIFA’s rule requiring players to play only for their national team. Eto’o can play for any Spanish, Italian, or English club, but in the national competitions, he can play only for Cameroon. In other words, FIFA has introduced an institutional rule that allows small countries (in the football sense) to capture some of the benefits of today’s higher-quality game, thereby partly reversing the “leg drain.”The same rule could be applied to other activities. Free movement of skilled labor could be accompanied by binding international requirements that migrants from poor countries spend, say, one year in five working in their countries of origin. They would bring home skills, technology, and connections that are as valuable as the skills that Eto’o, Essien, or Messi bring back to Cameroon, Ghana, or Argentina. Job placement would remain a problem, but the principle is sound: the world should learn from the World Cup.

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