Nothing is funnier than this article, but nothing is faster than this tournament, even if it seems to roll at a regal pace. If you stop to rest, or write a post about John Terry’s failed career as the seditious leader of a crushed splinter sect, two more matches blow past, the tortoise wins the championship, and the only rock with your name on it is covered with vines forever. We have to move with the times. If John Terry’s failed career as the seditious leader of a crushed splinter sect tells us anything, it’s that.
Tactically leaving aside, therefore, all fleeting astonishments—New Zealand holding Italy with a team of milk-truck drivers; Portugal’s 7-0 foxtrot over the dreams of Chinese actors everywhere—I zoom out to larger questions. As of this morning, two mysteries ask to be noticed, both involving faltering continents: the collapse of the African teams (one win and six goals in their first twelve matches) and the gathering failure of the top European teams (France out; Germany, Italy, England and Spain unsafe). I don’t have an answer for either, but then, all tales are unfinished at this point.
With Africa, at least, it’s possible to formulate team-specific explanations. People will try, but I don’t see a convincing pan-African supranarrative that will explain these six teams’ struggles. Algeria’s triumph was just making the tournament over Egypt, who might—even granting that the Algerians are still in this thing—have been tougher in the actual moment. Cameroon were splintered by cliques, and then Eto’o is a player whose ability to do it all tends to vary in direct proportion with the amount of help he has, like a superhero whose powers only work when he’s inside the Justice League satellite. Ivory Coast were stuck in a ridiculous group, unless you think “how badly you can beat North Korea” is a legitimate selection mechanism. Nigeria were missing their best player. South Africa never belonged and almost did it anyway. And Ghana deserve no criticism up to this point.
None of that transparently justifies any of the “this continent isn’t ready” stories about to be unleashed by a reluctant media, though on the basis of these performances there’s no particularly strong evidence that it’s ready, either. Correlation is only causation if you work in the House of Representatives, and Africa’s near-zero is probably just bad luck and accidents happening.
With the European powers, on the other hand, it gets harder to draft micro-explanations. What’s happened feels both more atmospheric and more obscure. It’s possible to talk about fullbacks, or to invent psycho-epics about the teams with the most media pressure, but even those theories fall short.
What happened to France was a typhoon, a once-in-a-lifetime weather event that swallowed itself and drowned the grimmest prophecies (and drowned the prophets, and drowned the islands the prophets were standing on). England are quietly going mad in a watery country-house way, blinking too much, ranting about taxes, and bringing the hot-water-bottle to dinner. Germany are probably fine, although when ABC News is asking who’ll replace Löw if they lose the Ghana game, you know some sort of funk is afoot. Spain seem to have righted themselves, and their mishap against Switzerland can’t exactly be counted against Europe; but seeing Torres a step slow, and Xavi playing out of the drift of the game, is too bizarre not to leave questions. Italy fans—the ones who knew what they’d see once the “world champions” belt came off—were actually okay with the draw against Paraguay. But the New Zealand draw was incredible.
“It’s Africa’s year” was always a hope that could dissolve without much resistance if it didn’t come to pass. “Europe is terrible” wasn’t even an idea before the tournament (this is the World Cup, so someone undoubtedly advocated it, and I wish that someone the righteousness of his Twitter account) and, if it turns out to be true, will be harder to dismiss as a coincidence. Rumblings have already started about overpaid stars not caring about the colors. That overlooks the fact that the South American sides aren’t exactly staffed with eager amateurs, but it also feels like beating a dead hobbyhorse: does anyone really believe that Wayne Rooney doesn’t fall asleep dreaming of cradling the World Cup? It’s raining in his dream, and he’s bellowing into the wind in all the iconic photographs. Throughout this event, players have been bleeding, sobbing, screaming, and sweating on the grass, and they’re not doing it to fantasize about next year’s Bolton match. Let’s revisit this if the Europe collapse is still real in a week; until then, it’s more a surprising potential than a fact that needs an autopsy.
What’s amazing, really, is that these two narratives exist to be compared at all. Through two rounds, the top five African teams (leaving out Algeria) had a record of one win, three draws, and six losses. England, Germany, France, Italy and Spain had a record of two wins, five draws, and three losses. Europe’s a bit better, but then, England, Germany, France, Italy and Spain have collectively won half of all World Cups. The African teams haven’t won half their World Cup games. Again, this is probably a momentary cloud formation; France excepted, all the European teams could still go through. Still, it’s unexpected. It doesn’t necessarily point to parity, and it doesn’t mean South American dominance forever. But at the very least, it’s a sign of the weird premonitions that can arise as the World Cup races past.
by Brian Phillips · June 22, 2010
Also: It expands the point a little beyond the European old-guard, but it’s worth noting that all four teams eliminated from Groups A and B today—France, South Africa, Nigeria, and Greece—are either European or African. The four teams to go through—Uruguay, Mexico, Argentina, and South Korea—are from Asia or the Americas.
Regarding Europe, the other question that I think must be asked is how does the media play a role in this possible collapse? Would England be where they find themselves if not for the hyper scrutiny of the English Journos? Would France be the train wreck they have become if not for…well…never mind there. they are just a train wreck, regardless.
In countries like England where the pressure to win is probably overshadowed by the pressure to avoid media drama, is it surprising that the players need to say, to quote JT, “Flippin’ hell, let’s just switch off?” How can they switch off if there is constantly that threat of a microphone, tape recorder, or paparazzi photograsniper lurking in every bush?
I don’t think this excuses their poor performance, but it may be part of the causation. I don’t know that the media pressure is any less in South America, but I do wonder if the media there is as desperate to catch Leo Messi in a scandalous act as the media in Europe is desperate to reveal the next big sex scandal. *shrug*
“Correlation is only causation if you work in the House of Representatives…” Nice.
I think if you’d asked me before the tournament if South Africa would beat France and tie Mexico, and not advance, I would have laughed in a condescending fashion – the fact that they got 4 points is amazing, but equally so that such a tally amounted to little (aside from a lot of pride).
South america teams are more tactically varied at this world cup than their european counterparts. Brazil is the most complicated diagram at zonal marking, wilson wrote an article that argentina’s backline might be mad genius, and then chile. Uruguay aren’t that interesting, but they are willing to let forlan play in the same role as the biggest kid in a grade school game. Meanwhile england try to play through heskey, spain continue their mechanistic march to more articles about a lack of a plan b, and I haven’t read once this month about the machiavellian catenaccio of italy. That can only be a bad sign.
Not to presume that this correlation is causation, just saying.
That Justice League reference. Brilliant.
Seriously, though, people often stretch for narratives where there are none, as your breakdown of the individual failures shows.
I think there may be something to this ‘South American sides have the benefit of the most arduous, Long March style qualification campaign and therefore more competitive matches under their belt’ theory.
@Brian Phillips I would feel really sorry for Ghana if they didn’t advance. I hope they do- they’re a great team, very disciplined, and a lot of fun to watch. They’re young though, so they still have time.
@Simeon Turner I think the English language media isn’t really paying attention to the Spanish speaking media (or Portuguese). We here rumblings about Dunga and the media- he is under huge scrutiny, and he just cursed out the media in a press conference, but we heard almost nothing about it. There’s a circus there (as I’m sure there is in Argentina), it’s just not being noticed by the English press (but we are noticing the farce in France).
@Joe H. I’m sure you are probably right about the south American media; I just wonder if the pressure there is more on results on the pitch than transgressions off of it. This could be pure conjecture, but if if I’ve learned nothing else from “western” media, it’s that conjecture is more than adequate when faced with a lack of real facts or personal knowledge.
@Joe H. Well, there are of course reasons that the English media are paying attention to the French debacle, only some of which have anything to do with football.
“England, Germany, France, Italy and Spain have collectively won just under a third of all World Cups.”
(Nitpicking alert) Am I missing something? Haven’t they collectively won exactly half of all the world cups (no thanks to Spain)?
Italy in ’34, ’38, ’82 and ’06, (that’s 4)
then Germany in ’54, ’74 and ’90, (+3)
and one each for England (’66) and France ’98. Totaling nine.
Then there’s five for Brazil, two for Uruguay and two for Argentina; equaling another nine.
@Steve No, of course, you’re exactly right. No idea what math I was doing. I’ll change that in the post.
Brian,
Where did you find the African map puzzle? Do you know what year it is from? It could make for an interesting post at http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/.
Also, interesting post. However, we now have some European and (thankfully) one African team qualified.
@aj It’s something I downloaded ages ago and now I can’t find the details, unfortunately. It can’t be earlier than mid-19th century, can it? I have an American map from 1839 that’s much more filled in (i.e., the middle of the continent exists) but then I’m not sure about possible differences in French and American cartography around that time (surely there wouldn’t be many?) and it’s possible that jigsaw-puzzle maps weren’t the last word on detail.
Yes, with England and Germany through, the “collapse of Europe” narrative is looking more like an interesting potential that never came to pass. Spain and Italy could still make it something, though. And if Ghana’s the only African team to qualify…well, it won’t do much for the fortunes of the continent, unfortunately.
I think a lot of discussion of African failure has committed the usual mistake of bundling all that continent’s nations and teams together as if they represent a commonality of characteristics. Expectation would always be too high – how would a chilly South Africa, with many of its venues at altitude, suit equatorial Cameroon and Nigeria? At the time of commenting, Ghana suddenly have every possibility of attaining the semi-final which would constitute the best ever performance from an African side. As for Europe, I think I’m right that no European side has won the competition outside its home continent.
@Joe H. Ghana do have time but may run up against the problem that only 5 or 6 qualifying places are available to African teams – it would be easy to get knocked out by an up and coming power like Mali or Burkina Faso or a revived one like Morocco. FIFA need to reflect this after the competition finishes and devise a more equitable system.
Now that 3/4 semi-finalists are Euros, is Europe still terrible?