South Africa 2010: A World Cup Guide for the Vaguely Interested
The Scrivener’s Fancy, as you know by now, is not the place you visit to catch up on your sports news coverage. But something REALLY, REALLY big is about to happen and, at the risk of not being un-Australian, I’m bound to declare that I’m sitting down this weekend to watch the opening of the 2010 FIFA World Cup… and from then on I’ll be watching all of it … for a month … I have the gleaming new Samsung LCD TV in place and, above it, Blu-Tacked to the wall, the giant fixture sheet (from the SBS official cup magazine) for results to be entered and possibilities entertained. I’m calculating booze consumption v finance ratios. I’m readying my housemate for the various strangulated cries of frustration, the booming ground-shaking affirmations for goals scored, and the possible jagged crying fits. I’m rearranging my body clock for these jetlag kick-off times, the two a.m.s and four a.m.s, matches exquisitely positioned to start when it’s too late to stay up and too early to get up.
As for the rest of you, the uninterested, off you go with your Ingmar Bergman DVDs, and Mahler CDs, you latte-sipping, leftie, arts-funded snobs.
Let’s look at the teams!
Group A
France: Dirty, cheating, cheese-eating surrender-monkeys! The previously admired Thierry Henry secured their place in the finals by bringing the ball down with his hand TWICE in two seconds against Ireland and jabbing home to ensure France would be getting on the plane. Henry admitted to perverting the course of sporting justice, but as soon as FIFA (the soccer bigwigs) declared that the game would (of course) not be played again, the French magnanimously offered to play it again.
South Africa: The hosts of each tournament are expected to cruise into the second round at least, so the Bafana Bafana (Boys … boys) boys are under pressure to win a few games. Although a poor side, their pre-tournament form has been pretty good. On the downside, South African fans are the world’s most enthusiastic blowers of those long ‘honk-honk’ horn things called vuvuzelas. The dying goose/bass saxophone noise will be incessant. Be prepared.
Mexico: If they beat the hosts, South Africa, you will hear from every news service in the world how Mexico ‘spoiled the party’. Can play a bit. And the home, of course, of that genius kid who invented the stand-up taco. Olé!
Uruguay: It’ll be nice to see again some of the guys we SENT HOME IN TEARS in 2005. Uruguay are always competitive, though, and routinely defeat their avowed enemies, Argentina and Brazil, in various competitions, which is startling when you consider these stats: there are 3.5 million Uruguayans and 192 million Brazilians. Uruguay hosted and won the first cup in 1930 but haven’t looked like adding another since then.
Group B
Argentina: When the unstable Diego Maradona was appointed coach of Argentina, even those who deify him as a god (which is pretty much everybody in that country) were dismayed at the choice. Arguably the best player the world has ever seen, his genius was spontaneous and single-minded. It sometimes seemed that the other members of the teams he played for were there only to give him the ball, to see what new miracle would transpire. His style had nothing to do with the shape of the game, the meat and spuds ball-winning, work rate and necessary defensive cautions. He lived and played in Diegoland, which worked pretty well for his clubs and country, but the disorganised Argentina he’s now helming are not playing well. They scraped into the finals with a 1-0 win in the last five minutes of their final qualifier. But it was a win, so Diego responded to previous media flagellation by extending to the press an invitation: ‘May the ladies excuse me. You can all suck my dick.’ (Of course, it sounds more romantic when spoken in Spanish.)
In Argentina the eccentricities are legend: the obesity, the coke habit, the mistresses, the near fatal heart blow-out, his almost romantic relationship with Fidel Castro. That stuff’s all fine and dandy. But handing the national team over to him is a leap into the largest of black and fathomless unknowns in soccer history. He is currently sporting a big ’tache and looks exactly like David Boon! I can’t wait to see what happens. Lionel Messi plays for Argentina. He is the best player in the world and, under any circumstances, will be opening a can of whoopass. Also on show, the extraordinarily ugly Carlos Tevez. Always dangerous. Not averse to cheating.
Greece: Are they any good? No idea. Ask your Greek mates. (One of them plays for Liverpool and has a ponytail. Not one of your mates, one of the players.)
Nigeria: If someone from Nigeria emails you offering you cheap tickets to the games, some dates with princesses, and a penis enlarger, it’s probably spam. But you never know. Nigeria were a scary good team in the nineties but are a bit flimsy these days.
South Korea: They’re always good value, entertaining to watch, and their coach is called Huh Jung-Moo, which sounds funny but I’m not sure why.
Group C
Slovenia: Knocked out renowned bullies Russia in a winner-takes-all qualifier. Imagine how enjoyable THAT would have been. Slovenia is a small place. When their squad left, it halved the population. Boom boom! First round exit, probably.
USA: Likely to go through in a weak group but no chance of YOO ESS AY! mantras after that. So then we can enjoy fat men in Uncle Sam hats sitting distraught in the stands. Death to America!
England: Expectations are just too high. This is supposed to be their year, but already dark clouds are gathering, with captain Rio Ferdinand out of the tournament after aggravating his knee at practice. Happily, all the WAGS (‘wives and girlfriends’ for those of you who refuse to look at supermarket mags) are settling in, updating their carrot-hued, spray-painted skin, slipping on their giant sunglasses and dipping into Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, which they’re reading for book club. If Wayne Rooney plays like everyone prays he will, England are in with more than a chance. But England … they just lose. Generally on penalties. In 2006 they were knocked out by Portugal, who missed two of their five spot kicks. England, in a staggering display of footballing incompetence, managed to miss three.
Algeria: In 2007 Iraq won the Asian Cup, and during their televised games, especially the final, there was no Iraq war. Not a peep. Even guys heading out to blow themselves up waited to see what the final score would be. Algeria’s games will similarly enable a respite (for about six hours) of their ten-million-year-old civil war. So that’s something, I guess.
Group D
Australia: I’m cognitive dissonant about our team. I’ve been that way ever since I found out what cognitive dissonance is. I think we’ll be embarrassing … but then I think we can make the last eight. I think everyone will be injured … but then I think our best team can beat Brazil. Some of our guys are getting long in the tooth now, and Pim Verbeeeeeek has so far employed a pretty ugly style of pragmatic, unsexy football that hasn’t been good to watch. His record is good … so far, but there have yet to be any encounters with heavyweights. In our group, Germany are super-heavyweights. Ghana are not exactly crap, and we’ve already seen what Serbs can do when they get angry. Our boys, I fear, will be home (which will actually entail a fanning of them to various parts of Europe) in time for tea. Kewell will play forty-five minutes and then give Pim his sick note. ‘Harry cannot play today due to his FUCKING GROIN FIASCO.’ Cahill to the rescue?
Ghana: You’ve got to love a team with a guy called Junior Agogo in it. Sounds like a happening Blue Light disco. We’ll need to beat Ghana to get out of the group stage, and I can’t see it happening, although the absence of leg-chopping, card-collecting Chelsea hitman Michael Essien is a boost. Their pre-tournament games have been terrible, which is another plus.
Serbia: They boast stars of the calibre of Krickopic (Cricket pitch), Gotanic (Got an itch) and Wotabic (What a bitch). We’re just crazy, me and my friends, with our stereotype gags! They will knock us out at the group stage.
Germany: Always remember: football is a game of skill and strength at the end of which Germany wins. On the pitch they live up to the cliché of precision and organisation that almost won them two wars. Look out for the uncontainable Bastian Schweinsteiger, and try to say it fast three times. Likely to win the goldware.
Group E
Holland: A fair few English Premier League players here, including the laughably inconsistent Robin van Persie from Arsenal; Liverpool’s Dirk Kuyt; and Bayern Munich’s ex-Chelsea man, Arjen Robben. They have very polite and good-natured fans, who don’t mind wearing bright orange in public, so let’s hope they don’t have to play Little England, with its pie-eating terrace meatheads patrolling the surrounds.
Cameroon: The Indomitable Lions! Cameroon have always played lovely, open, sunshiny football and collected many a scalp from the prissy, over-confident Europeans and South Americans. But they’re a pretty ordinary outfit at the moment. Should still be some WOMAD goal celebration dance action when they score.
Denmark: Their supporters get to wear tin hats with moose horns sticking out of them! Oh, to be Danish! A Viking’s life for me! A place in the last 16, at best.
Japan: Didn’t trouble us in qualifying. Not that dangerous a team, unless they come out of the sun, of course. Can I say that?
Group F
Italy: A puffed-up bunch of film stars who ride everywhere on scooters with girls who look like Audrey Hepburn on the back. Not a brilliant squad this year, but they should piss it in to the second round with only the likes of New Zealand, Paraguay and Slovakia to tackle. They are the current cup holders after their penalties win over France in 2006, but probably won’t be leaving with any bling this year.
New Zealand: If they can aggravate other teams with their primordial tactics and comprehensive absence of finesse, New Zealand might drag teams down towards the kind of ‘wrong side of the tracks’ brutalism they play, and pinch a point or two. Probably won’t work against Italy, though. Oh well, nice to take part, and it’s not the winning that counts, etc.
Paraguay: Credit to striker Salvador Cabañas, who was shot earlier this year, and still intends playing. Expect the rest of the team to pretend they’ve been shot every time anyone touches them.
Slovakia: Having already embarrassed the Czech Republic and Poland in qualifying, it’s all a bonus from here on. Not a very impressive squad, but someone has to finish second in a weak group, so why not them?
Group G
Brazil: They sometimes ponce around like the Harlem Globetrotters, especially in games that are not crucial, but Brazil are always front-runners, and they do play absolutely vivid, eloquent, breathtaking stuff. The greatest World Cup moments from the past usually involve them. They’re rated in the top four at least at every World Cup. Their coach is Dunga, and their best player is Kaka. What a pair of shit names!
Portugal: When you look at these Adonises? … Adonosi? … posing for a team photo, you’re suddenly made aware that your own skin is actually made of dough, and that your bone structure was chucked together at the last minute, and then compromised and worsened during your traumatic struggle down the birth canal. They are handsome fellows, and the team will be tailed by hundreds and hundreds of stunning Portuguese girls at every game. Heartbreakers, all of them. Get the cameras on the crowd, Mr TV Producer! Cristiano Ronaldo is amazing but his mates aren’t quite.
Ivory Coast: Their nickname is The Elephants. Who came up with that one? ‘Yes, our players are slow, they tend to take dumps in the centre circle and tread on people’s heads until they burst.’ The Ivory Coast are the team, though, who might represent Africa in the last eight. Several stars: Chelsea’s deadly Didier Drogba, Emmanuel Eboué, Kolo Touré and Dumbo the happy elephant. Oh, sorry, that’s the mascot.
North Korea: Humourless automatons presided over … and coached, probably… by President Kim Jong Il. They tend to break into formation marching during games, which leaves them vulnerable at the back.
Group H
Spain: In terms of physical perfection, Spain make Portugal and Italy’s male models look like toothless car thieves from Warrnambool. Currently favourites, although the precocious Fernando Torres is still only 50/50 to play. If fit, he and striking partner, David Villa, will form a partnership one writer last week deemed to be ‘sadistically destructive’. They have a fan called Manuel who has stood behind the goal banging a big drum at every finals since 1982. At least drums don’t go honnnnnk.
Chile: Funny story …Chile’s 1990 World Cup qualification campaign rested on a final and decisive match against Brazil at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janiero. Chile needed to win in order to get their ticket to the World Cup. Halfway through the second half, they were losing 1-0 when someone lobbed a flare onto the ground. It landed a few metres from the Chilean goalkeeper, Roberto Rojas, who cunningly pretended he’d been hit by it. Appalled by this cowardly attack, Chile walked off. But the distraught keeper, it transpired, wanted to get FIFA to disqualify the Brazilians (whose crowd it was that was misbehaving) but had seemingly forgotten that the match was being watched on TV by about 100 million people. Rojas was nothing if not resourceful and well-prepared, however. While lying on the ground, he pulled a small razor from his sock and inflicted on himself a suitably bloody cut. Let’s see that one more time from camera twenty-three.
Brazil were awarded the game. Chile were automatically disqualified not only from the 1990 World Cup, but also from the next one in 1994. Ouch! Hope they bring some joy to the battered quake victims back home.
Honduras: Another funny story …In 1969 Honduras played El Salvador in a cup qualifier. Never the best of friends, each won their home games, but there were accusations from both countries of travelling fans hassled by thuggish cops, innocents being beaten, etc. Once the results were finalised, and with both countries having had enough, Honduras and El Salvador then went to war for a couple of months, with hundreds of casualties.
Switzerland: Switzerland sporadically qualify for the finals, and have offered up the most tedious and irrelevant teams in history. They’ll get maybe two points, score maybe two goals and go home with their wildlife park souvenirs. You can BANK on it. Won’t give a good ACCOUNT of themselves. Of little INTEREST.
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There’s a wonderful daily World Cup podcast by James Richardson of the Guardian here.
Michael Witheford’s novel ‘Buzzed’ is available on Amazon for $114. Seriously. His band, The TV Set, are playing sunny Sundays next month at the Town Hall Hotel in North Melbourne.
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