Take away Klose’s goals and it would have been a drawn match between Germany and Costa Rica. Lahm and Frings scored absolute beauties. In the second match, Ecuador upended Poland 2-0.
Today, England looked far from re-assured in the narrow 1-0 win against Paraguay. New kids on the block, Trinidad and Tobago, were far from overawed by the occasion and shocked Sweden into a draw 0-0. Argentina were run close by the Ivory Coast before prevailing 2-1.
All this suggests that the gap is narrowing between the traditional soccer powers and the countries that were part of the also rans. As the World Cup progresses this trend will be increasingly evident and points to the unthinkable a few decades ago- the future World Cup champion is likely to come from one of the developing countries. The Third World!!
Admittedly, it is the only qualifying rounds and we have not even seen the rest of the big guns – Italy, Brazil, Spain, Porugal, and France. But if there is ever a sign that the increased migration of talented players from Central America, Asia, and Africa to the premier European leagues have benefited their own countries when it comes to the international stage like the World Cup, this is it. This comes to the heart of successful soccer: You maybe extremely talented but in a team sport like soccer, the bottomline is an organizing force which is more than likely to be political to succeed as a team in sports and its influence is a long lasting one.
Brazil and Argentina were powerhouses even before this phenomenon of migratory soccer players began but that was because they had governments that produced the neccesary hypernationalism required in their soccer teams to succeed. A massive state sponsored exercise from the military juntas that ruled Brazil and Argentina in the 70’s that produced World Cup champions in 1970 and 1978. One would argue that these actually led to the foundations of the structure and discipline seen in the Brazil and Argentine squads as seen today.
The vestiges of a politically organizing force like Communism or a dictatorship is most commonly reflected in two fields, education and sports. And that is true for Russia. It is still a force to reckon with in sports like gymnastics, boxing, weightlifting, and wrestling in the Olympics even after the fragmentation of the USSR. This discipline is adherent in the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, all former states, that produce gold medalists in the Olympics but have all gone through varying degrees of democratic and economic reform. The Orange revolution in the Ukraine may mean that it at long last, there are six degree of separation or less with the US but the foundation in its excellence in education and sports lives on in the many gymnasiums and universities built in the Soviet era.
In India you see a beneficiary in the state sponsored higher educational system defined by the socialist model in the USSR which is now helping to galvanize the world of software and computer programming through the many skilled engineers that it produces evey year. But India has ostensibly been a democracy, since its independence in 1947. I say ostensibly because in India nothing is simple, and what is a democracy in one Indian state maybe considered an oligarchy in another. So in one way, the chaos which Indian democracy is defined by, by and large, leaves the higher technical centers of learning untouched. On the other hand paradoxically, the Soviet influence is what makes India an attractive place for investment from the US.
Italy’s success in the World Cup as defined by their 1934 and 1938 championships is a result of the fascist dictatorship of Mussolini, who encouraged the evolution of Calcio and the Serie with its present day echoes in clubs like Lazio, AS Roma, and Juventus. The essential ingredient in the success of the Italian soccer team is its defensive steel trap, a trait directly attributable to Il Duce’s principle on war. You never fought to lose it. As a result the Italians never really annexed any territory of their own but were relied on as opportunists in Hitler’s war. This for better or worse is mirrored in their soccer team. They score opporunistically, and then they sit on it and let their defence ride out the rest of the match. But it is an effective system. And Italy without any immigrant player in their team can look forward to further success. As Italy’s colonial legacy is minimal and its immigrant population is less than 4% of the total population.
The recent ride of the smaller countries to the World Cup is interesting to say the least. Is this phenomenon an aberration, 8 countries qualifying for the first time in World Cup history? Will it last? I think this is the way of the future. Is it talent finally recognized or is it a larger political and economic change at play that gives us an insight into how the soccer world is unfolding?
What does this say for the rest of Europe- the counties that are not Italy? Does this mirror what Europe feels about its own immigrant population as they see their national soccer teams succeed with second and third generation immigrants. Or are they just to be celebrated on the sports field? Europe can give citizenship to athletes born in other countries because of the lucre of Olympic gold or a World Cup championship but deny their own law abiding, tax paying immigrants, citizenship and hope they look the other way, when celebrated in coffee table magazines and sports magazines. Is this is the recipe to success in the sports world? Hardly. To be successful in the future as World Cup contenders in soccer, the European Union has to simplify and legalize the citizenship requirements and make it inclusive and not divisive to its own immigrants.