For the first time this century, football’s world championship will be contested on “The Continent”, in the country that sports the most professional footballers, Germany. And they are ready to put on a grand party. Guten Tag! Und Was Ist Los…  

            The biggest event in the universe is upon us, the FIFA World Cup football tournament. Once again, 32 teams will vie for the most recognized prize there is and the most coveted prize in all of sports – the FIFA World Cup Trophy.

This tournament returns to the continent where soccer is arguably the most popular, Europe. And this time around, it is Germany that will raise the curtain on the ultimate sporting event. You can be certain that from the North Sea to the Bavarian Alps and all points in between, the Germans are ready to welcome the world’s football fans with open arms and will make sure that the pilsner and ale will be flowing. There are very few people on the continent that are as ready to party as the Germans, and the World Cup gives them all the more reason to party harder than if it was Oktoberfest or Fassing.

Germany had better be ready to host a successful tournament, because they have recent history to live up to. Korea/Japan 2002, despite being a half a world away and in a time zone that made a majority of the world’s football fans have to wake up in the wee hours of the morning to view a live match, was an overwhelming success for the host countries. Both countries built twenty new state-of-the-art stadiums for the 2002 World Cup, and despite some ticketing problems were both gracious and receptive host for the world, a tall order given the high world tensions because of the September 11^th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Not to be outdone, however, are the Germans who, having been awarded this year’s event five years ago, have built or renovated twelve venues, all of which were finished so far ahead of time that they were put through their paces less than a year ago in a minor international tournament, the Confederations Cup, as a run-through leading up to this year’s major tournament. That, coupled with the fact that all twelve new football stadiums are in weekly use as the homes of current Deutsche Bundesliga clubs, mean that Germany is as prepared as any country that has ever hosted a World Cup.

As with every World Cup, the host nation will be looking to use their home field advantage. With only one exception, a country from the continent that staged it has won every tournament. So the 14 teams representing Europe this time around are feeling very good about their chances for advancement. All the more so when you consider that thirteen of the 14 European nations represented here are part of the new continental alliance called the European Union. This alliance, which has made the Euro the standard monetary currency of the entire continent, for all intents and purposes makes Europe one huge superpower, practically breaking down borders between countries. So you can expect that European teams in this tournament are going to be well supported by tens of thousands of fans every match they play, far outnumbering teams from every other continent.

In choosing Germany, FIFA, football’s international governing body, is returning this year’s quadrennial installment to one of its roots. In the recent past, in their efforts to broaden soccer’s appeal to the rest of the world, FIFA has made an effort to bring its biggest event to non-traditional soccer venues and places that had heretofore not even been considered. It began when FIFA first awarded the tournament to the United States in 1994. It continued with South Korea and Japan four years ago. And FIFA has already awarded the next installment in 2010 to the African continent, with South Africa hosting.

That Germany is hosting the World Cup is logistically significant. So few countries have the economic, football and/or sports infrastructure to put on such a grand event of this enormity. USA ’94 continues to be the standard bearer both economically and logistically; it was so successful that it was the largest attended World Cup ever, and FIFA walked away with its largest ever profit margin. France ’98, while successful in its own right, had much smaller venues for a tournament that had been expanded by eight teams, so there were a lot of logistical problems as well as security issues. It is thought that the logistical model of the future will be the dynamic put forth by Korea/Japan 2002, as dual hosts may make it possible for smaller countries to stage such an event. But if there is any country that can come close to the success of USA ’94, it is Germany. It is not a coincidence that this tournament has been awarded the last five times (Italia ’90 included) to industrialized powers. After all, just like any professional sports entity, FIFA is about making money (It will be interesting to see just how South Africa does, with its current economic ambiguity, four years hence).

For the third consecutive time, this World Cup will have a 32-team field. As with the previous two tournaments, there will be concerns that this large a field might be watered down by teams from non-traditional soccer powers. It turned out that both France ’98 and Korea/Japan 2002 were exciting tournaments that caused major controversies and did nothing to put those concerns to bed. Croatia, a brand new country participating in its first World Cup in 1998, were the surprise power of France ’98, leaving a scorched earth on its way to an impressive third place finish. But Korea/Japan 2002 left many a football traditionalist with a bad taste in their mouths. Never before had the emergence of new upstarts such as South Korea, Turkey and the United States happened at the exact same moment that traditional football powers Argentina, Spain, Italy, Portugal and France played as badly as they did. There were many reasons why that were bandied about as blame, not least of which was the size of the tournament and the allotment of invitations to teams outside the traditional football venues of Europe and South America. Even as the football status quo was reestablished with the emergence of Brazil and Germany in the final, the pundits and talking heads still criticized the comparative weaknesses of both teams.  

One question left to ponder coming into Germany 2006 is the possible sea change in the way the game is played. Prior to 2002 the game of football was defined mostly by its beauty, grace, flair, awe-inspiring inventive attacking and individual creativity of its stars, who were counted on to carry the hopes and dreams of their teams and nations on their shoulders with their hypnotic ball wizardry. But in Korea/Japan these sublime superstars were marginalized by team workrate, pace, organization, athleticism and tactical proficiency. The more successful teams sacrificed attacking quality – which in quite a few cases meant leaving star players who were expected to make their respective national teams at home -- for a more structured team concept that emphasized the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. It wasn’t pretty and at times it was quite ugly, but it worked, especially for those neophyte countries that had not experienced any international success before. It is a concern that is most appropriate now considering who won arguably the second most important international football tournament two years ago: Greece, the surprise winners of the European Championship, who not only won by emphasizing almost exclusively this more structured team concept at the expense of offensive quality, but who will be noticeably absent from this year’s World Cup in light of their upset success two years ago.

That having been said, every World Cup usually has that one surprise team whom nobody expected to finish in the money. In USA ’94 it was Bulgaria. In France ’98 it was Croatia. In Korea/Japan it was Turkey, with South Korea and the USA not far behind. Who will it be this year?

This will be the first World Cup in which the defending champion did not get an automatic bid, leaving Brazil to be the first champion to have to go through the rigorous qualification process.

Six countries will raise the curtain on their very first World Cup, with Africa having the most debuts with surprise qualifiers Angola, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo. Trinidad & Tobago make their World Cup introductions from the Caribbean, as well as the Ukraine from Eastern Europe. Is there a surprise run in here somewhere amongst these six entrants?

Traditional contenders Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany and Italy, with a combined fourteen World Cup championships among them, are here as well, all with designs on hoisting that 12-pound trophy on July 9 at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium. Will one of these five teams be a repeat winner this time around?

Will a new king of soccer be crowned from teams such as Spain, Portugal, Holland and Sweden, long-time participants who have come close in the past but just haven’t had enough to get over the hump? Or will a new continent such as Asia with Japan and South Korea come to the fore and reach the soccer summit?

Let the games begin!