- FIFA World Cup Preview -

OBSERVATIONS! Read our thoughts on the tournament so far June 26th June 22nd June 18th June 14th June 10th June 5th

 For the first time football’s world championship
will be played someplace other than either
Europe or the Americas. That in itself will bring
a unique flavor to the action.

            Get ready to wake up at 3:00 in the morning… 

            Because that is what it will take for most of the world to witness the biggest event in the universe, the FIFA World Cup football tournament. Once again, 32 teams will vie for the most recognized prize there is – the FIFA World Cup Trophy.

             All World Cup tournaments bring their own unique flavor to the proceedings, from the very first one in Uruguay in 1930 to the first 32-team field in France in 1998. But this one will be breaking all kinds of new ground.

            This is the first World Cup tournament of the new century and new millennium. So this will be the first opportunity for the 21^st Century to stamp its unique imprimatur on an event that has its own long and storied tradition and history.

Arguably the biggest change is this will be the first World Cup staged outside of Europe and the Americas. With only one exception, a country from the continent that staged it has won every tournament. If this historic pattern were the only indicator, then Korea, Japan and China are starting off with a very good omen. But since all three countries are relative neophytes on the international soccer stage, is seems obvious that the continental pattern will come to an end with this tournament.

This is the first World Cup in Asia. Soccer is a relatively new sport to Asia and Oceania, and not unlike their counterparts from the United States in 1994, Pacific Rim countries in the Eastern Hemisphere have made great strides. All three Asian participants in this year’s tournament have formed their own soccer support systems and soccer leagues, and all three Asian countries now have players who play in high-level leagues abroad. More importantly for traditional futbol fans around the world, the time difference between Asia and the Americas and Asia and Europe will be massive. If anybody remembers the 1998 Winter Olympics, then they remember that in order to view live television from Nagano, Japan you had to either stay up ‘til or wake up in the wee hours of the morning to watch it. Unlike the Olympics, however, there will be nothing shot “live to tape” and replayed later for the convenience of the television viewing audience. If any of you from the Western Hemisphere want to watch any of the 64 World Cup matches between May 31 and June 30, you had better get used to 3:00 AM start times.

This is the first World Cup to have more than one host nation. Korea and Japan are the co-hosts of this year’s quadrennial installment. In their efforts to broaden soccer’s appeal to the rest of the world, FIFA, soccer’s international ruling body, is making 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 continues here with Korea and Japan this year. And FIFA is quietly hoping that in 2010 they can bring the World Cup to the African continent, with South Africa the most mentioned possible host.

That the World Cup is being co-hosted is logistically significant. The last two tournaments, USA ’94 and France ’98, pointed out the logistical differences between a huge economic superpower hosting an event of this magnitude and a country that doesn’t have the nearly the same sports and economic infrastructure hosting it. Despite the fact that at the time the United States was as much a soccer neophyte as Korea and Japan are now, USA ’94 was hugely successful for one very salient reason -- stadium sizes. USA ‘94 was played at seven venues, all of which had seating capacities larger than 61,000. This was possible because, while the rest of the world is soccer-crazy, there is no other country more sports-crazy than the United States, and the abundance of large outdoor sports facilities is proof of that. There are scores of stadiums around the US that seat more than 60,000; the United States Soccer Federation could have chosen seven at random and made the world soccer community happy. As an example, there are three stadiums in the US with a seating capacity over 100,000 -- only one was used, the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles. The state of California alone could have hosted the World Cup, housing eight stadiums with a seating capacity over 60,000 -- only two were used for USA ‘94. With that kind of facility advantage, the US was able to put on the most-attended tournament ever and earn the host country over $4 billion in revenue.

By contrast, France, having to accommodate eight more teams and ten more matches than previous competitions, used ten stadiums, but only two of them could seat more than 60,000, Stade du France in the Paris suburb of Saint Denis and Stade Velodrome in Marseilles. The rest were minuscule not only by US standards but also in comparison to the great soccer stadiums of the world (it’s really as if France should have hosted in ‘94 and the USA should have hosted in ’98). USA ‘94 left a large and lasting legacy for the rest of the world to have to live up to. As a result, it seemed that smaller countries, even smaller developing and industrialized countries, would not have the logistical wherewithal to host such a large event…

…But they could if those same smaller countries could pool their resources and co-host. In the mid-1990’s Korea and Japan agreed to cooperate on a joint bid to FIFA and build several new soccer venues. As a new and emerging soccer market, FIFA awarded the two countries the 2002 tournament. In the time leading up to this year’s tournament, I’m sure FIFA was encouraged by the success of UEFA’s European Championship in 2000, co-hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands.

It appears so far that Korea and Japan are equal to the task. The planning and logistics have gone off without a hitch, there are none of the accusations of unpreparedness and incompetence that plagued France four years ago, and the building of new facilities has been completed on schedule. Twenty stadiums, ten in each country, will be used for this year’s tournament. While not all of them will match the size of the stadiums used in USA ‘94  -- the two largest are the 65,000 seat stadium in Daegu, South Korea and the 73,000 seat stadium in Yokahama, Japan; none of them remotely approach the 109,000 seat capacity of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California – none of them will be smaller than a number of the stadiums used in France ’98 – the two smallest are the 41,000 seat stadium in Daejeon, South Korea and the 42,000 seat stadium in Ibaraki, Japan.

The biggest concern for Korean and Japanese organizers of this World Cup will be security. The World Cup has historically had tight security, but in light of the September 11^th terrorist attacks on the United States – with the added fact that the US national team will play their preliminary round matches in South Korea, a stone’s throw away from demilitarized zone separating South Korea from North Korea, a country which (1) has never signed a peace agreement with either the south or the United States after hostilities ended in 1953, and (2) United States president George W. Bush has publicly identified as part of an “Axis of Evil” – security will be more stringent and prevalent than ever. Of course, with England in the tournament, there are international concerns with whether Japan, the country where England will play their preliminary round matches, and the Japanese authorities and their security measures will be ready for the English hooliganism sure to make its way to their shores. This concern is borne out of the fact that four years ago the French were not prepared for British hooligans when a massive and deadly riot broke out on the French Riviera the day of the England-Tunisia group tie (there were no such concerns about English football fans at USA ’94; England did not qualify).

For the second time this World Cup will have a 32-team field. The concern four years ago in France was that this large a field might be watered down by teams from non-traditional soccer powers. It turned out to be an exciting tournament in which that concern was unfounded. 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. They are back for this go-round, too, but are no longer soccer infants, so their form surprises nobody. But every World Cup has that one surprise team whom nobody expected to finish in the money. In USA ’94 it was Bulgaria, and France ’98 had Croatia. Who will it be this year?

Three teams qualified automatically – France, the defending champions, and South Korea and Japan as the hosts – so it will be interesting to see if they can play up to such a high level required without the pressure cooker that is the two-year qualification process. France is also the current European champion, so they are the number one rated team in the world and have proven it by beating everybody in their path over the last four years. Can they defend their championship now that they don’t have the home-field advantage? It hasn’t happened in 40 years, so history says no.

(You can already look forward to one thing that will uniquely separate this and every previous World Cup from the one four years hence in Germany: This will be the last World Cup in which the defending champion receives an automatic bid. Only the hosts will automatically make the field. So there is now the very real possibility that this year’s champion, and the champions of all subsequent World Cups, might not qualify for the next tournament in order to defend their championship.)

            China, Ecuador, Senegal and Slovenia will raise the curtain on their very first World Cup. Uruguay, former two time champions of this tournament, is making their appearance after a long absence and a long stretch away from top-flight futbol. Is there a surprise run in here somewhere amongst these five entrants?

            Traditional contenders Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany and Italy, with a combined thirteen World Cup championships among them, are here as well, all with designs on hoisting that 12-pound trophy on June 30 in Yokahama. 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, Denmark 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 Africa with Nigeria and Cameroon come to the fore and reach the soccer summit?

            Let the games begin!