The World Cup has finally chosen its first teams to advance past the round robin stage. The round robin stage is basically a chance for the whole world to gather together and play soccer. It gives a chance to all the countries that qualified, even in the much weaker regions, to show their stuff. However, it can't be called the most exciting soccer. For one thing, ties remain just that, ties. For another, many of the teams aren't trying their hardest to win, because there are no bad consequences to losing or tying in the opening round. The round robin stage is a festive and fun prelude to the true tournament. With half the teams going home after the round robin, people can be confident in seeing only serious teams in the remaining 16. Of course, occasionally, some freak accidents will get a bad team into the top 16, but they'll be slaughtered before reaching the round of 8, due to the top seed of each group playing the bottom seed of its neighboring group.
The World Cup so far has been disappointing in terms of goals scored. From what I can tell, the new jiubalani ball is a horrendous mistake because crossers, shooters, corner kickers, and free kickers are continuously sailing the ball well overhead their intended targets. This is drastically reducing goal scoring opportunities. Teams like Spain that show complete ball control on the field still end up losing to Switzerland 1-0, because defense is just having too easy a time opposing forwards who, truly, are much better than them. One can only hope that the bad effects of the new ball are somehow ameliorated over the course of the tournament. For instance, maybe players will finally figure out how hard to kick the ball and stop sailing it over the goal. Otherwise, we just have to hope that overtime and penalty kick shootouts make sure people who just sit eternally on defense can finally be beaten by their betters.
To determine whether the 'better' teams are the ones reaching the next round of the tournament, we should keep a close eye on FIFA rankings of those who proceed vs. those who go home. Despite all the sturm und drang involved in the round robin stage, we can finally see clearly who advanced in Groups A and B.
Group A results:
Uruguay wins, FIFA rank 16
Mexico advances, FIFA rank 17
South Africa fails, FIFA rank 83
France fails, FIFA rank 9
It looks like an upset, but France doesn't really deserve to be a favorite. They only qualified for the World Cup by cheating against Ireland, when Henry used a handball to deliver the winning score. They never should have been here. After that, the friction between the teammates and the coach was so severe that they self-destructed on and off the field. There is another intriguing angle to France's loss I want to get back to later. Uruguay really proved its grit during this round robin by not allowing a single goal in three games. There is no doubt they were the best team in the group.
Group B results:
Argentina wins, FIFA rank 7
South Korea advances, FIFA rank 47
Greece fails, FIFA rank 13
Nigeria fails, FIFA rank 21
South Korea is certainly an upset, but neither Greece nor Nigeria displayed any quality on the field that would have merited their high rankings. If you watched the teams play, it certainly wasn't a surprise that South Korea was the second best. Argentina won so well that the only upsetting question is why they're ranked as low as 7th. Argentina has so far in the World Cup put on the best show for the world. Their players are sportsmanlike, rarely resorting to fouls or dives. Their offense is beautiful to watch, especially Leonil Messi, who really does look like the best player on Earth. Their defense has only yielded one goal in three games.
Let's average the FIFA rankings of the two teams that qualified vs. the average FIFA rankings of the two teams that failed, and compare. This should show whether the 'better' teams are actually doing better on the field.
Group A winner average: 16.5
Group A loser average: 46
Group B winner average: 27
Group B loser average: 17
A mixed package it seems, no matter how you slice it.
There is one other trend that is showing up ever more strongly as each day passes in the World Cup. Black teams suck. Blacks are continuously touted as being superior athletes, but this hasn't proved to be the case in the World Cup, just like it never proves to be the case in the Olympics. So far, black teams have a win-loss-tie record of 2-6-4. When you realize France, inexplicably, fielded an almost all black team, their record in this world cup of 0-2-1 isn't so surprising. France bet on the myth of black superiority and was rewarded with the reality of black inferiority. Blacks can individually be fine players, but putting out an entire team of blacks leads to the expected results -- selfish players not passing enough and spoiling the team's overall goal scoring opportunities, undisciplined fouls due to their high testosterone/low self control, a lack of intuition in where to pass the ball or where the ball is going to be passed due to low IQ. Nigeria was looking good against Greece until one of their players tried to kick a Greek player in anger, and was sent out with a red card. Because of his ape-like personality, he lost the game for his team and ultimately, their chance to move forward in the tournament. So long as sports still require brains and discipline, blacks will always lag behind the civilized world. When the French team sounds ridiculous in its antics off the field, everything is made clear by the fact that they're just another African team inexplicably wearing French colors. The French performance also shows that it doesn't matter whether Africans are rich or poor, educated or uneducated, have free health care or don't, wherever there are Africans, they perform at the same level as their African counterparts. Heck, the pampered, well payed, well trained French Africans lost to the poor, scrappy South Africans. 'Nurture' once again shows its complete inability to affect anything.
Another incredible story at this World Cup is that of South American success. Anti-racists would like to quickly pounce on these results to prove whites aren't superior soccer players, but this doesn't work out too well. Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile are more white than America and many European countries are today, and the same is true of their soccer teams. Brazil is half white, and that also shows up on their soccer team. The only team with genuine mestizo street 'creds' is Paraguay, which has so far turned in a fine performance. One could also include Mexico's success even though they're part of the CONCACAF region. But even mestizo nations are half white, so for all we know it is the white blood flowing in their veins, not their Indian blood, which has rewarded them with success so far.
South America's success rate so far is a stunning 10-0-2. Ten wins, zero losses, and 2 ties.
Another African disgrace was the Mali referee who annulled the USA's third goal against Slovenia. There was no penalty, and if we had won that game we almost surely would have progressed out of the group stage. Instead we were stuck with a tie and depending on tomorrow's results could be eliminated in the first round. The referee has to be the worst in the entire tournament, and so it's no wonder that he's black, the perennial losers at everything in this world.
The World Cup has been a grand event so far. I think people are overreacting concerning the vuvuzelas, if it's so terrible just mute the TV, otherwise ignore it and enjoy the game. But there are still blemishes that disgust fans of the beautiful game and turn away neutral onlookers. Referees are given too difficult a task and wield it with too arbitrary power. There is no way to reverse a referee's call, no matter how bad it was. There is no instant replay, no coach's challenge flags, nothing to stop a referee from completely screwing up the results of a game. Using just one referee on the field also makes it nearly impossible to see both the number of fouls going on and their severity. Sometimes people are red-carded when they should be yellow-carded. Other times players who clearly dived and were barely touched as shown by camera replays are rewarded with penalty kicks and get opposing teams ejected with red cards. It is difficult to ask players to stop doing an activity which is rewarded with wins. There is virtually no penalty for diving or pretending to have agonizing injuries. There needs to be.
If a camera replay can show the person dived or is uninjured, they should be ejected from the game. I would be fine with ejecting them from the sport entirely. Simply asking players to play fairly is impossible so long as the system rewards cheating -- supposing some teams did play fairly they'd just be the first ones eliminated from the tournament as the other team takes advantage of them through their own unfair play. There needs to be higher penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct, and fewer rewards. Instant replay can reverse bad referee decisions and punish cheating players. Otherwise the dismal spectacle of players rolling on the field clutching their various body parts every ten seconds will go on forever. It's also disgraceful, because the spirit of men's sports is to display men's various virtues as well as their skill. Duty, loyalty, perseverance, perceptiveness, competitiveness, dominance, courage and strength. Cowardly players rolling around on the field like little girls from being brushed by someone's fingertips is the exact opposite of any manly virtues. Suck it up. Be a man.
Sports are meant to be, at least somewhat, approximations of battlefields and military conflicts. They call upon the same instincts and skills and even wear the flags of their countries while they play. If soldiers can't cry and whine when they break a nail, neither should athletes. Acting tough and sucking it up when taking a heavy hit is expected in both football in hockey. We can view with heavy doses of admiration athletes taking bone crushing hits that would leave us out for days getting up in a few seconds and stepping forth to do battle again. Soccer is full of dangerous plays and injuries (largely to ankles and knees, but the clashing headers, elbows to the head, balls kicked into your private parts, goalies diving into the goal posts or being slide tackled by overzealous forwards hoping to score, and other injuries really threaten at all times), it is just as cruel a battlefield as rugby or the like -- but it's the one sport where sissyness and weakness are rewarded by the rules and tolerated by the fans. Why this should be is beyond my ken.
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