World Cup 2010

[waterloo and city]

Goodbye Italy, who had Italy again?

Oh, I did...

Adam.

[Soup Dragon]

Korea Republic & Slovakia are giving me a run for my hypothetical money

[Sam]

OK, so who is still in this then...

al =Mexico
garion24wales = Algeria*, Slovenia*
***** = Brazil, USA
Going Underground = Denmark*
jamesthegill = England, Honduras*
joy54 = Korea DPR*
Mitchell&BrownLook = Japan*, Paraguay*
palkanetoijala31 = Australia*, France
RichieG = Spain, Switzerland*
Root = Germany
Sam = Netherlands, Serbia
scrxisi = Argentina, Greece
Soup Dragon = Korea Republic*, Slovakia*
Steeevooo = Chile, Nigeria*
tubeguru = Cameroon, Uruguay
uefacup81 = Côte d'Ivoire*, South Africa*
Wanstead = New Zealand*, Portugal
waterloo and city = Ghana*, Italy

So going out at the group stages were:

garion24wales
joy54
palkanetoijala31
uefacup81

[Root]

I was just coming on to the forum to post that myself, but thanks for saving me the effort

By the looks of it, there are five minnows remaining in the competition, eligible for the second prize:

Japan
Paraguay
Korea Republic
Slovakia
Ghana

Two of them, Japan and Paraguay, play each other in the R16, so at least one will definitely be in the quarter-finals!

[tubeguru]

What's with this made up country "Korea Republic"?

[Root]

That's the name FIFA give to South Korea on their website. It's probably to avoid inflaming the political nonsense about which country is the "real" Korea. I notice the North Korean coach refused to answer questions at a presser unless the journalists there referred to his country as the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", or just plain old "Korea".

[tubeguru]

Well FIFA are full of crap then.

The official name of "South Korea" is "Republic of Korea", while North Korea is officially "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

Therefore, using FIFA's interpretation, either of those countries could be a "Korea Republic".

[Root]

England will lose against the first decent team they come up against, most likely at the quarter-final stage once again.

I hate to be proved right. It was England's ineptitude in the group stage that led them to face that decent team in the R16, rather than the QF as I had thought, but otherwise it was all rather predictable.

And to those who think this will be a defining moment in English football, the motivation to bring about real change from the grass-roots level upwards: stop fooling yourselves. Capello will probably be sacked (at great expense to the FA, who removed a get-out clause in his contract just before the World Cup started), someone a bit less foreign will come in, the media will say "this time it'll be different", and then largely the same group of England players will underperform at Euro 2012.

Did anyone shed a tear over England's demise? I certainly didn't. I was happy that at least one of the teams on the pitch was playing exciting, attacking football and scoring lots of goals - they deserved to go through, "ghost goal" or not. I hope Germany can go on to win the tournament now.

[tubeguru]

I'm glad we're out.

The only team who look capable of winning this whole thing easily are Argentina, so it's them for me!

[Root]

I'm glad we're out.

The only team who look capable of winning this whole thing easily are Argentina, so it's them for me!

You're not supporting Uruguay?

[tubeguru]

I'm glad we're out.

The only team who look capable of winning this whole thing easily are Argentina, so it's them for me!

You're not supporting Uruguay?

It's not for money, so no.

[Sam]

I'm supporting The Netherlands!! I would have been even if they weren't my sweepstake team!!

[Starkey7]

Splendid, now we can get back to the cricket. Root, I agree with what you said. But why did the FA remove that clause? And why is it always a knee-jerk reaction to sack the manager? Sacking the manager should be the last resort, not the first.

[Root]

But why did the FA remove that clause? And why is it always a knee-jerk reaction to sack the manager?

The FA have a shocking recent history of managerial contracts. When Sven-Göran Eriksson was caught flirting with Chelsea and seemed to be heading towards becoming their manager in 2004, they immediately rewarded him with a longer, better-paying contract as some sort of twisted "loyalty bonus". This proved to be unwise, as England fell at the quarter-final stage at both the European Championships in that year, and at the World Cup two years later, with the public turning strongly against him. In the end, they sacked him in 2006 with a much larger pay-off than he deserved. They tried to replace him with Luiz Felipe Scolari, who was still under contract with Portugal, and who eventually turned down the job after he was followed incessantly by the English paparazzi. That led to Second-Choice Steve (McClaren), who was given a four-year contract despite hardly any England fans approving of his appointment. Under his "guidance", England failed to qualify for Euro 2008, and he, too, was sacked with two years left on his contract and a hefty pay-out. So along came England's new saviour, Fabio Capello, whom the FA gave their largest ever managerial contract to: thought to be £6m per year (half a million per month!). The contract had a get-out clause, allowing either Capello or the FA to terminate it without compensation after the 2010 World Cup which, for England, has just finished. A few months before the tournament started, however, rumours of a possible courtship by Italian side Internazionale began swirling around, and the FA panicked, just as it had done with Sven. They called him in for new contract discussions, and removed the bilateral termination option. At the time, that decision did not draw much criticism, as Capello had guided England through qualifying with aplomb and was doing a good job in most people's eyes.

Unfortunately, as we all just witnessed, England's 2010 World Cup performance was shambolic, not even amounting to a quarter-final appearance, their point of elimination in 1998, 2002 and 2006. With depressing predictability, the nation's red-top rags took only until the next morning to place the blame on Capello, "the foreigner", calling for him to be sacked and replaced with an English manager in the same way that they did with Sven in 2006 (and look how well that went!). As the Football Association Board's leadership is presently non-existent, with Lord Triesman resigning in May after being secretly recorded making allegations of bribery by Russia and Spain and yet to be replaced, the Premier League's chairman Dave Richards has the responsibility of deciding the fate of the national team's coach. That seems like a conflict of interest to me, in light of the never-ending "Club vs Country" issue, but that's how it is. I expect Capello will be sacked - but now it will cost the FA two years of his salary, or £12m (unless he accepts a compromise figure), whereas they could have removed him for free had they not meddled with his contract just a few short months ago.

The position of England manager should be one of the most prestigious in the country, so I find it ludicrous that the FA have twice rewarded managers for trying to walk away (though Capello did little wrong himself, as his contract at the time would have allowed him to leave fair-and-square after the World Cup). Is loyalty too much to ask? I don't care if the manager is English or not, as long as they are committed to the national team and not searching for their next club jobs. Mind you, I can understand why English managers want out of the job: it's become a poisoned chalice, with any sort of failure completely unacceptable. I hope Capello stays on for two more years, in part because I don't know who else could do a better job, and in part because I think the players let him down, but mainly because I want the FA to stick with their decision before the tournament and avoid now paying him a massive golden handshake.

You are right, John, to say that it is a knee-jerk reaction to sack the manager: it is nothing more than a token symbol of change, with the hope that a new miracle worker will be found who can make everything better. In reality, the change that is needed must come from far within the game, and it must be instigated by the FA themselves, not by the manager. Last night, on Radio 5 Live, Howard Wilkinson was explaining how he had written a report on what needed to be done way back in 2002: he recommended a national football centre in Burton, a move away from 11 vs 11 on full-sized pitches for young children playing football and an emphasis on small games and futsal, a focus on 4-3-3 (now the formation of all the top teams), and action to limit the power of the Premier League and protect the national side. His report was accepted at first, but ignored by every subsequent managerial team (of which there have been many). The football centre is still not built but has already cost the FA millions of pounds, children still play kick-and-rush 11 vs 11 where they learn how to hoof the ball up the pitch but not how to use both feet or pass the ball creatively, the national team is still stuck with a rigid and traditional 4-4-2 that has been seriously exposed at the World Cup, and the Premier League has grown way out of control, bringing in any players they can afford from anywhere in the world, to the detriment of English talent. And the result? The English national team still hasn't achieved anything meaningful, and the prospects for the future are no better. It's disgraceful; there's no other word for it. But the tabloid media, and by extension, most punters, don't think about those things: before every major tournament, they just erase all the history and all the problems from their mind, and think "this is our year", putting enormous pressure on the team and inevitably leading to perceived failure and massive disappointment. Anyone who tries to be realistic about England's chances is swiftly put down and told to "get behind the team!", which apparently means expecting the world of them until they get knocked out, and then criticising them as being useless, unpatriotic, overpaid nitwits. As I've said before, it's always one extreme or the other with England.

Phew.

[al]

Bravo!!