World Cup 2006 in Germany

[Nano]

If you are here you already know I'm talking about FOOTBALL (Americans call it SOCCER). I remember four years ago some forum members (me included) posted their opinions here, all the fun, suffering through hard times, the "cábalas" and amulets... Well, time has come to do it again!

In Corea/Japan 2002 Argentina did a terrible job and our team had to do their bags after the first phase (our worst performance since 1970 at least). Since then we changed our DT and many younger players entered the team: no more Batistuta or Verón. Back by popular demand, Juan Román Riquelme (now in Spain's Villarreal team) will play his first World Cup: he's a natural born number 10 player, a typical slow South American player, known for his "gambeta" and the way he builds up the attack, running always with the enemy's goalkeeper in sight. On the front, he will shoot passes at veteran Hernán Crespo (now in UK's Chelsea), Olympic champion Carlitos Tévez (star of Brazil's Corinthians) and our new wonderkid: 18-year-old Lionel Messi, who runs alongside Ronaldinho in today's European champ team, Barcelona.

The discussion is on the back front: we still don't have a trusty goalkeeper like Goycochea or Fillol were in the past, and some people claimed Pekerman didn't call some valuable players for the last line. But these kids are hungry for glory... And since some weeks ago, practically EVERY piece of advertisement in our country makes reference to them. In fact, I am growing tired of so many futbol images before the competition starts next June 6th!

Here's some data about our 23 players:
http://ar.sports.yahoo.com/mundial20...onvocados.html

Are you guys happy with the players in your own national teams? Who do you think are going to win? Here people think Brazil is the lead candidate (they have RONALDINHO!) but also give chances to Italy and Germany, besides ourselves.

[Videoskooter]

Nano, can U, as an obvious afficianado, explain what the hell people see in this game :-)

I tried man, I tried, but all I see is a bunch of hairdressers running around in shorts, trying to break each other's legs and show their newest haircut! Then people in and out the stadium try to kill the opponents and destroy half of the town.

And, plzzzz, don't tell me about Beckham and his stupid bimbo, coz' I really don't get what's so great and special about a guy with a Minnie Mouse voice, that's changing his look every 2 hours and shows more talent in strange beds than on the sportsfield.

Give me American Football, any given sunday!!!! :-):-):-) A REAL sport for REAL HOMBRES !



BTW, have big fun next month ;-)

Belgium didn't make it coz' our national team consists of over-payed, non-talented show-offs. Even the Belgian soccerfans don't give a damn about their national team anymore, so that means something!

Were are the days of Jean-Marie Pfaff and Paul Van Himst? Long gone, I tell you that!

[dfc99bb]

Soccer never quite caught on at the professional level in the US. It's big in the schools but not beyond that. Baseball and American Football are too entrenched here. Even basketball and hockey are having problems. The NY Yankees baseball team is worth about $800 million (€622,434,212) I understand that some soccer teams are worth over $1 Billion (€778,008,553).

[RetroRuss]

Football is a national obsession here in England - World Cup fever has taken over England flags flying on cars, on houses and the papers are full of World Cup stories. Our 'star-man' Wayne Rooney is unlikely to play due to a broken metatarsal bone in his foot. We are managed by a Swede who got fired three months ago. Yet the hype is that we will win.

Personally I don't think we'll get beyond the quarter finals. I think Brazil, Holland and France are in with a shout to win. Our manager has put a 17 year old kid in the team who hasn't even played first team football for his club!

I honestly can't get excited by it this year - too much hype. I'd rather watch Big Brother!

[Nano]

OK. I will post a pic too, so people are sure what we are talking about:



(BTW, that's our Messi kicking the ball in a recent Barcelona match.)

Foot + ball, you know? You kick the ball until it's a goal. No need to use headsets, jump into people... we already have rugby for that. And Johan, it's obvious your comments are biased in the poor performance of the Belgian team :) (Hey, won't you rave for your Holland neighbors?)

Anyway, it's true, advertising is almost taking away all the fun. Also, since cable went big, we can follow other nation's championships from here... which we do mainly because there are a number of Argentinian fútbol players hired by powerful European teams, specially in Italy and Spain.

So you have so much football already, and then comes this! But it's only once every four years and the only event which can raise nation pride in my country, so... Vamos Argentina!

[Videoskooter]

[quote=Headlamp]Football is a national obsession here in England[quote]

What do U think of Beckham? Is he more a mediastar than a talent? Is his lifestyle affecting his skills?

[Videoskooter]

Originally Posted by Nano

Johan, it's obvious your comments are biased in the poor performance of the Belgian team :) (Hey, won't you rave for your Holland neighbors?)

Mmmmh, no! To be honest, I never enjoyed soccer. I don't know why, but it never did appeal to me. I know it's a sport that can be played by everybody and almost everywhere and that's probably the charm of it.

I don't like Tennis either although Belgium has Clijsters and Henin, the top of the female competition. And our other national pride, cycling, is not my cup of tea either, although we provided Eddy Merckx, Rik Van Looy and now, Tom Boonen.

I like power! Human, like American Football or Ice-Hockey and enginewise, like F1, Rally, Nascar, Indy.

BTW, back to soccer: Belgians supporting for Holland???? NO WAY, that'll never happen :-):-):-)

I think that our soccerfans will support for Brazil or maybe Argentina, if they show good playing and certainly Italy, since we have a very large community of Italians in Belgium.

[dfc99bb]

Here's two articles on soccer in America:

World Cup: Show us the money

By Jonah Bloom
Published on May 22, 2006

Tragedy has befallen my native England. The national soccer team's star player, Wayne Rooney, broke his foot recently and with it shattered the reveries of an entire country, which had begun to believe he could lead England to victory in next month's World Cup.

Soccer is a devoutly followed religion in the United Kingdom, and the team's often-rocky ride to the tournament once every four years is a pilgrimage of unparalleled importance.

Temporarily unable to concentrate on other sports--Tom Glavine's recently masterful outings aside--I found myself joining a bunch of Brits discussing Mr. Rooney's mishap in a BBC chat room. We bemoaned our bad luck, parsed England's chances of winning without him and disputed foot fractures. The English are not partial to spelling bees (we try not to turn everything into a competition, perhaps because of a habit of losing), but we do have 12-year-olds with SMS-esque abbreviations for metatarsal bones.

Of course, I don't really expect most Americans to give a pigskin about this Rooney bloke. Unless, that is, you work at Wal-Mart, Nike, Coca-Cola or EA Sports, which have forked out a collective $20 million to sponsor or feature him in ads.

Nike is certainly watching closely, as the player was trying one of its new soccer boots when he suffered the injury.

Called the Total 90 Supremacy, the boot has several innovative design features, supposedly concocted by Rooney himself, and is incredibly lightweight. Boots have been getting lighter for years, but with the media looking to parcel out blame for the U.K.'s misfortune, the flimsy nature of the new Nikes has been implicated in the case of the fractured foot.

The rest of America may wonder why they should care about the biggest competitive event on earth. Despite its enormous significance elsewhere in the world, soccer just doesn't cut it as a national sport here. It's for kids; it's for wimps. There isn't enough scoring. And, probably more significantly, there aren't enough natural game breaks for ads. I've even started arguing the case myself.

But there are signs that soccer is becoming a force here, too: The U.S. team enters the World Cup fifth in the global rankings and with a real chance of some success; Major League Soccer players like Landon Donovan are earning major league salaries ($1 million a year before sponsorships); eight soccer stadiums will be built here by 2008, including The Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., and Pizza Hut Park in Dallas; MLS attendance hit a record 2.9 million in 2005, and with 42 million Hispanics residents, exponential growth is possible.

Marketers and media owners are taking notice. Disney paid $100 million--two and a half times as much as the last deal--for the rights to broadcast the World Cup on ABC and ESPN. Univision paid $325 million for the Spanish rights. Adidas paid the MLS $150 million for a 10-year sponsorship deal, and earlier this year beverage giant Red Bull bought my local team--the MetroStars--and renamed them Red Bull New York, kitting them out with the Red Bull logo, Red Bull team colors and, to come soon, Red Bull Arena.

Sure, the NFL isn't quaking in its cleats, but soccer is clearly on the march.

This World Cup will be a sports phenomenon, with or without Wayne Rooney. It'll be a billion-dollar marketing phenomenon too, which sort of makes it your job to watch.

Jonah Bloom is editor of Advertising Age, where this column first appeared.

©2006 Crain Communications Inc.

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Hungry for goooals

Expats pine while rest of world indulges in Cup fever

By Miriam Kreinin Souccar
Published on May 22, 2006

In Brazil, major corporations will be shutting down their entire offices during the World Cup games next month. In England, banks such as HSBC will host lavish soccer parties for their clients with big-screen TVs, simulated penalty shot games, and half-time barbecues with open bars. In Italy, cities across the country will be setting up movie screens in piazzas, where hundreds will gather to cheer on their team.

Here in New York, Conroy Boxhill is planning to sneak alone into the conference room at his office to watch whatever games he possibly can.

"When it's time for the NCAA tournament or the NBA finals there are e-mails suggesting office pools or numerous watercooler conversations about the best players and likely winners," says Mr. Boxhill, a Jamaican native and account supervisor at Edelman public relations. "With just a few weeks to go, I have yet to hear one single person in this office of 350 people talk about the World Cup. It's depressing."

Nothing makes expats living in New York more homesick than the World Cup. For almost every other country in the world, the quadrennial tournament is more than the most important sporting event. It is an epidemic that sweeps over the nations, affecting everyone.

Fewer viewers

After growing up with that excitement, foreign-born soccer fans now have to deal with the fact that hardly anyone in the United States cares about the monthlong event. Many Americans don't even know it's going to take place. In 2002, an average of only 1.3 million people in the United States watched each match in the tournament, according to Nielsen Media Research. In contrast, the World Series garners an average of 20 million viewers for each game.

To get their football fix, many foreigners will resort to sneaking out of the office to watch the games or taking the days off altogether. Many of the games will take place during working hours, because of the time difference.

Some diehard fans are leaving the country--not to travel to Germany, where the tournament is this year--but to return to a place where the "beautiful game" matters.

"It's tough when you're over here and you don't get the thrill of the atmosphere," says Russell Haworth, a British expat and vice president of business development at Reuters. "In England, even in business meetings, you spend the first 15 minutes talking about the teams and who's betting on what."

Mr. Haworth has his own extensive World Cup plan in place. He intends to skip out on work each time England plays; if the team wins, he probably won't return to the office that day. He'll watch the rest of the games over the Internet.

He's also signed up for a Reuters.com service that will e-mail up-to-the-minute scores to his BlackBerry, so he can catch up when he's stuck in meetings. If England makes it to the quarterfinals, Mr. Haworth will take a few days off and hop on the first plane to his native country to join the cheering.

Marcelo Genzini, a Brazilian native and financial adviser at AXA Equitable, is ready for the Cup as well. He has already blocked off his schedule during Brazil's first three games so as not to book any meetings those days. He plans to watch the games at home with his wife and baby daughter.

Still, the event just won't be the same. Mr. Genzini's apartment building doesn't allow satellite dishes, so he can't subscribe to Globo, the Brazilian channel. That means he'll have to watch the games on Spanish or, heaven forbid, American TV, where the announcers aren't as passionate as the ones he is used to.

"I wanted to have the Brazilian announcer, because they have feelings when they speak about the game," he says.

Even the relatively few American fans feel isolated during the World Cup. Jay Palmer, vice president of sales at TSE Sports & Entertainment, says he takes daily abuse from his co-workers because of his love for the game.

"Everyone says they'll never watch the games, no matter what," says Mr. Palmer, who has been playing soccer since he was 5. "They make fun of me for playing and liking a sport that no one here likes."

Fed up, Mr. Palmer is going so far as to spend the entire month of the tournament in Europe. He will start out in Germany for two weeks, hosting clients at the games. Then he will take two weeks of vacation to travel to soccer-crazed countries such as Italy, just to soak up the atmosphere with other devotees.

Mr. Palmer and other fans remain hopeful that soccer will finally catch on in the United States. A few positive signs suggest that may be slowly happening.

Disney paid $100 million for the English-language rights to broadcast the World Cup on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, two and a half times the price of the last rights deal, according to Advertising Age. TSE Sports & Entertainment, which sells travel packages to special events, sold $2 million in packages for this year's World Cup, compared with none four years ago, when the games were held in Japan.

Outside pop culture

But the bulk of the World Cup tours were sold to corporations targeting the growing Hispanic market in the United States, Mr. Palmer concedes. Many doubt the world's most popular sport will ever seep into American popular culture.

"If the U.S. did actually win (the World Cup), everyone in the world would care, except the U.S.," sniffs Sam Parnia, a British expat and fellow in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Weill Cornell Medical Center, who will be in Europe for the entire competition. "I can't stand the lack of excitement and blah attitude in the U.S. about this event," he says.

©2006 Crain Communications Inc.

[QUINNY]

The non-acceptance of soccer by the U.S.A. acts as a neat metaphor for a much more serious American problem. Namely, its inability to deal with anything non-indigenous and the absolute smallness of the average American's mind. "If it ain't American, it ain't worth knowing about." Duh!!!

I personally couldn't give a fig about the World Cup or its outcome, but I'm willing to concede that the majority of guys in the rest of the world DO and therefore, despite my own thoughts about it, the World Cup is the biggest sporting event on the planet. It's way bigger than the Olympics and quite frankly, puts tiny domestic confrontations (like the Superbowl) way down the list.

The U.S.A. should be embracing it.....but they won't.

[Nano]

Well said, Q! Even if you look like a math professor in your pic! :)

The U.S. team do not qualify at this game (even when they hired Pelé, some 25 years ago, for that ill-fated star team named Cosmos). That's also part of the explanation.

dfc: just to give you an idea of what this event means down here. All Argentina's matches will be televised in free public air TV (thanx to a Government initiative) and during those matches, classes will be suspended in all schools in the country! (I don't find that eye-rolling face in the board)

[QUINNY]

Originally Posted by Nano

Well said, Q! Even if you look like a math professor in your pic! :)

Nano: I'll take that as a compliment and ask my maths professor friend if he thinks I look like him (or any of his colleagues).:p :p :p

[Nano]

The football craze is everywhere. Yesterday I saw in the news a pretty European lady which travelled to the german town where Brazil is training for the Cup: "oh, he's so sexy and he's the best player in the world" (she managed to get into the stadium and jump on the soccer star kissing him avidly).

Image of Ronaldinho:


:)

OK, in Argentina team we have "sex-symbols" too:


Carlitos Tévez

:)

[Marcio**]

Hey, Nano, Crespo - probably the best Argentina's player - believes in England team.
http://www.theallineed.com/news/0511/13024010.htm

[DiscoMan]

I like soccer. My son played in three local soccer leagues as a boy. It's a fast game, takes skill and timing and can be a little "rough and tumble" occasionally. But when compared to American FOOTBALL! It's a pussy's game...

Carlitos Tevez looks like a very nice young man...who's watching in abject terror as the 4700 lbs of the Dallas Cowboys offensive line is getting ready to run him down and crush him into smithereens...ROTFLMAO

[QUINNY]

Originally Posted by DiscoMan

I like soccer. My son played in three local soccer leagues as a boy. It's a fast game, takes skill and timing and can be a little "rough and tumble" occasionally. But when compared to American FOOTBALL! It's a pussy's game...

When compared to Rugby Union, they both pale into insignificance, although American Football was once a very dangerous game and there used to be a lot more blood and gore on the Socer field.