Reuters Soccer Blog
World Soccer views and news
World Cup will survive without Messi and Ronaldo
“Ronaldo and Messi could miss the World Cup!” screamed the headlines after Portugal drew 1-1 in Denmark and Argentina were humiliated 3-1 at home to Brazil.
It sounds awful, doesn’t it? How will we ever manage without Cristiano and Leo, two of the poster boys for the elite, Masters of the Universe level of footballer we’ve come to know and love?
Leaving aside for a minute the fact that Argentina almost certainly will qualify, and Portugal are by no means out if it either, let’s get one thing clear: the World Cup will get along fine without them or any other individual players, should their countries get left behind.
Comparatively minor tournaments, such as soccer at the Olympics and regional championships outside Europe and South America, need glamour players from the big leagues to attract worldwide interest from media and sponsors. Domestic leagues need them to do overseas rights deals, the Champions League needs them to keep the money flowing but the World Cup is in a different category altogether.
The World Cup has always been bigger than any one player, or indeed any combination of them. It has consistently been a tournament that has created new stars rather than one that has simply allowed established ones to shine.
It’s striking, in fact, how many players have come into recent tournaments lavished with praise, and adorning the advertising posters of the boot manufacturers, only to find themselves upstaged.
Take France in 1998. I don’t remember anyone going to that tournament with the express intention of seeing Zinedine Zidane. He was certainly much admired, but he was not in the same league as Ronaldo, the FIFA World Player of the Year for 1997, and we all remember how the tournament turned out.
Game, set and match: Real 2 Barça 6
If Chelsea were cautious in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, what will they do after seeing this display?
Spain’s sports journalists will be doing their best to outdo one another in superlatives after a performance that ranks right up there with the 5-0 Barça managed at the Bernabeu with Johan Cruyff in their team in 1974.
If that Barça team was largely about one man, the current vintage has quite extraordinary talent running all the way through it. From Puyol and Piqué at the back, to Xavi and Iniesta in central midfield to the attacking trio of Henry, Messi and Eto’o this is quite some collective.
We’ll have more on this tomorrow, but for now let’s take a quick look at the early reaction from Spain:
Marca: A humiliation to decide the league. In the big games, the big names should show up. In the Barça team today virtually all of them did: Henry, Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Piqué, Puyol… Samuel Etoo was the only one missing.
As: They say you have to learn to walk before you can run. While Barcelona go sprinting towards their date with history, Madrid have barely taken their first steps.
Sport: Madrid came down like a house of cards… What you saw today in the Bernabeu was a true reflection of the enormous gulf that today separates one of these teams from the other. There was no comparison.
Do you know in which London hotel FC Barcelona is going to be to play vs Chelsea for UEFA Champions League semifinals?
How can the author say that s koreas 2002 world cup run was good. If anything it highlighted what was wrong with football today. And that is a crooked referee can decide the winner. Actually one of the referees involved in one of koreas games was later caught fixing matches in some south american league. And then i have to say that yes the world cup is bigger than the players but a person who has basic knowledge of football knows that half the countries in the world cup dont belong in that competition and they are blocking other better teams from qualifying. I mean can you honestly say with a straight face that the concacaf region deserves 3.5 spots(3 with 1 going to playoff)? Practically every team from the uefa region who makes it to the playoffs (not auto qualification) would wipe the floor with any of the 3 qualified teams from the concacaf. This is coming from a canadian by the way..Now now please nobody direct me to the world team rankings cos USA for example who beats guatemala 36 times a year gets a great ranking because of consistent qualification to the world cup (vs worst teams in the world with populations of like 5000… seriously!). I mean if belgium who is an average team had to play the lineup of games the USA had to play they would be in the top 10 in the world. Its just plain stupidity really. Its just a way to promote the sport in the biggest money spending region in the world. Cash cow…the only reason.