Reuters Soccer Blog

Soccer City a white elephant? 90,000 say otherwise

Since July’s World Cup final, which attracted an official attendance of 84 490, the crowds at Johannesburg’s Soccer City have been getting bigger and bigger.

On Saturday the attendance record was beaten again when South Africa hosted its League Cup final at the venue.

Conveniently the match was between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates, the two best supported teams in the country whose intense rivalry has been enhanced by several additional, and unexpected, cup meetings in the recent months.

Over 90,000 braved traffic problems to turn up and see the Chiefs triumph 3-0, trumping the 88,791 that watched the August rugby test when New Zealand’s All Blacks beat the Springbok in a Tri-Nations match at the gigantic stadium.

The fact rugby previously held the attendance record at Soccer City has motivated football officials to try to ensure they reclaim it as their own given the venue was extensively renovated for the World Cup and is long acknowledged as the cathedral of football in the country.

Tickets on Saturday cost R60 and R40, a snip in comparison to what was paid for the same seats at the World Cup in mid-year. (R10 = approx 1 Euro)

But South African fans have been moaning since the World Cup when the domestic league hiked up admission prices 100 percent from R20 to R40 per Premier League match.

World Cup final live — Spain 1 Dutch 0 – how it happened

We’ve followed every World Cup match live here and it’s now time for the final — the Netherlands v Spain. Join us here for commentary, discussion of the game and the best photos in the world.

Uruguay’s performance not to be sneered at

Uruguay’s achievement in reaching the World Cup semi-finals for the first time in 40 years was greeted by a fair amount of sneering in some sections of the media.

The Luis Suarez handball incident — the Uruguay striker stopped a goal-bound shot on the line in the last minute of extra-time in their quarter-final against Ghana who missed the resulting penalty — which helped them into the last four led to suggestions that they should feel embarrassed or ashamed to be there.

After they lost 3-2 to Netherlands in Tuesday’s semi-final, Britain’s Daily Mail was still harking on about it, describing the Uruguayans as, among other things, “devious.”

It is as if no other player and or no other team would have done the same as Suarez, whose split section reaction was nothing more than instinctive.

As coach Oscar Tabarez pointed out, Suarez was sent off and Ghana were awarded a penalty, as stipulated by the rules. “We couldn’t predict that Ghana were going to miss the penalty,” he said.

Unfortunately, the handball incident fits neatly with that old stereotype of cheating South Americans.

For the record, Uruguay were far from being among the dirtiest teams at the World Cup. They received no yellow cards at all in their wins over South Africa and Mexico and only one yellow against South Korea. (England failed to get through a game without a yellow card). In no game, did they receive more than three yellows.

Losing team’s national stock markets at risk

By Ross Kerber

Two national market indexes that may not shine on Monday are those of Spain and the Netherlands, whose soccer teams are scheduled to meet in the World Cup’s championship game on Sunday.

Whichever country’s team loses can expect a drag on its market index of 49 basis points, said Wharton business school professor Alex Edmans. That is the amount that national stock indexes tend to be held back on average on the day after their country is eliminated from the World Cup, according to a paper he published in 2007 with two co-authors, Diego Garcia of the University of North Carolina and Oyvind Norli of the Norwegian School of Management.

In an interview with Reuters, Edmans said his predictions seem to be playing out this year as well, based at least on anecdotal observations. For instance, as an English citizen, Edmans noted ruefully that the FTSE 100 index fell in late June as England’s team played below expectations before being tossed out of the tournament by Germany on June 27 by a score of 4-1.

“As an England fan and an English shareholder I’ve been suffering both ways!” Edmans said.

Edmans’ paper made a splash when an early version was circulated before the 2006 World Cup tournament. It is part of a growing body of academic literature in the field of ‘behavioral economics”. Begun partly in reaction to the extremely theoretical research that had dominated much academic discussion, its practitioners aim for a greater understanding of how human psychology affects their economic decisions.

In the soccer case, for instance, one of Edmans’ conclusions is that sour investor sentiment tied to a team’s misfortune spills over into general negativity about their economic outlook.

Klose closes in on a record he already shares

A glance at the stats shows Miroslav Klose has one more chance to equal or better the all-time record for World Cup goals when Germany play the third-place game against Uruguay but the truth is he has a strong claim to be joint top-scorer already.

According to FIFA, the record holder, out on his own, is the Brazilian striker Ronaldo, with 15 goals.

That, I’m afraid, is open to considerable doubt. A close look at the video of one of the goals he “scored” against Costa Rica in 2002 makes a persuasive case for it being an own-goal from Luis Marin.

One can only speculate as to why Ronaldo, at the time the most marketable footballer on the planet, would have been credited with a goal that helped him overtake Gerd Mueller, the West German striker who scored 14.

Klose’s four goals at this tournament so far have brought him level with Mueller — and with Ronaldo, if only FIFA would reconsider.

“I can tell you there is no chance of FIFA changing the way a goal was credited eight years ago,” FIFA spokesman Nicolas Maingot said at a media briefing on Thursday.

Klose could make it a moot point on Saturday if he bags a couple of goals against Uruguay, or returns in four years’ time to re-open his account, but even if he fails to score it would be hard to argue with him if he described himself as the World Cup’s joint top marksman already.

Community blog: Life without ’2010′

2010 is almost over – the 2010 Soccer World Cup, that is. In South Africa, we simply referred to the greatest sporting event to hit our shores as 2010. For years since it was first announced that South Africa would organise the 2010 Soccer World Cup, the country has been collectively, and sometimes not, looking forward to the day when the world would see what the rainbow nation is about.

The task ahead was difficult because South Africa had to build from scratch and also improve existing structures. The threat of the “Plan B” was often bandied about at will when it seemed as though we were not living up to our promises.

In Parliament the debates raged on about the wisdom of hosting a World Cup in a country that has enormous economic disparities. One school of thought felt the money could be used to build more schools, houses, hospitals and be invested in closing down the gap between the rich and the poor. Another school of thought believed the country needed a moral booster and unifier in a space where the racial tensions and the divisions in society were growing wider by the day.

The day finally came and we opened our arms to the world. This World Cup was not without its challenges, but there was plenty of good that also came with it.

It will be all over on Sunday night. When we wake up on Monday, July 12, 2010 will be over. The hangover from the last month will still be fresh on our national psyche, the visitors will be leaving our shores, and it will be all over. No more 2010. How are we to cope? How do we begin to live without 2010?

Sorry Germany, the oracle octopus has spoken

There are only three things that are certain in life — death, taxes and the World Cup predictions of a British-born octopus in western Germany.

That being the case, there’s hardly any point in playing Wednesday’s semi-final between Germany and Spain — the Spanish have got it won.

Paul the Octopus has spoken, eating his food from the container with the Spanish flag at Sea Life and thus sealing Germany’s fate.

Paul has a perfect World Cup record — correctly predicting the results of all five of Germany’s matches so far, even the shock defeat against Serbia, and scoring exactly the same number of goals as Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney into the bargain.

German hopes are dangling by two tiny threads.

Firstly, while Paul has a perfect record here, he did get one match wrong at Euro 2008, predicting a German win over Spain in the final. Secondly, coach Joachim Loew has been persuaded not to wash his famous blue jumper before the end of the World Cup.

The baby blue cashmere number has become a good luck symbol, which leaves us with an intriguing match in store for Wednesday — the octopus versus the goat-hair.

Uruguayan passion for soccer helps make friends in distant places

Uruguay’s run to the last four of the World Cup is something of a fairytale, despite the Luis Suarez handball incident – the tiny nation with a glorious soccer history, their squad led by a scholarly coach and a dashing striker, battling on to write a new chapter as its bigger, more illustrious neighbours fall by the wayside.

I followed Uruguay for a while in this World Cup campaign but my link with them goes back a few years. I thought it worth sharing because if soccer is a sport that unites the world, the Uruguayans have played their part beyond the spotlight.

In 1986, Uruguay had an ugly reputation. In the World Cup match against Scotland in Mexico, which I watched in a north London pub, Jose Batista hacked down Gordon Strachan in the first minute to earn a place in the record books as the tournament’s fastest sending off. A violent game followed ending in a 0-0 draw which saw Scotland out and Uruguay through.

Several years later, I was based in Bangkok for Reuters and spent much of my time in Cambodia, a country in a desperate state, reeling from decades of war.

Among those taking part in a huge international peacekeeping force were the armed forces of Uruguay and Chile and one day in 1992, I found myself cruising up the Mekong River with a Uruguayan Marine patrol, heading to their base in Khmer Rouge-controlled territory. The soldiers cradled their rifles and sucked on matte tea pipes. When we got there, the flags of Uruguay, Chile and the United Nations flew over the jungle encampment.

In the middle, the soldiers had set up a soccer pitch and cries of “gola” rang out as people kicked and chased the ball around. The troops played each other and invited local kids to join in. In a remote , desolate part of the world, the sessions were a highlight of the day.

The Latinos and the Cambodians had bonded in the most joyous way. Words like “gola” and “penal” entered the Khmer language in those parts. It was a sweet thing.

Just how important is the World Cup?

 No other sporting event has the same impact as the World Cup. Entire countries grind to a halt to watch games, no more so than Brazil where shopping and banking hours are completely altered throughout the tournament month and many just take an official month-long holiday. Politicians jump on the bandwagon, making a big thing of how much they are supporting the team, and launch government inquiries when their teams fail.

Entire reputations can be shattered as Juan Sebastian Veron discovered in 2002, when he was vilified for Argentina’s first-round exit, and Ronaldo experienced four years later when some saw as excess kilos around his waist became an affair of state and were blamed for Brazil’s quarter-final elimination.

Paraguay’s Oscar Cardozo was inconsolable after missing a penalty against Spain on Saturday and the floods of tears in the Brazil dressing-room team after quarter-final defeat by Netherlands said everything about how much defeat means to them.

Like many of his colleagues, Brazil coach Dunga had spent four years planning and preparing for South Africa. All that work was undone in 20 minutes when the Dutch scored twice and Brazil had Felipe Melo – who is almost certain to have his career permanently tarnished – sent off.

Former Brazil striker Tostao, who played alongside Pele in the 1970 team, believes that we may be attaching too much importance to a one-month long tournament.

“In spite of the importance of a World Cup for the players and for the national teams, it doesn’t make good sense to define concepts and plan the future because of a tournament which lasts only seven matches, four of which are sudden death,” he wrote in the Folha de Sao Paulo.

“The best team is the one which was the best this month. If they held another World Cup one month later, the results would be different.

Maradona made mistakes but remains fans’ favourite

It is 20 years since their last semi-final, 24 since their second and last title and three successive World Cups in which Argentina have been hailed as playing the best football with some of the planet’s most talented players yet fallen short.

Post-mortems abound in the Argentine media and in coffee bar discussions throughout Buenos Aires about the reasons for continued failure.

Diego Maradona and his beaten team were given a rapturous welcome back to Buenos Aires by as crowd of about 20,000 the day after their quarter-final pasting by Germany.

Fans, who liked the team’s style, are largely behind Maradona and his players despite serious errors in their most decisive game at the South Africa finals. They want him to stay on.

The wait is likely to be long for Maradona to make a decision. The Argentine Football Association (AFA) is unlikely to decide for him. No one, least of all AFA president Julio Grondona who appointed him in 2008, wants to go down as the man who sacked Maradona, the country’s greatest footballing icon.

The 2010 finals were seen as Argentina’s chance at last to lift a third title given the harmony in the Maradona camp and an attack that was the envy of the world.

But the frailties of the qualifiers had not been overcome after all, merely disguised. When it came to the crunch Maradona, who appeared to be making a good job of learning his trade as coach as he went along, did not make the right choices.