Reuters Soccer Blog

Villar success highlights wider malaise

Paraguay goalkeeper Justo Villar could win the vote as player of the Copa America – emulating Oliver Kahn, the Germany keeper named top player at the 2002 World Cup.

If, or when, this happens, regardless of their merits as players, the vote could highlight a deficiency in the football played at the tournament.

Villar captains a team who reached Sunday’s final against Uruguay without winning any of their five matches, even if they scored five goals in three group games.

Paraguay coach Gerardo Martino said in an interview with Reuters in Asuncion in April he felt his team were shaking off the shackles of a tradition of defensive football with strength in the air to achieve a new balance.

Martino hoped to see Paraguay take another step forward from their good World Cup last year and they were 3-1 up against Venezuela going into the 90th minute in their final group match only to end up drawing 3-3 and scraping through as the second of two best third-placed teams.

Having won penalty shootouts against Brazil and Venezuela to reach the final, they could lift the trophy by the same means if Villar and his defence continue with their heroics during 120 minutes and the players follow up with more perfect kicking from the spot.

Not because of this directly, the South American Football Confederation is considering an expansion of the tournament to include six guest teams instead of just two from the Concacaf region of North and Central America and the Caribbean.

Japan set new benchmark for Asia with women’s World Cup triumph

It was case of “anything you can do, I can do better” for Japan’s women footballers as they defied the odds to lift the World Cup just six months after the country’s men had captured a record fourth Asian title.

When Saki Kumagai slotted home the winning penalty in a dramatic shootout victory over the United States in Frankfurt on Sunday, Japan completed an astonishing run that overshadowed any achievement by an Asian soccer team at any level.

“There is no happier president than a World Cup winner,” Japan Football Association (JFA) president Junji Ogura said after the side had rallied twice to force extra time and a penalty shootout, which they won 3-1.

“The players demonstrated the wonders of Japanese women.”

With their women crowned world champions and the “Blue Samurai” currently on top in Asia, envious eyes will be cast at Japan from their continental rivals to far beyond.

South Korea put Asian soccer firmly on the map with their remarkable run to the 2002 World Cup semi-finals as tournament co-hosts with Japan.

However, despite success at Asian club level, South Korea have flattered to deceive since, while the domestic K-League has been tainted by an embarrassing match-fixing scandal.

A game of three thirds in Qatar?

FIFA could allow matches at the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar to be played over three 30-minute periods if temperatures in the stadiums became dangerously high for the players, a senior stadium engineer told delegates at a conference on Wednesday.

Michael Beavon, a director of Arup Associates who helped to develop the zero-carbon solar technology that will cool the 12 stadiums, told delegates at the Qatar Infrastructure Conference in London that the air-cooling would maintain a comfortable temperature of around 24 degrees Celsius in the stadiums.

“There is a moderate risk of heat injury to the players between 24C-29C but if you go above that you have high and extreme risk of injury.

“The one thing FIFA do say, although it is for guidance, is if it’s 32C they will stop a match and play three 30-minute thirds rather than two 45-minute halves.

“The reason would be to re-hydrate the players before they could carry on playing. That of course would play havoc with TV schedules and those kind of things.

“The commitment from Qatar was to provide conditions in the moderate band, so that matches would go ahead and be played as normal. Matches have to be played at an acceptable temperature and in safety so that FIFA do not intervene.”

A FIFA spokesman told Reuters: “This possibility has not been discussed. In any case, this would require a change in the Laws of the Game, and therefore would have to be analysed and approved by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in the first place.”

That winnin’ feelin’

Lionel Messi says he feels he will one day win the World Cup.

“I more than anyone want to win something with the national team and I’m going to,” Messi told Ole sports daily in an interview published on the opening day of the Copa America.

“A World Cup?” the reporter asked.

“That’s how it will be. That moment will come and I know I’ll enjoy it. I don’t know why, but something tells me I’ll do it.”

Messi, as the world’s best player, has every right to feel it coming.

He has said he wants to win the Copa America with Argentina and that playing at home is a good opportunity. The next goal would be the World Cup in Brazil in 2014.

And why not? Unless Brazil build a team capable of ending 64 years of hurt since the 1950 World Cup they lost to Uruguay in the deciding match at the Maracana.

Bad Spanish blood boils over into Champions League “Clasico”

In our latest Monday post on Spanish soccer, Iain Rogers in Barcelona muses on the ill-tempered Champions League clash between arch rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid and the possible repercussions for the Spanish national team and looks at the unrivalled brilliance of World Player of the Year Lionel Messi.

Bad Spanish blood boils over into Champions League “Clasico”

Last week’s Champions League semi-final first leg between Real Madrid and Barcelona made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The bad blood that had boiled up between the arch rivals before the game at the Bernabeu, watched by millions around the world, spilled over into some ugly scenes on the pitch.

Tension had been building between the Spanish giants after last month’s 1-1 La Liga draw in Madrid and the King’s Cup final in Valencia, which Real won 1-0 in dramatic style thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo’s header in extra time.

Real’s outspoken coach Jose Mourinho upped the ante before the Champions League game by baiting his Barca counterpart Pep Guardiola, who abandoned his customary restraint and lashed back at the Portuguese at his own pre-match news conference.

European soccer’s governing body UEFA opened probes into both clubs the day after the match, which included a scuffle at halftime that resulted in a red card for Barca reserve goalkeeper Jose Manuel Pinto, the sending off of Real’s Pepe for a wild tackle on Daniel Alves and Mourinho being dismissed from the bench for protesting the decision.

Will God be Brazilian in 2014?

“God is Brazilian” is a favourite phrase for Brazilians when fortune smiles on their country.

Former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva famously uttered it after massive new oil reserves were discovered off the coast in 2007.

Often, it is used with a dose of irony after something turns out right even when circumstances suggested it would or should not — such as a game where Brazil find themselves on the back foot for 89 minutes and then sneak a late winner.

The phrase would also fit perfectly if, having dallied and left preparations to the last possible moment, Brazil pulled off a successful and seamless World Cup in 2014.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter highlighted concerns when he said: “It’s tomorrow, the Brazilians think its just the day after tomorrow.”

He added that Brazil were further behind than predecessors South Africa had been three years before the 2010 tournament.

His comments clearly tweaked Brazilian nerves and drew an angry response from Ricardo Teixeira, who is both head of the Brazilian organising committee and the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF).

Farewell Ronaldo, one of the game’s greats

Ronaldo has just made the official announcement that he is to retire with immediate effect, bringing to an end one of the great soccer stories.

The 34-year-old Brazilian announced his decision at a news conference in Sao Paulo a few moments ago, after concluding that the battle for fitness — always a bruising struggle — was one he could no longer win.

I suspect a few people will react by shrugging their shoulders and saying they didn’t even know he was still playing but the end of the road for such a great player deserves marking properly, so here’s an appreciation by our own Brian Homewood, for many years our correpondent in Rio de Janeiro.

By Brian Homewood

Three times World Player of the Year, twice World Cup winner and overall topscorer in the tournament’s history – not a bad record for a player who suffered three serious knee injuries and was constantly fighting weight problems.

Ronaldo was often mocked for his extra kilos and not  even the country’s president could resist the temptation to have a dig.

During a video conference with the team on the eve of the 2006 World Cup, after Ronaldo had weighed in at 95 kilos for the training camp, then President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva asked: “And what about Ronaldo, is he fat or isn’t he?”

Winter World Cup looks more and more a reality

What Sepp Blatter wants he usually gets. So when the FIFA president said that the Qatari World Cup finals will “probably” be in the winter because of the summer heat you can safely begin preparations now for your trip to the Middle East in January 2022.

The decision to move the date of the first World Cup in the Middle East, which first needs to be ratified by FIFA’s executive committee, is going to have huge ramifications on club and international soccer up to five years before the 2022 tournament as well as on other sports.

The highly complex and crowded sporting calendar is designed to involve as little overlap between the major sports so that each receive the maximum exposure, and thus sponsorship, from audiences around the globe.

We wait to hear what the International Olympic Committee (IOC) make of the prospect of the World Cup being switched to the same time as their 2022 Winter Olympics.

Blatter’s strongest hint that the tournament would be moved was coupled with a dig at the IOC when he said that they ran their finances like a housewife and claimed they had no transparency.

So far the criticism towards FIFA for deciding to take the World Cup to the tiny gas-rich Gulf country has been almost as fierce as the heat experienced here in the summer months of June and July.

Blatter, though, continues to ride out the storm and he saw his chances of a fourth term as FIFA boss boosted at the AFC Congress last week when his ally Prince Ali of Jordan was voted on to the FIFA ExCo at the expense of his long term critic Chung Mong-joon, which damaged both the South Korean’s and AFC president Mohammed Bin Hammam’s chances of a potential bid against Blatter later this year.

In FIFA, U.S. are no superpower

So it will be Qatar and not the United States who host the 2022 World Cup finals – a decision from FIFA’s executive committee that left many fans in the U.S. angry, dismayed and a little confused.

The machinations of FIFA decision making are far from transparent as U.S Soccer chief Sunil Gulati implicitly acknowledged when he said that the vote wasn’t just about the merits of the bid: “It’s politics, it’s friendships and relationships, it’s alliances, it’s tactics.”

He is undoubtedly right and when it came to all those elements the U.S. was found lacking. Lacking by 14 votes to 8 in the final round of balloting with Qatar after lacking when it came to matching the Arab state’s glitzy presentation, impressive public relations and international endorsements.

The American fans may be convinced that their bid was the best – but it was all about the preferences of the 22 voters in Zurich and they had other ideas.

Thoughts of American optimists quickly turned to the future and Gulati was asked about the possibility of bidding for 2026 – but one can’t help but think that Mexico, who stood down for their U.S this time, are now regretting that decision and will not be so forthcoming next time.

Who knows when the U.S. will get another chance to host soccer’s premier event?

There will be a lot of talk in the next few days and weeks about how the game will continue to grow in North America despite this setback and only a fool would think that failure to secure 2022 will mean that Major League Soccer disappears or that the U.S. national team stops qualifying for World Cups.

FIFA’s World Cup decision day — live

We’ll be following all the presentations and the vote itself as FIFA’s executive committee decides on the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Spain/Portugal, Russia, England and Netherlands/Belgium are the four rival bids for 2018, while Australia, South Korea, Qatar, United States and Japan battle it out for 2022, with the vote to come on Thursday.

Follow it all here live…