It's Not Football - It's Personal

With Ghana being the last African team with any hope of advancing to the quarter finals, they stepped onto the pitch with an enormous amount of expectation laden on their shoulders and delivered a fairy tale result.

Football is arguably the only truly international team sport so when the World Cup rolls around every four years, it is literally anyone’s game. When Americans contemplate their chances of winning the World Cup, they genuinely believe they can do it. When they crash out, their fair-weather fans are bitter.

Take a look at some of the post match comments I found on Yahoo Sports

‘I believe Ghana is only known for it's internet scamming and soccer.’

‘We lost to a country where a basket of fruit is the national hat?’

‘The slaves finally get their revenge’

‘It's nice to see that a secondary sport (areana football is bigger than soccer in usa) that americans play in we can still compete on the world stage. Grats on barely beating us on something we barely put any of our talent pool in. In the end we lost a soccer game, but we are still the only superpower in the world’.

‘USA is much better than Ghana in everything! What is an African country known for besides poverty, starvation and world leader in spreading deadly diseases. I wouldn't step foot onto AFrica. Enjoy it because this is the only victory Ghana will have against a western nation. Look at the World Cup 2010.......so much disorganization, hardly any people at games when non-African country plays because its a dirt poor country who can't afford tickets. And stadiums are in really poor conditions. Without other industrialized countries giving billions$ and billions$ in aid, Africa would cease to exist as a continent!! So be thankful!’

What I find particularly amusing about these responses is that they are fuelled solely from nationalism – not from any understanding whatsoever of the beautiful game. The US, sadly, are on their way home, but they can hold their heads high in the knowledge that their sports minister hadn’t prebooked economy seats for their flight home.

Ghana on the other hand should be relieved that George W Bush III is not the current American president. In the words of a fellow tweeter (@abigvictory) ‘ If Bush was still in office, we'd invade Ghana now.’

Country or Self - Which Ranks Higher?

"I told them they could no longer be heroes for our children. They have destroyed the dreams of their countrymen, their friends and supporters – Roselyn Bachelot, French Sports Minister."

The French football team have provided us with unprecedented World Cup entertainment since the day they qualified, but reports of dissension in the camp have been of particular interest as they bring into question the national pride of the French players.

Anelka was reportedly sent back to France after insulting coach Raymond Domanech in the locker room after their loss to Mexico. This was followed by reports that the French team boycotted training the following day and that France team director Jean-Louis Valentin resigned.

Reports. Reports. Reports. Any athlete worth their salt will tell you that what happens in the locker room – stays in the locker room. End of.

As the exchange between Anelka and Domanech appears to be a leak anyway, the scandal is already overhyped. But let’s just say that for arguments sake the French team are justified in their actions – at what stage is it ok for a player to put himself before his country.

I’m guessing that had Adebayor known the impact of the decision to travel via bus instead of plane during the African Cup of Nations, he would have opted to travel by plane. My question is, had he done this, would he have been described as being disloyal to his country?

Unfortunately, we will never know. Even more unfortunately, three people paid for this decision with their lives.

Admittedly, this is an extreme example, but it does bring into question whether or not a player should sacrifice personal pride for national pride.

In my opinion, this particular argument on national pride extends beyond the players to the person that leaked details of the altercation, the French media’s reports of the mutiny, the French Football federation’s handling of the scandal and Domenech’s inability to effectively manage his squad.

How Advertising Ruined the World Cup

No major sports tournament is complete without unforgettable advertising. As the World Cup occurs every four years it is inevitable that advertisers will want to surpass their efforts from previous tournaments and World Cup 2010 is no exception.

Kehinde Wiley partnered up with PUMA to create a jersey for the teams and create a piece of art that depicted Samuel Eto’o, Emmanuel Eboue and John Mensah standing in unity. The artwork is phenomenal and this partnership arguably kicked off the 2010 World Cup love marks campaigns.

After the PUMA launch other advertisers began to release their contributions to the World Cup build up but none had the impact of the ‘Write the Future’ Nike ad... Ribéry, Cannavaro, Rooney, Drogba, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Kobe Bryant and Roger Federer. The advert is literally and figuratively iconic.

But could it have jinxed the very stars it featured?

Eto’o has been on the receiving end of criticism from Roger Milla
John Mensah is nowhere to be seen
Ribéry plays for France so there isn’t much that he can do now anyway
Cannavaro has had better matches
Rooney’s contribution has been insipid
Drogba is nursing a dodgy elbow
Ronaldinho didn’t make the cut
Ronaldo’s performance can be described as lacklustre at best

The only person that seems to have escaped the advertising jinx is Kobe Bryant.

I don’t want to see any British athletes featured in advertising in the run up to the 2012 Olympics.

World Cup Eye Candy

The World Cup is a spectacle for many reasons, but the amount of eye candy that has been running across our TV screens cannot be ignored.

When I first constructed a Top 6 list I had a few challenges to overcome...

1) I had lost Ballack and Beckham to injury
2) I wanted to try and limit my choices to one player per team
3) I wanted to highlight talent from teams that don’t usually receive much attention

With those factors in mind, my Top 6 list included Tim Cahill, Nicholas Anelka, Danny Shittu, Fabio Cannavaro, Jermain Defoe and Didier Zokora.

Now that the World Cup has kicked off and I’m getting a much better view of the talent my current list is as follows:


Kevin Prince-Boateng – Ghana
Age: 23
Caps: 2
Did you see the Ghana v Serbia match?







Danny Shittu - Nigeria
Age: 29
Caps: 15
His swag earns him a place on this list







Tim Cahill – Australia
Age: 30
Caps: 38
Can’t put my finger on but there’s something about this lad from down under. I’m a sucker for an Aussie accent anyway.


Nicholas Anelka - France
Age: 31
Caps: 64
The PUMA advert says it all really.






Fabio Canavarro - Italy

Age: 36
Caps: 132
If you saw him in the Nike advert I wouldn’t need to justify why he is on this list.