First round over...

One of the great World Cup traditions has been alive and healthy in South Africa, that of cheap punters and hacks bandying about definitive statements and superlatives after only a couple of matches have been played. But now the first round is over, 48 of the 63 games have been played and the initial 32 teams have been reduced to 16, what impressions have the round left us?

First of all, the vuvuzelas are awful. All the pre-tournament criticism, particularly from the Spanish, appeared to be the typical lack of sensitivity towards different cultures; after all, is the CAN not the most colourful and noisiest tournament in the world? It soon became apparent, however, that those horns ruin the atmosphere. They drown out the organic texture of crowd noise with the effect that the game just seems boring. Towards the end of the game, when lungs are fading, the noise simply consists of a series of insolent, raucous blasts. In conclusion, it is as if the whole tournament has been played at Millwall.

As useless as the drone of the horns are the pundits’ predictions. Of course only one African team has gone through – clichés about “the African tournament” do nothing to hide the fact that again the Eurocentric hacks believe African teams are good because each one has a couple of people playing in the Premier League. They choose to ignore the nine mediocre footballers who play alongside the stars.

Of course the so-called big European teams have struggled. France have been in disarray for years; the only reason Domenech has survived so long as coach is because the team fluked its way to the final in the last World Cup. Of course England are struggling – the majority of English footballers are average at best, in spite of the belief among English journalists that the team should win every major trophy. Obviously Italy went out – they are old and predictable, and if they get just one referee who understands how the Italians play they lose the one crutch that has held them up so many times before. Obviously Spain are struggling too – they are perennial bottlers and they only won the last EC because Holland, Russia, Germany, the Czech Republic and Turkey all decided to stop playing before the end. Mourinho showed how simple it can be to tackle Xavi, Iniesta doesn’t have the mentality of Beckenbauer or Butcher when it comes to knocks and Casillas lost his mojo a couple of seasons back. Pujol is old and unfit, Torres is petulant and unreliable and Ramos has no right to be anywhere near a national team. In the end of course they cheated to go through, with Torres tripping himself up and Piqué behaving as disgracefully as only a Spanish footballer can.

Of course Japan and Chile and all the other “little teams” have done well – just because they don’t feature in the Premier League’s Big Four doesn’t mean to say they are rubbish. Have any of those hacks looked at the statistics for each country? Have any of the cheap punters considered anything other than pub quiz clichés? Evidently not.

Of course the statistics leave one thing clear – no team from outside Europe or South America has ever contested a final. Brazil have been in seven finals, winning five times. Germany have been in seven finals too, winning three of them. Argentina have been in four finals, winning twice. (Italy have played in six finals, winning four of them, but two of those wins were way back in the 1930s, and anyway, they entered this tournament in chaos.) The winner will almost certainly come from South America, with the possible exception of Germany.

As for the next round…Uruguay, USA, Holland, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Portugal and…England…