Confederations Cup
Posted by Charles | Filed under Sports
Well, one post in Swedish, I suppose this should be in English then…
For the first time in my life I’ve been following the Confederations Cup. The only reason I knew of it was thanks to the game Football/Championship Manager. The championship as far as it’s gone now is so entertaining that it will share the priority that the World Cup and European Cup have in my football calendar. For those of you who have no clue what it is, it’s essentially the champions from each continent (North+Central American, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia) playing in a pre-world cup championship. Of course, the current World Cup champions (Italy) and the host nation (South Africa) are also included in the line-up.
The result is a good mix of different styles of football, and varying levels of skill and finesse. At the one extreme, we have Spain, current European Champions, and the best team in the Cup in my opinion. On the other, we have New Zealand, who are so embarrassingly terrible that I wonder whether Australasia will continue to have a guaranteed spot in the Confederations Cup… The small number of participating teams makes for a quick tournament, with only two groups. This year it seems they groups have been divided in a shockingly lopsided fashion. One group contains Spain, Iraq, South Africa and New Zealand. All but Spain are out of their depth in international football, and the battle lies between South Africa and Iraq to see which is the less bad team, so to speak. The other group consists of Brazil, Italy, USA and Egypt. I expected the outcome here to be a forgone conclusion, but have been delightfully surprised by the performance of Egypt (current African Champions), after a close 3-4 loss against Brazil, and what looks like a 1-0 win over Italy. If South Africa don’t make it to the semi’s, which seems rather decided, Egypt will be my team of favour, without a doubt!
Watching the coverage on Swedish TV, the discussion has become rather focused on the horns used by the audience to make a heck of a noise. I believe they call the horn a “vuvuzela”. It seems this is considered disturbing by a large portion of the audience. Swedish TV did a poll, and close to 75% of those who answered felt the vuvuzela should be banned from the stadium. Even Sepp Blatter (FIFA President) tackled questions on the vuvuzela at a press conference. Sepp Blatter said that in coming to Africa, one must accept the difference in culture; that Africa is about noise, chaos, rhythm, dancing and feeling, or something along those lines. I couldn’t agree more. Seriously, if you want quiet games so you can hear the commentators (who are incredibly annoying, but that’s for another post) then you seem to lack the passion for football and lively stadiums which I consider an integral part of the sport. Does it frustrate you when supporters sing songs in Europe, bang drums and blow whistles in South America, etc?? This is part of the football culture in South Africa, and this is what lifts the roof and spirits of the players. As the commentators are full of sh*t anyway, you can just mute your TV rather than demand that an entire nation, if not continent, adhere to your sensitive ideas of what is right and wrong. Or you can just turn off your TV and SHUT UP!
