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One of my best football memories is the World Cup 1994 quarter final between Sweden and Romania. Sweden had gone 1-0 up late in the second half, after an unbelievably clever free kick and goal by Tomas Brolin,  but Romania had equalised with just two minutes to go, taking the match to extra time. In extra time, Romania went 2-1 up early on and we thought it was all over until Kenneth Andersson managed to equalise in the dying stages of the match.

The winner would be decided through penalties.

It was an incredible experience. After Håkan Mild missed Sweden’s first penalty, the goal keeper, Thomas Ravelli pulled off two amazing saves to stop Petrescu and Belodedici from scoring and Sweden went on to meet Brazil in the semi finals. My brother and I went out in the garden to play football even though it was 12 o’clock at night and dark. I still get tears in my eyes watching this.

But why am I telling you this in a blog post about North Korea v Ivory Coast?

Well, one of the commentators during the match was none other than Sven-Göran Eriksson, on holiday from managing Sampdoria in the Italian Serie A. For Swedish football fans, his slow, measured, and heavily accented (yes, he has a very strong regional accent in Swedish too) voice will forever be connected with that amazing summer when Sweden came third in the World Cup.

Since then a lot has happened. As you know, Eriksson went on to take England to two World Cup quarter finals, before short stints at Manchester City, Mexico and Notts County. And now, of course, he is managing the Ivory Coast.

Out of the six African teams taking part in this year’s World Cup, only one – Algeria – is managed by an African, 64-year old Rabah Saadane. The rest – two Swedes, a Frenchman, a Serb and a Brazilian – are all from outside the continent. Neither of the two Swedes – Lagerbäck for Nigeria and Eriksson for Ivory Coast – have any previous Africa experience, and were both parachuted in at the last minute to lead the teams in the World Cup.

But why this obsession with white, foreign coaches? The New York Times quotes academic Peter Alegi:

“I think a lot of it has to do with the colonial history of Africa, the sort of idea that you need white supervision for black achievement.”

Outspoken former Cameroonian goalkeeper Jo Jo Bell agrees with this sentiment:

“I understand it perfectly. In Africa, there is a fear of progress. Africa has not dealt with colonialism.”

But surely this cannot be the whole story? Colonialism is often blamed for Africa’s problems, and while undoubtedly true on some levels, there are other factors too.

One such problem is the lack of investment and interest in domestic leagues in many African countries. The poor quality and lack of money forces players like Didier Drogba and Michael Essien to leave for Europe at an early age in order to develop their skills and make a living. Steve Bloomfield, author of Africa United – how football explains Africa, which WDM is currently giving away as part of our membership offer, compares Africa with Brazil, which also has high levels of poverty, but still manages to do well at World Cups:

“It’s one thing to play barefoot in the street when you’re six years old and develop your skills that way, but to actually become a proper footballer you need good coaches and facilities. Brazil is in parts very poor but it also has pockets of enormous wealth and a very strong footballing tradition, so there are numerous centres of excellence if you’re a talented 12- or 13-year-old. Africa doesn’t have that.”

In a sense this is a problem that is seen all over the world, from Scotland to South Africa. Domestic club competitions struggle to compete with television coverage of the Premier League or the Champions league, most of the money goes to a few clubs and players chasing that money leave their home club early – often too early to develop properly.

But that doesn’t fully explain the lack of African managers at this World Cup. This year has seen a return of several well-known former players, for example Maradona as the Argentine coach and Dunga as manager of Brazil. But where are the African stars from a few years back? Where are Lucas Radebe, George Weah or Roger Milla, for example?

Former Nigerian player Jay Jay Okocha says that African football needs to “go back to the drawing board” and focus on planning:

“In Africa I don’t think we plan enough. We always wait for an event and then get ourselves ready for just that event.”

Let’s hope that that planning includes giving players like him a chance to swap their successful playing careers for a career on the sidelines.

And the match? Well, Ivory Coast need to beat North Korea 8-0 while Portugal loses 2-0 to Brazil to qualify, making it very unlikely Ivory Coast will join Ghana as the only other African team in the second round.

Let’s hope for an African comeback – with local managers on the sidelines – in four years’ time

Posted in: Cote d'Ivoire, North Korea, North Korea-Ivory Coast

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.

I was surprised to find that that South Korea is ranked only 29th out of the 32 countries by ‘Who should I cheer for’ below even England and only two places above the US! The issue South Korea really loses out in the ranking is the amount it spends on the military (as well as its high carbon dioxide emissions). South Korea spends on weapons 2.6 times the amount that Argentina does and emits 9.7 tons of  carbon dioxide per person compared to just the 3.7 tons per person which Argentina emits.

With a nuclear armed North Korea as a neighbour, perhaps this high military spending is understandable? After all it is easy to put the blame on North Korea with the many horrendous human rights abuses committed by the fascist regime of Kim Jong-il. But to understand how we ended up in this precarious situation of a Korea split in to two heavily militarised states; which are still officially at war it is necessary to understand the history of the division. Korea was liberated in 1945 from Japanese rule, in the south of the country by the US and in the north by the USSR.

It is often held that the Korean War was started by the war mongering North Korea simply invading the South. This ignores the complexities of the issue. In his insightful book, Rogue State, William Blum highlights that under US occupation their progressive wartime allies (who were extremely popular) were violently suppressed and the US instead supported the conservatives who had collaborated with the Japanese. This made unification of Korea near impossible and essentially made the Korean War, in which 2.5 million civilians were murdered, inevitable.

The war would see many war crimes and not just ones committed by the North, which had a policy of assassinating all intelligencia located in the South. Just as horrific was the South’s mass killing of anyone suspected of being a communist sympathiser which led to up to 100,000 bodies being dumped in trenches, mines and the sea. The US too committed many war crimes. For example, concerned that there might be some northern soldiers mixed in with group of 400 civilians they decided to machine gun all of the unarmed civilians and massacred hundreds more by happily blowing up bridges packed full of fleeing refugees. Not only did the US repression cause the Korean War and cost nearly four and a half million people their lives, it also led to a long line of corrupt, reactionary, and ruthless dictatorships in South Korea.

The blame must be layed squarely at the door of the US, UK and other NATO countries, but given the memory of the dead and the many fears for the future; I will find it hard to cheer for anyone during the games which either of the Koreas are playing in.

Posted in: Argentina, Matches, South Korea, Teams

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.

The image of a heartbroken Luís Figo walking back to the dressing rooms, past a team of jubilant, victorious Greeks after the final whistle of Euro 2004 had blown is still one that I recall vividly whenever I think of the Greek football team. The thought of a stadium full of dejected Portuguese supporters, looking on as their was defeated in front of a home audience, even as confetti rained down on a team whose odds of winning had been pegged at 150-1 leaves me with mixed feelings.

While I am neutral towards Portugal, I do have a lot of respect for Figo; not only for his illustrious footballing career, but also his work with charities such as Stop TB, Soccer Aid and UNICEF. It was difficult to watch his career ending on a note of such abject defeat at the hands of the Greeks (Figo had announced that the tournament would be his last, before his departure from international football). However, with the odds stacked up so against them, it was impossible not to marvel at the fighting spirit and resilience that had brought the underdog Greek team to stage their first ever victory in an international tournament, and what has deemed one of “international football’s greatest surprises”.

My feelings towards Greece’s opponents in their opening match this World Cup, South Korea, are similarly undecided, due to a long-standing grudge. Having got through to the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup, my hopes were firmly pinned on Spain to win the tournament. I watched in horror as they lost the penalty shootout to South Korea, not quite believing the result when the final whistle blew. Despite all the accusations that home advantage and referee bias had played a part in bringing the Taeguk Warriors, as they are known, to a fourth place in the tournament, one had to acknowledge that it was a pretty monumental feat for them to have accomplished. A team that had been defeated 0-9 and 0-7 in their first World Cup participation in 1954, before failing to qualify for the tournament for the next 32 years, the South Koreans truly proved to be the admirable underdogs at the 2002 World Cup that they co-hosted with Japan.

Given my ambivalence towards both the teams playing in the first match of the day, who then will I be cheering for? Both Greece and Korea are relative underdogs, made more so by the fact that they share a group with the formidable Argentina. The decision is further complicated by the fact that despite the vastly different cultures and values of both countries, their score sheets based on criteria such as income per capita, carbon emissions, life expectancy and female leadership, the countries are well matched. The only major disparity lies in the fact that Greece has one of the highest rates of expenditure on military spending amongst all competing countries, incredibly spending almost twice what South Korea – technically still at war – does.

On the other hand, South Korea’s conciliatory sporting attitude towards their North Korean neighbours despite the recent sinking of a South Korean warship and North Korea’s subsequent violation of the pact of non-aggression is quite admirable – they have not only submitted a bid to jointly host the 2022 World Cup with North Korea, and remain open to co-hosting the event, they also continue to send food and economic aid to the north despite rising tensions, a commendable stance.

Placed 47th in the football rankings as opposed to 13th-place Greece, South Korea are the clear underdogs. However, it is impossible to predict the dynamics of the clash, as the two countries have never gone up against one another before. While I will be cheering for the plucky Taeguk warriors, I’m sure that both nations are bound to put up a valiant fight, making for an unpredictable and exciting start to the second day of the World Cup.

Posted in: Greece, South Korea, South Korea-Greece

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.

Group G

Brazil

Brazil’s major worry coming into this tournament is, almost unbelievably, a lack of creativity. Without an in-form superstar in their attacking line-up, a weight of expectation is on the shoulders of Kaka, who has spent much of the last 12 months alternating between injured and out of sorts. With Julio Cesar, Lucio and Maicon in their back five, it is defensive solidity that is their strength this time around, much to coach Dunga’s delight presumably.

Despite 7 years of the left-wing Lula administration and social programmes such as the Bolsa Família aimed at eradicating hunger, Brazil nonetheless enter the World Cup firmly in mid-table in the Who Should I Cheer For league, thanks in part to a persistently high level of income inequality.

Ivory Coast

Like Didier Drogba’s arm, the Ivory Coast’s health system appears to be comprehensively broken, with maternal mortality figures through the roof at 944 per 100,000 births. Despite this, low national income and extremely low carbon emissions lead Cote d’Ivoire into 4th place in the Who Should I Cheer For standings.

Drogba, despite his infuriating on-field personality, is actually one of football’s most prominent champions of the poor. He is a UNDP goodwill ambassador, and once donated his £3m fee from a sponsorship deal to the construction of a hospital in his hometown Abidjan. Nonetheless, about a quarter of the population live below the $1.25 a day international poverty line, and in a group of death, and potentially without their inspirational captain, they may not gain much succour from this tournament.

North Korea

Well, what can you say really? Even the most avid of contrarians will struggle to get behind a team representing one of the most repressive regimes in the world. While their audacious attempt to sidestep FIFA’s silly mandatory three goalkeepers rule was both amusing and admirable, it is nonetheless indicative of the disconnect between incredibly strict rules at home and a cavalier disregard for international standards. With approximately 900 people per 100,000 held in prisons or labour camps, I dread to imagine the consequences of defying any of the Supreme Leader’s goalkeeping-related regulations back in Pyongyang.

Portugal

Portugal’s main failing during their recent ‘golden generation’ years has been a lack of killer instinct, which belies their curiously high military spending. Similarly, their often generous defending fails to reflect their significantly less generous 0.21% of GDP given in international aid, placing them comprehensively to the bottom of our standings, if not the FIFA world rankings.

Nonetheless, their appetite for a major trophy reflects the 6% of the country that remain chronically hungry, and with the poor form of the team under Carlos Quieroz mirroring an economy described by the Economist as “the new sick man of Europe”, riddled by both debt and corruption scandals, it’s not looking great for either.

Group H

Chile

Chile’s hosting of the World Cup in 1962 is a case in point for the often vexed intersection between football and poverty. The 1960 earthquake had devastated the country, yet Chile vowed to press on: “Because we have nothing, we want to do everything.” While it is arguable that resources for rebuilding may have been better directed elsewhere, one should not underestimate the effects of football on national morale, and a successful World Cup, coupled with an impressive third place for the hosts had a deep restorative effect on the country.

Despite sitting at a lowly 24th in the most supportable country stakes (largely due to somewhat extravagant military spending), after another enormous earthquake this February, the damage for which has been estimated at around 10-15% of GDP, Chile may be a great deal more sympathetic than it would appear.

This is without even mentioning their cavalier attacking football, typified by the free-scoring Humberto Suazo, that brought them to second place behind Brazil in the qualifiers, and may well see them get out of the group.

Honduras

After scraping through to the World Cup from a poor CONCACAF qualifying tournament, the Hondurans appear set to be the most whippingest of whipping boys, despite the presence of Premier League talents Maynor Figueroa and Wilson Palacios. A desperately poor country, the Hondurans’ delight last year at qualifying for their first World Cup since they took a point off Spain in 1982 occurred during a constitutional crisis that resulted in left-leaning president Manuel Zelaya being removed and exiled in a military coup d’état. The subsequent election has been condemned as illegitimate, with most of Latin America and much of the rest of the world refusing to recognise the election of Porfirio Sosa.

2009 also saw a period where freedom of expression, movement and habeus corpus were all suspended, somewhat belying their position at number 3 in the Who Should I Cheer For? standings, albeit perfectly encapsulating the tension between whether you would be cheering for the people, or the State.

Spain

Having posted the best inter-World Cup set of results of any international team ever, it would seem that Spain are deserved favourites. With a superabundance of attacking talent at their disposal, a world class goalkeeper in Casillas, and a surprisingly resilient defence that benefits from the opposition almost never having the ball, surely only injuries can dent Spain’s chances of finally joining the elite of World Cup winning nations. Football being football however, come the latter stages (and Spain have a relatively tough route to the final) nothing is a certainty.

Nonetheless, one can but applaud the quality of football they play, and, for a European country, a fairly respectable 8th place in our standings (thanks to low military spending, and an incredibly high rate of women in parliament) mean that Spain are a very attractive proposition for the neutral indeed.

Switzerland

Low income inequality, low military spending (surprise) and relatively low carbon emissions mean the Swiss occupy a reasonable 10th position in our standings.

While legendary coach Ottmar Hitzfeld has offered them new attacking impetus, for a famously neutral country, their team is remarkably poor at attracting neutrals of the footballing variety. Specifically, that 10th place fails to take into account their 0-0 draw with the Ukraine in the last 16 of World Cup 2006, which, though it has yet to be put to a vote at the UN, can only be described as a crime against humanity.

After a controversial plebiscite banning the construction of minarets was passed last year, liberals, Muslims and fans of enjoyable football alike may find it difficult to forgive and forget this summer.

Posted in: Brazil, Chile, Cote d'Ivoire, Group previews, Honduras, North Korea, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland

Views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Development Movement.