World Cup 2010 Blog: “The Ballon d’Or & The World Cup” plus 2 more |  |
- The Ballon d’Or & The World Cup
- World Cup 2010, March Madness Style
- David Beckham Out of World Cup 2010: Will You Miss Him?
| The Ballon d’Or & The World Cup Posted: 15 Mar 2010 06:10 PM PDT
Though Gonzalo Higuain may protest, two names dominated the scoreboards this weekend: Lionel Messi & Wayne Rooney. Why? It’s simple: both are currently in blistering form, scoring goals at dizzying pace (Wayne a brace, Leo a hat trick) and thus breaking away from the pack in the dash (slow, consequential dash) for the ESM European Golden Shoe. Standings (games remaining in parenthesis): 1. Wayne Rooney 25 x 2.0 = 50 (8) While mere goals don’t mean one nab the Ballon d’Or, they’re both two of the best in the world going into the final stretches of the domestic and continental seasons. They both also seem to have this aura about them, an inexplicable cloud of inevitable success no matter the opposition, and that does make you a Ballon d’Or candidate. Most years. Which means normally we’d be now entering the stage of the season where Ballon d’Or whispers start to gain legitimacy. The first round Champions League knockouts are half over, Man Utd are through while Barcelona have a slight advantage going into tomorrow’s Nou Camp return leg, and this is when Ballon d’Or winners are made – some almost entirely (see: Kaka, 2007). Yet this is a World Cup year, and if recent history tells us anything, you can almost forget the rest of the year. The final World Cup spot of the winners’ team tells the story starting from the last page: ‘06: Cannavaro – Winner — ‘94: Stoichkov – 4th* (England was not involved with World Cup 1978 for sporting reasons.) The reason for the break in 1995 is a Ballon d’Or rule change which made non-Europeans eligible for the award, changing the entire scope of the honor, in the process also earning it a whole new sense of legitimacy. Thus the asterisk. The asterisk indicates a World Cup won by a non-European side, meaning once in the last 10 World Cups has a European World Cup winner not featured the Ballon d’Or winner. And since the award was expanded in 1995, every Ballon d’Or winner in a World Cup year came from the winner. Which isn’t, of course, to discredit any of their awards, as leading your country to a World Cup is eclipsed by absolutely nothing in the sport, thus should be – and was – rewarded as such. But it means if you’re a professional footballer and individual awards are your bag, it may behoove you to put it on cruise control ’til June 10th or so. And if you happen to be Lionel Messi or Wayne Rooney (hi, love your work), all you need to do to cap a brilliant season with football’s highest individual honor is shepherd your team to football’s highest team honor. No pressure.
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| World Cup 2010, March Madness Style Posted: 15 Mar 2010 09:50 AM PDT
The World Cup isn’t quite organized like this, but March Madness seems like a perfect excuse to pretend it was. So I’ve ranked all the qualified World Cup teams #1 to #32, based on the March 3rd, 2010 FIFA World Ranking. Below you’ll find those seedings, followed by what the World Cup 2010 March Madness style bracket would look like. #1 Spain
Tough draw for hosts South Africa, who face #2 seed Brazil in the opening round. Don’t fancy North Korea’s chances vs Spain either. A victory for the #32 seed there would be quite the upset. Some other intriguing first round games like Australia vs Mexico, USA vs Nigeria and Ghana vs Serbia too, but – just like in the real World Cup – the big games will come in the second round. If I’m reading that bracket correctly then we could be seeing England vs Germany, Brazil vs USA and France vs Portugal in “Sweet 16″. Which reminds me. One caveat for this World Cup 2010 March Madness bracket: I think I’d want to change some of the names as we progress through the knockouts. I’m thinking we ditch “Final Four” in favour of something like “Awesome Foursome”. How do you see this bracket playing out? - For those interested in actual World Cup bracketology, we have World Cup 2010 wall charts available for download here.
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| David Beckham Out of World Cup 2010: Will You Miss Him? Posted: 15 Mar 2010 07:42 AM PDT
So now we face the prospect of a Beckham-less World Cup in South Africa. My question to you: Is this a positive or negative? Will you miss D-Becks this summer? On one hand, the public love Beckham the über-celebrity. He shows up and people go crazy, and it seems a shame that the many many Beckham fans either living in or travelling to South Africa will be denied a chance of seeing the man in action. Certainly Sepp Blatter will miss him. On the other hand you could argue that Beckham the player is an all but spent force and that his presence in South Africa would be more about celebrity than soccer. As with any celebrity, there are also people out there who just flat our don’t like old Goldenballs and so don’t enjoy the attention he receives. I can definitely see how serious football fans might have been annoyed during World Cup 2010 with the multiple camera angles of Beckham sitting on the England bench. I’m asking this question because I’m struggling to answer it myself. As an England fan I’m not too worried about Beckham’s absence because he’s no longer a key player. It’s not 2002 anymore. As a blogger I’m slightly disappointed because Beckham equals interest, and so his absence potentially means a few less World Cup viewers during June and July 2010 and probably a few less World Cup Blog readers. It’s very easy to be dismissive of David Beckham. I know this because I’ve done so in the past. But whatever you think of Beckham the player or Beckham the man, I’d argue that he’s one of the biggest names ever to play this sport and so it would have been fitting see him participate in the big show that is the World Cup one last time. What do you say? Will you miss Beckham at World Cup 2010 or not?
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