The World Cup left Kobe a week ago, after Brazil’s defeat of Belgium, and even the vendors of replica Japan shirts have disappeared back to whatever they were doing before. But the giant billboard high on the side of the eight-storey Sogo department store still looks down on one of the city’s busiest crossings, reminding workers and shoppers of the existence of Zinedine Zidane, Alessandro del Piero and David Beckham.
Zidane, like Del Piero and Beckham, is back in Europe now, but he remains hard to miss in Japan. As they slow to a halt in the station at Yokohama, the bullet trains seem to be pausing to give passengers a better look at the Frenchman, who can be seen eating pot noodles on another poster, this one the size of half a football pitch.
It was supposed to be a World Cup of superstars. That is usually the case, since the images of superstars shift products, be they takkies, replica shirts or pot noodles. But at this World Cup the superstars have gone missing. The roll-call of the disappeared includes Luis Figo, Thierry Henry, Francesco Totti, Michael Owen, Gabriel Batistuta, Raul and El Hadji Diouf.
This time round the stars are not the individuals but the teams. The representatives of South Korea, above all, attract the world’s attention not for the contribution of their individuals but for the devastating way they swarm over their opponents like a bunch of killer ants whose nest has been disturbed; you crush a few of them, yet even more seem to appear.
Guus Hiddink’s squad contains several outstanding individuals, notably Hong Myung-bo, the veteran captain, and Choi Tae-uk, the hard-running No 8, but it was as a collective that they swept aside Poland, Portugal, Italy and Spain. The decisive events in their matches are shaped by the force of the unit. In that sense, it seems a little surprising that they come from below the line separating South Korea, capitalism’s most recent success story, from the collectivised North.
Turkey are another team without stars, although Hakan Sukur was behaving like one earlier in the tournament when he complained about Senol Gunes’s preference for leaving him up front as a lone striker. Again, however, the good work of Hasan Sas, Hakan Unsal, Yildiray Basturk and the others has been done as part of a group to which each member contributes equally. Gunes’s team may not shift truckloads of shoes, but their success has put to shame several teams with a much more inflated sense of self-importance.
Is this the way football is going? Was the unexpected progress of the hard-working but anonymous United States team a harbinger of change? Are we about to see a move away from matches (and champion-ships) swung by the brilliance of individuals towards a return to football’s origins as a team game?
There are reasons to think that is so, at least at the highest level. Footballers are so much fitter and better prepared today that they can cover ground with astonishing speed, giving themselves more opportunities to recover possession. So the pitch is a more crowded place than it was 20 years ago, and virtuoso performers are allowed less space and time in which to shine.
At this tournament, anyone in receipt of the ball in any area of the pitch is going to be closed down straight away. His value will be measured in the effectiveness of his resistance to being harried and muscled and sometimes even wrestled off the ball. Only in unusual circumstances –such as those surrounding England’s goalless draw with Nigeria — will a player ever have time to dwell on the ball and to carry it for a few seconds at his leisure, as Jay-Jay Okocha did in that purposeful stalemate.
Severe overcrowding on the pitch is also the root cause of all the flailing arms and shirt-tugging that we have witnessed this month. With the exception of Rivaldo’s continued attempts to deceive referees, this is the worst aspect of the tournament, but only some very radical reforming suggestion would stand a chance of making a significant difference.
There is a long list of great figures from the history of football who would be unlikely to make an impact on the present-day game, even if their own fitness could be increased to match current levels. Gianni Rivera, Wim van Hanegem, Paul Gascoigne and possibly even Michel Platini would find themselves overwhelmed. The way things look in Korea and Japan, it has become a game for athletes who are players rather than vice versa.
It is also more than ever a game for strikers. The eclipse of the old- fashioned playmaker means that the man who actually scores the goals will be in receipt of even more acclaim, since his achievement is identifiable and measurable. Hence the abrupt arrival of Miroslav Klose into the spotlight.
Brazil, as usual, are the potential antidote to this growing cult of the collective. No side is more likely to win games because of the contribution of an individual — not just Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho, but also defenders such as Edmilson and Junior, who have both scored outstanding goals.
Having beaten Turkey on Wednesday, the final will give Brazil a chance to re-establish the ability of the individual player to determine a big game. If they fail, football is likely to gain a new dimension only at the expense of the one that laid the foundations of its vast new popularity.