The general conditions for winning the Soccer World Cup seem to be these: a population of at least 50-million; a group of talented players; being hosts, obviously (OK, let’s be realistic — South Africa is not going to win the tournament).
But Africans should light up at the fact that the trophy rarely leaves the continent on which the event is hosted; the only occasions on which it has done so were Sweden (1958) and Korea/Japan (2002). Both tournaments were won by Brazil, who have won a record five World Cups.
To these proven prerequisites, let’s add the contentious, rather unscientific fact that a country united, with all its governance and democracy credentials in place, has a chance of doing well at this tournament. Using this rather dubious criterion, I will speculate that North Korea won’t win the World Cup or progress far. Neither will France, Côte d’Ivoire, Honduras, Greece, Algeria and several other “unstable” states.
The North Koreans won’t go far in the World Cup because they come from a repressive state. Neither will Les Bleus, not because this is the most underwhelming team in more than a decade, but because, according to an April poll, 35% of French people were not enamoured of Nicolas Sarkozy and his party. Honduras, ruled by Porfirio Lobo, installed after Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a coup, will bomb out of the Cup soon. Greece, masters of anti-football, won’t win the trophy because of the turbulence that resulted from the country’s financial crisis.
Nobody is expecting the talented Nigerians, whose president Umaru Yar’Adua passed away last month and which is trying to calm the restive Niger Delta, to do well; neither will star-studded Côte d’Ivoire, enjoying an uneasy peace after a factional war, go beyond the quarterfinals.
South Africa has distinct advantages; we are hosting and our population is around 50-million (the only two countries with smaller populations that have won the World Cup are Uruguay and Argentina). Also, the team is svelte after the trimming of excess baggage wheeled in by Benni McCarthy. But the unease caused by the fights among the country’s alliance partners doesn’t bode well for the fortunes of Bafana Bafana. The left and the right don’t seem to agree and one wonders how this will affect the fortunes of the team.
One doesn’t expect North Korea, surprise quarterfinalists of the 1966 World Cup, to go beyond their group, which includes Brazil, Portugal and Côte d’Ivoire. On paper Korea is the weakest team, but recent tensions brought about by its alleged sinking of a South Korean warship don’t help its prospects. But, then again, when the country defeated Italy and almost overwhelmed a Eusébio-led Portugal in 1966, they had just emerged from the Korean War.
The United States has, instinctively, sprung to South Korea’s defence. Led by Barack Obama, who is fighting a domestic challenge posed by the Tea Party movement, the US has an uphill task when it faces England, Algeria and Slovenia.
This Brazilian team is the weakest in a long time. At past World Cups Brazil had world beaters: the original Ronaldo, Cafu and Rivaldo in 1998 and Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos in 2002. This Seleção Brasileira is composed of anonymous journeymen players. Kaka, once the best player in the world, has been a peripheral figure at Real Madrid.
But Brazil, glowing from its newfound power as a real emerging power in the “third” world and not just a supplier of raw materials to China, could steal the Cup.
Brazil’s neighbours and rivals, Argentina, coached by Diego Maradona, is the best team on paper. It features Leo Messi, described by Arsenal coach Arsène Wenger as a “Playstation footballer”; Maradona’s son-in-law, Sergio Aguerro; and workaholic striker Carlos Tevez. Argentina, now led by a centre-left government headed by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is enjoying a stability it hasn’t experienced for some time.
Yet Argentina, almost refuting this thesis, seems to thrive and wilt, respectively, under inauspicious conditions. The first World Cup they won in 1978 was at the height of the dirty war waged against leftists, students and unionists by the military junta then in power.
When Argentina went to the finals in 2002 with star players like Juan Sebastian Veron, Hernan Crespo and Javier Zanetti, it was expected they would lift the morale of the nation amid the financial crisis. They couldn’t get beyond the first round.
So which team in Africa, on the basis of democratic credentials, could go far? The Black Stars from Ghana, perhaps. Ghana could be the most functional democracy in Africa, a country in which a ruling party can join the ranks of the opposition. The same can’t be said about Algeria, trying to recover from a civil war in the 1990s but now contending with Islamists with links to al-Qaeda. We won’t say much about Cameroon, lorded over by Paul Biya since 1982.
One hopes Ghana and South Africa, the most stable of the countries representing this continent, make us proud. Their victories can’t be seized on by self-serving dictatorships, as happened with Argentina’s 1978 triumph.