One of the most important observations of this World Cup is the role of Europe in it. It is less critical from one side, and more important from other side.
When the first round finished, it was the worst ever mondial for European countries in the modern history fo the World Cup.
1986 was the first tournament that had 16 teams to qualify to the second round, Europe always dominated the lucky teams. In 2010, Europe had the worst mondial:
# of European teams qualified to the second round:
1986: 10 teams
1990: 10 teams
1994: 10 teams
1998: 10 teams
2002: 9 teams
2006: 10 teams
2010: 6 teams
Not only that, we seen some remarkable results from Afro-Asian teams beating European sides:
South Africa France 2-1
S Korea Greece 2-0
Japan Denmark 3-1
In some groups, a European team was able only to beat a European team, and nobody else outside Europe:
- Serbia could not beat either Ghana or Australia and only managed to beat Germany.
- Slovakia too could not either of New Zealand or Paraguay, but managed to beat Italy
- Switzerland as well could not beat either of Honduras or Chile but managed to beat Spain
The final result was that European teams played 29 games against non-Euopeant teams in the first round:
they won 11, tied in 10 and lost 8. That is a very low record for Europe.
But in the second round, European teams never been defeated by non-European side.
The draw had a verdict that the 6 European teams will play each others, they must be down to 3.
People started to talk about a semi-final without any European team.
At the end of the Mondial, the top three places were reserved only for Europe.
It was the first time ever that a European team win the cup outside their continent.
And the first time since 1958-1962 that a continenet win the cup twice in a row.
So, what happened?
- I think Europe is dominating more and more the global football. And this does not only include the European sides, but the Champion League role in the World Cup. CL became a university for footballers to get trained in the best performance and most sever pressure and conditions. This goes for all teams around the world.
- From one side, smaller teams from the world are improving. I think this Mondial was the tightest in its result. There was one bizzare result only (7-0). Other than that, it was reasonable results all over.
Asian teams in particular showed big improvement.
Two african sides were very competitive (Ghana and Cot Devoir)
Teams like New Zealand and Honduras showed big improvement. Even biggest teams in the world need a real big effort to beat them.
- That made it very difficult for European teams to find its way to the second round.
- From the other side, we seen slow down of Africa, and the two big sides in SA: Brazil and Argentina.
- I don't think that Europe had a big jump as much as Brazil and Argentina were not present at their best (especially Argentina).
Only future will tell us if the world of football will be dominated by European sides, or it was just an exceptional year?
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