It took four long years of waiting for the World Cup to grip the world’s attention yet again, but how quickly those sixty four games got behind us!
If you perceived the World Cup to be a great football festival spiced up by the background sounds of the vuvuzelas, North Korea’s team will very strongly differ. Humiliated on the pitch during a 7:0 drubbing by Portugal, North Korea’s players and manager were as punishment forced onto stage for a six-hour barrage of criticism from 400 government officials, students, and journalists. The manager was also forced to become a construction worker where there are fears for his safety.
As if we needed any more reminding that in football winning is at least as important fun, high profile coaches from Brazil, Argentina and several others were also forced to resign following failure to meet their nations’ expectations.
How quickly the turn from hero to villain? Just look at Italy’s Marcello Lippi who was hailed as a genius after World Cup 2006 and then did not have a clue about what he was doing with his team selection for world cup 2010. His country man Fabio Capello was being hailed as the master to turn England’s golden generation into world beaters following their flawless qualifying campaign, only to survive the sack by the skin of his teeth, after one of the country’s worst ever world cups.
Great jubilation may have followed Spain’s triumph, Germany’s rampage, South Africa’s organization, Ghana’s run and Forlan’s genius, but this success is now shelved together with the rest of world cup history. More critical is that those who left with disappointment, like Asamoah Gyan who missed a last minute penalty that would have made Ghana Africa’s most successful world cup nation, put the tournament behind them and continue enjoying the beautiful game.
As the World of football awaits Brazil 2014, we now leave the nail biting to the Football Association administrators and the endangered species of managers to figure out a winning formula for their nations.
For the rest of the football world, it is time for us to turn our attention to the leagues in which the World’s best players feature. England’s Premier League had the greatest representation in the world cup with 108 players. I will thus dedicate my ink to analyzing the teams and with you predict the likely winners from this year’s English Premier League.
Do not miss the curtain raiser between the two most successful EPL teams of the past decade as they show down in the Community Shield tomorrow, Sunday. Staring next weekend, visit http://englishpremierleaguepredictions.blogspot.com/ and let’s break down the potential champion, champions’ league qualifiers, Europa league qualifiers and relegation candidates.
