by Nick Holt
Abedi Pele (Ghana): one of the first African greats, skilful and quick
George Weah (Liberia): great target man, superb in the air and strong as an ox
Omissions: There are other good American goalkeepers, Kasey Keller and Tony Meola and Tim Howard. Mark Schwarzer was a candidate and Mark Bosnich before his problems. Another Cameroonian, Jo Jo Bell, was in the same class as N’Kono. Some good forwards didn’t make it; the subtle Kanu (Nigeria), and the explosive Tony Yeboah (Ghana), America’s Clint Dempsey, a tough competitor, and the gifted but over-rated Hugo Sánchez. Salif Keita, the seventies Mali striker who played in France, was a real talent, and was considered, as was the Australian striker Mark Viduka.
Likely first XI:
Friedel
Al-Khilaiwi Radebe Hong Geremi
Cha Bum-kun Touré Essien Abdullah
Weah Eto’o
8.2 COACHES
Poor sides don’t win stuff even with good coaches, but a good coach can make a huge difference to a decent team. Picking a guy who can do well at international level is very different from picking a guy week in week out at a club. Picking a coach is similar; it isn’t necessarily the best club coaches who do the international stuff – often they don’t want it. Alex Ferguson had a stint as Scotland manager after the death of Jock Stein and didn’t much enjoy it, and Arsène Wenger has always looked quizzical when asked if he would be interested, as if it were a ridiculous question to ask a sane man.
It isn’t enough to just use the tactics that brought success in league football to the international stage – ask Graham Taylor, or maybe Giovanni Trappatoni; ten league titles with five clubs in four countries but no trophies on the international stage and was helpless as Italy lost to Korea. International management involves achieving the kind of work ethic and tactical sureness without the luxury of spending four or five days a week drumming your ideas into your players. The international manager has the luxury of choosing the best available players to fit into his scheme, but he must be certain the scheme suits their talents, or be able to spot where a particular player doesn’t fit and another man, not so effective at club level, fits the required template better.
An international manager also has to be able to deal with an abundance of big egos within a national squad. The players will all want to be the big cheese they are at their club, and will not want to work hard to learn a slightly different role or adapt their style of play. For years both Sven and Fabio Capello struggled to accommodate Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard within the same team, but Roy Hodgson has done so. Admittedly he has had help; the system England have played recently has become so widespread that the players have accepted it as a norm and have played within that structure at club level, and that system allows Gerrard to drop a little further back and Lampard to push on, which suits both players. However, for years they both seemed to want to play the same role, yet neither of England’s foreign coaches had the courage to either impose their will or to drop one of England’s big stars. With proper management of big players, England could/would have gone further than the quarter-finals in 2006.
Old pros would tell you that you need to play the international game to understand it but that’s tosh. Luiz Felipe Scolari didn’t have international experience, nor did Guus Hiddink, and Argentina’s brilliant coach Menotti had a mere two caps. It’s no more a prerequisite than having league experience to get on in the Premier League – ask Wenger or Mourinho.
National FAs have two choices. They can go for a homer, a coach of the same nationality as the player. All very well if like Italy you have a strong league full of mostly Italian managers. Not so clever if you are the Ivory Coast, barely have a league at all in which to develop managers and have all your squad playing abroad. So then you opt for the professional coach, preferably one with lots of international experience; there have been a number of very clever specialist international coaches over the years.
Bora Milutinovic, a Serbian coach, was in charge of a different team at every World Cup from 1986 to 2002: Mexico, Costa Rica, United States (for their own tournament, they wanted a guy who would get the best out of them), Nigeria and China. Carlos Alberto Parreira coached Kuwait to the Finals in 1982, the Emirates in 1990, Brazil in 1994 (when they won – but he still got stick for being too defensive), Saudi Arabia in 1998, Brazil again in 2006 and South Africa in 2010, equalling Milo’s record.
Frenchman Henri Michel nearly matched them. He was manager of his own country in 1986, Cameroon (French speaking) in 1994, Morocco (also French speaking) in 1998 and Ivory Coast (correctly Cote d’Ivoire, so French speaking) in 2006. Michel only missed out on joining the other two because he was rather cruelly sacked by (French-speaking) Tunisia after getting them to the 2002 Finals.
Roy Hodgson was one of these peripatetic coaches before settling back in England with Fulham. He managed Switzerland at the 1994 World Cup, and has also managed the Emirates and Finland. Dear old Sven turned up at the 2010 Finals with a new team, Nigeria.
Here are the World Cup-winning coaches:
Year
Winners
Runners-up
1930
Francisco Olazar & Juan José Tramutola (Uruguay)
Alberto Suppici (Argentina)
1934
Vittorio Pozzo (Italy)
Karel Petru (Czecholslovakia)
1938
Vittorio Pozzo (Italy)
Alfred Schaffer (Hungary)
1950
Juan Lopez Fontana (Uruguay)
Flávio Costa (Brazil)
1954
Sepp Herberger (West Germany)
Gusztáv Sebes (Hungary)
1958
Vicente Feola (Brazil)
George Raynor* (England for Sweden)
1962
Aymoré Moreira (Brazil)
Rudolf Vytlacil (Czechoslovakia)
1966
Alf Ramsey (England)
Helmut Schön (West Germany)
1970
Mário Zagallo† (Brazil)
Ferruccio Valcareggi (Italy)
1974
Helmut Schön (West Germany)
Rinus Michels (Holland)
1978
César Luis Menotti (Argentina)
Ernst Happel (Austria for Holland)
1982
Enzi Bearzot (Italy)
Jupp Derwall (West Germany)
1986
Carlos Bilardo (Argentina)
Franz Beckenbauer (West Germany)
1990
Franz Beckenbauer (West Germany)
Carlos Bilardo (Argentina)
1994
Carlos Alberto Parreira (Brazil)
Arrigo Sacchi (Italy)
1998
Aimé Jacquet (France)
Mário Zagallo (Brazil)
2002
Luiz Felipe Scolari (Brazil)
Rudi Völler (Germany)
2006
Marcello Lippi (Italy)
Raymond Domenech (France)
2010
Vicente del Bosque (Spain)
Bert van Marwijk (Holland)
Here are ten great coaches, whose tactics or style had an impact on the World Cup.
Bora Milutinovic (various)
Showed the way to a number of second-rate teams and became the go-to man if you didn’t want to embarrass yourselves in front of the watching world. Got Mexico and Costa Rica through the group matches with only a modicum of talent at his disposal. The first great mercenary.
Egil Olsen (Norway)
We know he was a great coach because he told us so. At a time when direct, long ball football was in vogue he became the arch exponent (sorry, Graham) and his Norway team upset Brazil in a group match in 1998. Thankfully Cesare Maldini’s Italy put paid to them in the next round and they slipped back amongst the also-rans.
Carlos Bilardo (Argentina)
Defensive Argentinian coach in 1986 and 1990. He needed a framework for the genius of Maradona so he developed
a five-man defence and three-man midfield with Maradona roving behind a target man. It was clever and allowed Maradona to dominate in ’86.
Otto Rehhagel (Greece)
Yes, okay, he didn’t do much in the World Cup, but his use of limited resources as manager of Greece from 2001–10 created an archetype for many second-tier nations: throw a blanket defence across the field and hope for crumbs. Thanks, mate. In his defence, he did his best with what he had; his teams at Werder Bremen and Kaiserslautern were good attacking sides.
Guus Hiddink (various, esp South Korea)
Another gifted coach who has the ability to lift a team in a very short time in the job. Was tactically astute with South Korea in 2002 with a limited team, and improved Australia in 2006 by insisting that fitness levels be raised as a counter to other sides’ superior technique. One of the best judges of the right time and player for a substitution.
Alf Ramsey (England)
Cut his cloth cleverly. Knew he had no wingers so dispensed with them altogether (although it was during the World Cup in 1966 he finally accepted this and the years after he perfected the system). A strict disciplinarian, he insisted players fit in his mould and didn’t change his tactics, hence his mistrust of gifted players like Alan Hudson and Frank Worthington.
Sepp Herberger (West Germany)
Masterminded Germany’s against-the-odds win over Hungary in 1954, after hoodwinking them by fielding a weakened side in a group match Hungary won 8–3. His teams became the blueprint for German intestinal fortitude.
Telê Santana (Brazil)
Coach of the Brazilians in the 1980s. Realised that to coach a team with that many gifted players you didn’t coach them at all, you simply empowered them. It was a philosophy Pep Guardiola adhered to with great success at Barcelona and Joachim Low has adopted with the modern German team.
César Luis Menotti (Argentina)
The cultured, liberal coach who released the inner matador in the 1978 Argentinians and won the World Cup for an obnoxious right-wing military dictatorship that he abhorred. Defiance and collaboration in a weird football paradox.
Rinus Michels (Holland)
Turned football into an art form with Ajax and Holland and Barcelona in the 1970s. The only coach who could handle the one-man revolution that was Johan Cruyff.
8.3 WORLD CUP 2006
Germany seemed an ideal choice as host for 2010 but it was a far from clear-cut decision. Germany’s rivals were South Africa and many of the non-European delegates were keen to see a World Cup in Africa, come what may. After Morocco (who seem fated never to get their tournament) and then England were eliminated from the vote, a final round produced a score of 12–11 in Germany’s favour, with one abstention, the New Zealand delegate, who ignored the wishes of his federation. Sepp Blatter, obsessed with legacy and sensing an opportunity to open new markets in which podgy FIFA fingers could be dabbled, would no doubt have put his casting vote behind South Africa.
A furore arose when it was revealed that a satirical magazine (a sort of German Private Eye or Onion) sent messages to various delegates, offering ridiculous bribes like cuckoo clocks in exchange for votes. The demand for a recount was rejected; with the huge sums which investigations have revealed were actually spent eliciting votes from FIFA delegates, a cuckoo clock was hardly likely to be a winning incentive.
Germany ran an efficient tournament and had a dozen excellent stadia ready months before the tournament was due to start. Most of the grounds existed already, apart from the new Allianz Arena in Munich, built to replace the rather tired old Olympiastadion. Germany already had a good transport infrastructure; it was the ideal-sized country, big enough to separate the groups away from one huge urban catchment, but not so big as to present travel issues or time zone changes like the United States or Brazil.
2006
GERMANY
Germany employed twelve stadia in 2006, three more than in 1974; only one city, Düsseldorf, missed out this time having hosted matches in 1974.
The following stadia were the same as the ones used in 1974, albeit with new sponsors’ names.
• Berlin: Olympiastadion
• Hamburg: AOL Arena (Volksparkstadion)
• Frankfurt: Commerzbank Arena (Waldstadion)
• Dortmund: Signal Iduna Park (Westfalenstadion)
• Stuttgart: Gottlieb Daimler Stadion (Neckarstadion)
• Gelsenkirchen: Veltins Arena (Parkstadion)
• Hanover: AWD Arena (Niedersachsenstadion)
The five stadia not used in 1974 were:
Munich: Allianz Arena
The new stadium in Munich was completed in time for the 2006 Finals and hosted the semi-final between Portugal and France as well as five other games. The stadium glows red when Bayern play, blue when Munich 1860 are at home, and white when the national team play there – very cool!
Cologne: RheinEnergie Stadion
This is the old Kölner Stadion with a corporate name. The ground dates back to 1923 and enjoyed a significant facelift for the 2006 finals.
Nuremberg: easyCredit Stadion
Would it surprise you to learn that this ground wasn’t always called the easy-Credit Stadium? Built in 1928, it was formerly known (and still is to fans of 1.FC Nuremberg) as the Frankenstadion.
Kaiserslautern: Fritz Walter Stadion
A lot of grounds are named after money men or sponsors – it’s a prerequisite of them stumping up the cash to build or renovate. This ground in Kaiserslautern is named after a bona fide football legend, the captain of the West Germany side that won the World Cup in 1954.
Leipzig: Zentralstadion
Now the Red Bull Arena earned its place in the line-up as the largest football ground in the old East Germany. The stadium was renovated for the finals, but as yet the home team, newly formed RB Leipzig, is still feeling its way through the lower divisions.
Qualifying
For the first time the holders were not automatically granted a place in the Finals – the new system hasn’t yet seen the previous winners not make it, with thirty-two places available. Poor Brazil, they would have to undergo the marathon that is CONMEBOL qualification, eighteen matches all-play-all. One (sensible) change was the ruling whereby teams level on points would initially be separated by the results of the two matches they played against each other – a better measure than goals scored against weak opposition.
They came through the marathon quite comfortably – only two defeats this time, in Ecuador and Argentina, 3–1, following an exceptional first half performance from the hosts. Brazil had won the first game between the two South American big beasts by the same score, with all three goals from the penalty spot, all scored by Ronaldo. That’s harder to do than you might think. Brazil won the group on goal difference (which came into play after both sides won 3–1). Ecuador, unbeaten at home where only Peru and Uruguay managed a point, and Paraguay joined them, consigning Uruguay to a second successive play-off against Australia. Home form was especially strong in this series of games – only fifteen away wins in ninety games, with only Argentina managing three, and Uruguay and Bolivia failing to win away – Bolivia actually lost every single away game.
Australia had to go through a ridiculous system. Oceania is a really weak section; most of the teams represent island groups with tiny populations and no competitive professional structure. A mini tournament for the Oceania Federation Cup ended with Australia top of the group and the Solomon Islands second. The islanders celebrated a 2–2 draw with the Aussies as if they had won the World Cup itself. These same two sides then played out a two-leg affair for the Federation Cup, Australia winning 5–1 away and 6–0 at home. However, this was not allowed to count as the final World Cup eliminator so the two sides met again the following autumn, when a 7–0 home win for Australia was followed by a 2–1 away win. Australia had Mark Viduka, Tim Cahill, Harry Kewell, Tony Vidmar, Brett Emerton et al, a whole generation of European based pros, so none of the other Oceania teams could match
them, or even come close. In 2001 the Socceroos (silly coinage) set a world record when they beat American Samoa 31–0. Archie Thompson scored thirteen goals that day, and he was only playing because the big European based players didn’t bother travelling to play what was little more than a pub team.
After this World Cup Australia joined the Asian qualifying section; it would give them better practice against serious opposition and also meant they avoided this quadrennial play-off against a tough South American team. It was a canny move, and unless they experience a noticeable decline, they will continue to qualify for the Finals as they did in 2010 and already have for 2014.
The two 2006 play-off games against Uruguay could not have been tighter. Both sides won 1–0 at home, Mark Bresciano’s goal for the Aussies cancelling Rodríguez’s late winner in Montevideo. The European pros kept their nerve in the penalty shoot-out better than the Uruguayans.
It was very much as-you-were in Asia. China had faded after their brief flirtation with the Finals in 2002, so Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan and Iran dominated two final groups of four. Bahrain won through to a play-off against a CONCACAF nation. You will be astonished to learn that Mexico and the United States won through easily from the CONCACAF section, with Costa Rica also along for the ride and Trinidad & Tobago earning the right to play Bahrain for that last place.