End of the World (Cup) as we know it

So the World Cup is over for another year. I will miss it. I won’t miss the vuvuzelas, but I will miss the World Cup. Football begins again soon, though – Liverpool’s first real game is in less than a fortnight as they kick off their Europa campaign.

People have said that the World Cup wasn’t very exciting this year. That is because they are rugby supporters. This year seemed to be all about defence, and I used to play right back, so I am happy enough with that. It was all very well to display your silky skills up front, but if you were leaking goals at the back then you weren’t going to get through to the next round.

Spain may not have scored the most goals, but they conceded the fewest and that’s why they lifted that amazing 18 carat gold trophy. New Zealand have the distinction of being the only unbeaten side in the 2010 World Cup – that will be a pub quiz question for many years to come, in this country at least.

The media here is paranoid that football is edging out rugby in the popularity stakes. Actually, they call it ‘soccer’ (although the New Zealand Football association officially calls it football, along with every other country, apart from America), and refuse to give it the correct status as the beautiful game; more watched globally than any other sport.

The media make a lot of money out of rugby, so they don’t want to admit that more people are interested in football. New Zealand are top of the IRB World Rankings – there are apparently 95 countries that play rugby, approximately 20 of them competitively (Namibia and Romania are included in the top 20). 207 countries play football – a quarter of the way down that list we find New Zealand at 54, after gaining 24 places from their strong World Cup performance.

Glamour attaches itself to the All Blacks – there is a myth in this country that real men are hard and stoic (think monosyllabic and unresponsive – like your stereotypical Yorkshireman). They are afraid of emotion as it might demonstrate weakness (i.e. personality), so despise the fact that footballers hug each other in delight after scoring. A true New Zealander merely does a war dance and sticks his tongue out at the opposition – much more mature.

More children play football – just look at the sports fields of any city in the country on any weekend, but then they are lured away to the oval ball. Just in case this might not happen, they are reminded that they must worship the scrum. When the FIFA World Cup was on the television and graced the front cover of the SKY magazine – it is after all the most watched event in the world – the Kiwi press wrapped a picture of an All Black around it. They weren’t even playing any games that month. Running scared? I’d say so.