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What Would Constitute A Successful 2018 World Cup?

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    What Would Constitute A Successful 2018 World Cup?

    Barney Ronay suggests: 1) a great team; 2) a very good team that pushes them close; 3) a team that emerges from nowhere, like Cameroon 1990

    https://www.theguardian.com/football...al-game-crisis

    I think he is wildly optimistic*, but even if all those three criteria were fulfilled, I don't think it would a) take away the stink of corruption; b) stop the Champions League becoming ever more dominant over internationals; c) make future tournaments any more likely to be good.

    *I think it will be a war of attrition, with the least tired team limping over the line in the final. VAR will make many games a fiasco. Refs will be shit. Russia's games will obviously be deeply suspicious.
    Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 20-03-2018, 21:30.

    #2
    1) An outstanding team
    2) Some entertaining incidents, equal to the Kuwaitis on the pitch in 1982
    3) The collapse of Vladimir Putin's regime
    4) 2022 being taken away from Qatar and given to, say, Sweden

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      #3
      Does the outstanding team actually need to win it? (see Brazil 1982)

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        #4
        I think almost the opposite. World Cups need some degree of frustration at a team who people think should have won, but didn't win - France 82, Hungary 54, Netherlands 74/78, Portugal/West Germany 66, etc.

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          #5
          A successful Russia 18 at this point would consist of no journalists, gay rights activists or political opponents of Putin being murdered, and that he doesn't annex any of his neighbours. Anything that happens in the actual football is pretty much irrelevant.

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            #6
            I'm not by any means a fan of Putin; I despise him and if he fell to a true democrat, I'd be delighted. But how many countries are left that have the means to host the world cup which are not utterly disgusting?

            Does the US -- currently bidding for a World Cup -- with its institutionalised corruption, bigoted politicians, distortions of democracy by gerrymandering and disenfranchisement, rampant racism, gun violence, right-wing polemic, environment-fucking, coup-fomenting, jihadist-arming, Saudi-loving, Yemen-bombing, Israel-enabling, country-invading and war crimes-committing ways, really occupy a higher moral ground than Russia? Or any number of Western European countries which are party to some of the US's crimes?

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              #7
              Hey, I'm not advocating holding the World Cup in the US, UK, Turkey, Nigeria, China, Spain or Saudi Arabia either, G.

              Maybe New Zealand could host it if they get their act together re Maori rights.

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                #8
                I don't think it matters particularly who wins it, but the tournament is in desperate need of a decent clutch of knockout-stage matches. With just a few exceptions, I don't recall this having occurred across the board since 1994, when most of the second-round fixtures and all of the quarters provided goals and plenty of drama. (Obviously the semis and final weren't 'quite' so memorable.) Last time out, the group stages were great, but the tournament really tailed off once instant elimination became a factor. (I know a lot of people here enjoyed the schadenfreude of the Germany/Brazil semi, but I didn't.)

                I'd like to see an African team at least make the last four, but I can't see it happening. (Failing this, another unexpected nation surviving into the semis would suffice.) South America - winless for four tournaments - is probably due success in the entire shebang, but I doubt that'll happen either.

                I'm down also with the desire with some kind of freakish occurrence during the tournament a la Kuwait 1982 (provided nobody is killed/injured, obviously).

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                  #9
                  “institutionalised corruption, bigoted politicians, distortions of democracy by gerrymandering and disenfranchisement, rampant racism, gun violence, right-wing polemic, environment-fucking, coup-fomenting, jihadist-arming, Saudi-loving, Yemen-bombing, Israel-enabling, country-invading and war crimes-committing” cool-tasting Pepsi...

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post

                    I'm down also with the desire with some kind of freakish occurrence during the tournament a la Kuwait 1982 (provided nobody is killed/injured, obviously).
                    I had to look that up, had forgotten all about it. Interesting stuff.

                    I'd actually almost also forgotten about Kuwait itself. It - for terrible reasons of course - was all over the news once, and I haven't known much about it since. So I looked that up too. It's also interesting.

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                      #11
                      Cancellation. For any reason at all.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post
                        (I know a lot of people here enjoyed the schadenfreude of the Germany/Brazil semi, but I didn't.)
                        Schadenfreude aside, surely the fact of the utterly implausible becoming reality made for compelling drama. That night is as memorable as any in the history of the World Cup.

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                          #13
                          Drama? I don't see it. Football is dramatic anyway, but a match that is over by the 20th minute is the opposite to dramatic. I mean that match was lots of things but dramatic wasn't one of them.

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                            #14
                            If your football drama yardstick is "who's going to win?" then not only was it probably pretty shite, but football in general is rather pointless. I thought it was one of the most dramatic and compelling football matches of recent times, not just World Cup matches.

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                              #15
                              It was certainly 'memorable', but it was a car crash rather than a drama.

                              Similarly, I struggle to see how anybody would find that match 'compelling', however - unless there's a new meaning to the word with which I'm not yet up to speed.

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                                #16
                                Originally posted by Mr Cogito View Post
                                If your football drama yardstick is "who's going to win?" then not only was it probably pretty shite, but football in general is rather pointless. I thought it was one of the most dramatic and compelling football matches of recent times, not just World Cup matches.
                                It's more than just "who's going to win?", it's also "are they going to get back into this?", "could they equalise?", and so on. Germany were 5-0 up after 30 minutes. Did you really find the remainder of the match from that point "compelling" or "dramatic"? To my memory it was interminable and just dragged on and on. I switched off at half time. In a world cup semi final! I have never before thought that football could use an option to throw in the towel like in boxing, but that game I did.

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                                  #17
                                  Some games are only memorable for a moment of failure or comedy, not success. All I recall of the 1994 final is Baggio's miss, for example; and of the 2006 final, Zidane's headbutt. Which I think proves that World Cup Finals always manage to provide something memorable, even if the football itself was turgid. I must admit to not remembering a thing about the 2014 final, though, other than the fact I watched it in a hotel in Slovenia.

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
                                    It's more than just "who's going to win?", it's also "are they going to get back into this?", "could they equalise?", and so on. Germany were 5-0 up after 30 minutes. Did you really find the remainder of the match from that point "compelling" or "dramatic"? To my memory it was interminable and just dragged on and on. I switched off at half time. In a world cup semi final! I have never before thought that football could use an option to throw in the towel like in boxing, but that game I did.
                                    Well, there you go. Some people moan about fans leaving before the end of a match to get a head start on the journey home, I find it genuinely interesting that your reaction was so different to mine. I called my wife in, a non-football fan, as it was such an unprecedented turn of events, and she was enthralled too. Your drama points (are they going to get back into this, could they equalise) seem like variants on "who's going to win this?". Of course Germany are, and if they don't, EVEN MORE drama. But I sat there watching it and thinking "when will this end, how many more can Germany score, how will the Brazilians react if this goes on - violence? Capitulation? Heroic failure? Stoic acceptance? And that was just the players, watching what it did to the fans was as compelling as the action on the pitch. Plus, it was compelling just for the football Germany were playing, regardless of the score or how good or bad Brazil were. Were they going to keep that up? Could they even be bothered themselves? Who wasn't going to score for them?

                                    I get that it had a car crash quality to it, as JW says, but that was part of the drama - sitting watching something that was completely unexpected, in a major sporting event, when we get served up so many evenly matched stalemates in those circumstances usually. I couldn't take my eyes off it, wanted other people to b seeing it with me, and if that isn't the definition of compelling, I don't know what is. Obviously, turning off at half time suggests the opposite for you. Fair enough.
                                    Last edited by Mr Cogito; 22-03-2018, 11:30. Reason: evenly matched, not every matched

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
                                      Drama? I don't see it. Football is dramatic anyway, but a match that is over by the 20th minute is the opposite to dramatic. I mean that match was lots of things but dramatic wasn't one of them.
                                      By that definition, any movie of which you already know the ending cannot be dramatic. But in the 7-1 the drama wasn't in the uncertainty of the result, but the circumstances of occasion and protagonists, the reaction of the people involved, the narrative that would unfold in the aftermath. It was a drama in as far as something utterly remarkable was taking place there.

                                      Jah Womble, I'd argue that a car crashes(metaphorical) are also drama.

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                                        #20
                                        It is fascinating to learn that some people found that second half dramatic. Takes all sorts I guess

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                                          #21
                                          I don't know if "dramatic" was the word, exactly – arguably indeed the drama only belonged to the first half-hour when it looked like Germany could run up a cricket score. But the whole match was still a riveting spectacle, for me, for exactly the reasons Mr Cogito outlines above. The sheer catharsis in seeing all the usual 'rules of combat' for these affairs so unexpectedly dismantled, on such a stage, in the utter annihilation of a Brazil side who are always among the big favourites and who had seemed to unfairly(?) squeeze past any number of more enjoyable teams en route to the semis, was terrific. I'm one of those who is still annoyed at Özil for failing to make it 8-0.

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                                            #22
                                            Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
                                            It is fascinating to learn that some people found that second half dramatic. Takes all sorts I guess
                                            I didn't particularly find the second half dramatic (though it was not without interest). It would have been hard to be anything other than an anticlimax. I found the first half to be dramatic and compelling, enough to call the match as a whole dramatic and compelling. Hell, a couple of seconds at the end of most matches is enough for drama. The second half isn't really the point though. You didn't watch it. You found the first half to be neither dramatic or compelling. It does indeed take all sorts.

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                                              #23
                                              No, I found the first 30 minutes dramatic. Possibly slightly less than 30- until the point when it became clear that this was a complete walkover. Then it ceased to be dramatic and became, to be frank, boring (to me obviously, as I've now learned that this wasn't the case for everyone)

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                                                #24
                                                Hmm, might be an issue of semantics then. I mean, is a car crash 'dramatic'? Perhaps, in the broadest sense of the word - but that isn't the first expression for which I'd reach if I were to witness one. (Nor indeed experience one - which I have.)

                                                Despite providing a 'memorable' semi-final, I don't personally think that such a trouncing of the hosts did the tournament much good, tbh. Germany winning 4-3 (or similar), I'd have had no issue with. (But, sure, Brazil falling apart in their own backyard wasn't exactly the opposition's fault...)

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                                                  #25
                                                  There's the catharsis of seeing the comeuppance of a team that only topped their group through sheer luck against Mexico, got through the quarter finals by persistently fouling James Rodriguez, and then found themselves on a level that they couldn't live up to. So Germany tearing them to shreds felt like karma. The second half was interesting in a "will they resort to violence" and "will Neuer kill his defenders if they concede at 7-0" sort of way.

                                                  Mind you, I watched this in a bar in Dortmund, so I might not be 100% neutral on the topic. That was an amazing night.

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