Field Theory: It's really a dick-move
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Hear what you're saying Edward but...
It's because Bahrain have had the harder / longer route this far that they are now the better prepared side.
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The thought of the national side whose coaches danced with joy for holding Iraq to a goalless draw making it to the World Cup (sorry George: the Mens World Cup) is a little depressing.
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I'm not sure you need a "but" there - I guess that's why some people (probably me included) think it would actually be good if the NZ football senior men's team had to go a more tough route to qualify - though I'm hardly upset that despite their less strenuous preparations NZ might still pull it off and get to the WC.
While I'm at it, I'd add (in response to Tom's comment right at the top) that very few of the English commentators do seem to have 'working class' accents (whatever that really means). I can't really be bothered googling for youtube clips to support this point, specially since it may well have been made tongue in cheek, but neither Ian Darke or especially Martin Tyler (to name two) could be said to have working class accents.
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You know, at the last (men's) rugby world cup, there was also a debate about small teams that "shouldn't be there" because they couldn't compete. Then they did compete, and quite well.
And then there was Ireland at the (men's) cricket world cup.
And didn't the All Whites give a European side a bit of a scare recently?
I suppose basically though, you can't bitch about the team getting to the World Cup or local fans getting excited when they are just doing what the system allows them to.
We're not exactly a world power in the football political world either, so if it really was a problem then I'm very sure FIFA would change the rules.
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And didn't the All Whites give a European side a bit of a scare recently?
Yes, <cough>. Italy.
Touché.
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The thought of the national side whose coaches danced with joy for holding Iraq to a goalless draw making it to the World Cup (sorry George: the Mens World Cup) is a little depressing.
Pal, if I came from the land of cattanacio, I would not be getting cheeky about any other country; at the very least, we don't play anti-football.
I mean, for fuck's sake, Zizou was righteous against Materazzi, who really was not anything in that game but a thug and an embarrassment to football.
(I am entirely serious above, if you're an Italian, you shouldn't mock the idea of a goalless draw, that's the ideal of Italian football.}
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And didn't the All Whites give a European side a bit of a scare recently?
Yes, <cough>. Italy.
Touché.
Forget dancing about a goalless draw, I may have just danced about making that point :)
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Another thing to note. This is the Mens World Cup. Not "the World Cup". There are two. Most commentators reliably fail this.
That might be because you're wrong?
It's the FIFA World Cup.
The equivalent women's event is the FIFA Women's World Cup.
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Ah, so the name is *officially* sexist. Well, that's all right then.
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Pal, if I came from the land of cattanacio, I would not be getting cheeky about any other country; at the very least, we don't play anti-football.
Ahahaha... oh dear.
Forget dancing about a goalless draw, I may have just danced about making that point :)
That was very nicely done. Back to my original point, though, since 82 (when Hungary potted ten against El Salvador) the world cup structure has done a pretty good job of not letting in absolute minnows who could only but embarrass themselves, I wonder if NZ on current form (and following a path that couldn't prepare them for tougher competition either) could be that kind of meaningfless entry.
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Ah, so the name is *officially* sexist. Well, that's all right then.
Come on now, the Mens' World Cup has been around for a few decades longer and the women's side of the sport hasn't developed (yet) in a way that makes the two versions of the sport remotely comparable. It's not like tennis or athletics or volleyball or gymnastics and so forth. So far as I know, apart from the US, there's no country where women's soccer is played at a high level with any following. When that happens, and changing the name of the mens' competition won't be almost comically tokenistic, we can talk.
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...they are a respectable team from a small country that is actually pretty decent considering they are competing against almost every other country in the world.
Wow! that sounds exciting.
If the the All Whites were well managed and led with a clever long term plan I might say "well, this team will be beaten soundly but we will be back, and next time we'll be better". Then I could understand the joy of achieving a building block to the final rounds of future tournaments. But there is no plan, nor do I believe NZ Soccer has ever had a plan and indeed I doubt they would recognise such a plan if they were ever shown one.
We seem to be celebrating for just getting there, via a path of absolute least resistance. It is a sort of mediocre defeatism that is roundly criticised when we see it in people who get sent to the Olympics, yet when it comes to the Soccer World Cup we are meant to be all pleased for them.
New Zealanders celebrate winners, not qualifiers. Anything else is for losers.
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New Zealanders celebrate winners, not qualifiers. Anything else is for losers.
And so we throw everything into a sport which is the undisputed national game practically nowhere else and is only seriously played in half a dozen countries?
Whatever, we're a small country and we'll never be winners in a mainstream global sport. Being winners in rowing, netball and rugby might make you feel better, but really, if the rest of the world cared, we'd be relegated to being losers and struggling to qualify.
And that's ok. Really.
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@Tom,
Strange that the Football World Cup is the most popular sporting event on the planet when there have only ever been 7 “winners” in its history.
@ Giovanni
Can’t see double figures occurring again at a World Cup Finals. Mainly because the European professional leagues are now so multi-national that all countries have a lot of players based there. For a start that changes fitness levels.For example, Cyprus did OK this morning
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It is a sort of mediocre defeatism that is roundly criticised when we see it in people who get sent to the Olympics
Actually, the olympics *are* supposed to be about taking part. :-)
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changing the name of the mens' competition won't be almost comically tokenistic
Changing practically everything to gender-neutral language is 'comically tokenistic', according to quite a few people. I subscribe to the belief that 'words mean things', though.
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Actually, the olympics *are* supposed to be about taking part. :-)
If you believe that then meet my friend, he heads the Central Investment Bank of Nigeria, don't you know!
legbreak, it isn't that we won't win the FINAL that gets on my goat. It is the mediocrity of those who think just turning up is an achievement. maybe if we had an expectation of qualifying from our group then yeah, it would be an exciting time because anything can happen in the knockout stages. But no, we are meant to be pleased because they get to march in opening ceremony. Look at the sort of mighty teams who the All Whites played on this "journey".
Vanuatu
Tahiti
Fiji
New Caledonia
Solomon Islandsand now Bahrain.
Lobbying FIFA to rig the qualifiers so we play micro-states from the third world is nothing to be proud of. How can we pretend to stand in the company of Slovakia, who qualified today for the first time by beating Poland away? Could we defeat Poland home and away? Could we win a qualifying tournament with Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia in it? If FIFA were to change the Oceania Group again so, say, Chile and Mexico were in it we wouldn't have a shit show of making the tournament. Yet that is what should happen, so we can be proud of a real, earnt achievement.
The idea of wild celebrations at just qualifying against the sort of opposition we've played is something that I find, well, Un-New Zealand in it's decided averageness. It might suit the Brits who love the game out here, but they have expectations born in a country whose class system and tall poppy press contrive to entrench a small minded mediocrity which we New Zealanders rightly pour scorn on.
I don't believe we have earnt the right to be in South Africa and I think the hype over "qualifying" against Vanuatu, Tahiti, Fij, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and Bahrain is just that - complete and utter hype.
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We didn’t lobby FIFA so that Saudi Arabia didn’t make it to 5th in Asia.
Chile and Mexico have qualified in their own right. But if you take the Mexico example, the best side not to qualify from CONCAAF at the moment is Honduras. We’d be a shot against them.
BTW, I think the results against Wales, Jordan and Italy have more to do with the hype that the previous qualification matches.
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Changing practically everything to gender-neutral language is 'comically tokenistic', according to quite a few people. I subscribe to the belief that 'words mean things', though.
To my mind, equality would make sense if there was any meaningful equivalence between the two versions of the sport. I just don't think there is in football, unlike in many other sports. And changing the denomination won't hurry things along either.
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Come on now, the Mens' World Cup has been around for a few decades longer and the women's side of the sport hasn't developed (yet) in a way that makes the two versions of the sport remotely comparable
And yet, I'm pretty sure there is still a world cup for the ladeez. And they might rightly think their tournament deseves to have a name. Or at least be differentiated from the boys.
I was actually sitting here thinking, 'maybe for once I won't harp on about equality in sport, cos it actually doesn't bother me that much'. But y'all annoyed me.
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Looks like someone should tell Sharples, McCully and co that the free to air rights are actually for the MRWC.
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And they might rightly think their tournament deseves to have a name. Or at least be differentiated from the boys.
It does - it's called the women's world cup. And look, ordinarily I'm not at all insensitive to this sort of argument. But the mens' and women's version of football are not even on the same planet at the moment. In much the same vein, I followed and enjoyed the women's cricket world cup but in some games late in the tournament there was literally nobody there. I wouldn't expect them to rename the mens' competition to create some sort of false equivalence.
For much the same reason, I would expect a mens' version of the roller derby to be called mens' roller derby without the womens' version having to change its name.
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For much the same reason, I would expect a mens' version of the roller derby to be called mens' roller derby without the womens' version having to change its name.
It's not renaming it. It's calling it what it is.
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To my mind, equality would make sense if there was any meaningful equivalence between the two versions of the sport.
I don't know, to me it seems weird to say 'well, when they're equivalent, that's when we'll name them equivalently!' Given that *absolutely nothing in any fight for equality works that way*. It's like you want the egg to come first, and I totally know that we're gonna need the chicken.
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It's not renaming it. It's calling it what it is.
I just think it's a cop out. And it seems almost condescending to me, demanding nothing of the womens' movement. Do you want the mens' competition, which has been going on since 1930 and has n-times the following, to rename itself? Earn it. At the moment the level of participation, quality of the players, geographical spread, interest among the sports' viewing public are just not there.
Given that *absolutely nothing in any fight for equality works that way*. It's like you want the egg to come first, and I totally know that we're gonna need the chicken.
I'm sorry, but how did it happen in tennis? in athletics? in all the other sports where there is in fact an equivalence? With participation in equal numbers, from the ground up. Go to an athletics facility, to a tennis or volleyball club, you'll see as many women as men. And hey: what about netball! In soccer, rugby or cricket it's just not the case. I don't see young women desperate to play knocking on the doors of a male dominated sport.
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