2010 World Cup - Has the Football World Gone Mad?

Uruguay, Netherlands, Spain and Germany have made it to the semi-finals in a football tournament full of unexpected surprises but did the best teams make it to the final 4 or did a mix of referee blunders, technical anomalies and coach glitches eliminate the real soccer teams which should have made it to the finals of the 2010 world cup?

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2010 World Cup - Team Manager blunders
Let's start with the obvious. When a team openly rebukes their coach, refuses to attend a training session on the eve of an important match ,and players come to their hands on their way home, you would usually think of an amateur team playing in a junior league, not one of the best teams in the world, with a 10 FIFA ranking, who had won the cup in 1998 and made it to the finals in 2006.

The scandals hitting the French team have not only shocked the soccer world. They have also been discussed in the French Parliament. It started with Team Manager Raymond Domenech's controversial choices and continued with a serious of blunders that lead to an abysmally poor performance of what was considered one of the best teams to grace the 2010 World Cup.

In a world of over inflated egos, where coaches or " Team Managers" with a demigod status, perform far worse that a soccer dad training his son's team, one starts to wonder whether the infamous noise of the vuvuzela, has totally annihilated the solitary neurons floating by in some of these coaches semi vacant skulls.

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World Cup 2010 - Referee blunders

In a high tech world, where a four year old can handle a digital camera and even the most basic cell phone can take video footage, I still wonder why FIFA still relies solely on the referee's subjective judgments even at the highest level.

There was a time where referees were gentlemen experts of the technicalities of the game, had the stamina to run with the players for 90 + minutes, and the nerve to make the right decisions, yet from what I've seen so far referees like Pierluigi Collina are an extinct breed.

With referee Jorge Larrionda failing to award England a goal after the ball clearly crossed the line, and his colleague Roberto Rossetti allowing Argentina's off side goal to stand, all FIFA president Sepp Blatter can do is send the chastised referees packing ,and publicly apologize for the unfortunate blunders, yet one cannot help wondering... Shouldn't referees be vetted more closely before they are allowed to attend important matches?

Since we have been seeing referees making infamous blunders for decades, and taking into consideration that cameras have been highlighting human mistakes since the 80's, why is it taking FIFA so long to even "look into goal line technology"?

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World Cup 2010- Technical favoritism?

The "Jabulani", the official 2010 soccer ball featuring 11 different colors and sporting avant-garde flight characteristics, supposedly making this ball one of the most stable in the world, was launched only in December of last year. Did every team have the time to practice using this ball?

Even the most amateur player will tell you that contact with the ball is one of the most important things in the game. Since Adidas is a German manufacturer, is it possible that the German team was more familiar with the unique characteristics of this ball, thus giving them an unfair edge over less experienced teams, and shouldn't FIFA have stepped in to level out this dispairity?

Germany obviously has the stamina and the technique, and is undoubtedly one of the best teams in this world cup. The agility and technical prowess of players like Close are spectacular, yet having the time to practice with an innovative football has definitely given the German team an advantage over teams with less experience. Will this extra experience help them get the golden cup this year?

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World Cup 2010 - Commercial interest versus game spirit?

Soccer is one of the most popular sports in the entire world. A two year old will instinctively kick a ball. For most countries in Latin America, Europe and Africa soccer (or football) is not just a sport. It's a passion.

For a soccer enthusiast, soccer is a form of art that inflames the heart and makes you exalt and despair. Yet it is also one of the most profitable businesses in the world with hundreds of millions at stake during championships and international tournaments.

Soccer has transformed the lives of many, and soccer players are role models with millions of fans around the world. The World Cup is a celebration of this sport at par with events like the Olympics.

Yet with so much at stake has market interest overcome the true spirit of this wonderful game? Would an African player who receives millions when he plays in the English or Italian football league still give his 100% when he faces his colleagues as opponents?

Why does a coach leave out super stars like Ronaldinho, or players of the caliber of Thierry Henry say they felt isolated during training camp and that their team is "sick"?

Have money and politics become a cancer slowly killing the spirit of this sport, and since FIFA has a stake in the pie, who will protect soccer or football from becoming another mere money making machine?

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