World Cup Random Observations

 I was just pondering over France in the World Cup. They never seem to have a normal world Cup. It's either heaven or hell. 1990 - din qualify. 1994 - din qualify. 1998 - champions. 2002 - out at group stage. 2006 - runners up. 2010 - group stage. 2014 - quarter finals. 2018 - champions. Who knows which way it will go this time? 

Also, when we're talking about lengthy runs, the last world cups have been pretty tainted. Perhaps 2002 was a little misleading: it was a relatively successful and uneventful world cup. It was an "expansion" World Cup, just as 1994 had been, and it showed that the World Cup could be run without problems. It was the last world cup to be held where there were no controversies in the bidding process. The next few World Cups would be tainted in their own ways. For the Germany bid, there will be controversy about how Germany got the bid ahead of England. For the 2010 bid, it was controversial to hold it in Africa, in a continent that did not have the infrastructure to host a World Cup, where there would be white elephant stadiums built everywhere. Brazil in 2014, Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 are World Cups in countries that did not have World Cup infrastructure, where a lot of stadiums needed to be built, but after the World Cup, they might not be maintained or used. This was not only a big waste of money, but it would be a situation that was ripe for a lot of corrupt officials to line their pockets. World Cup 2026 would be the first World Cup in a long while which wouldn't be a stadium building exercise. 

I was thinking about the 2002 World Cup and how it was one that had an unusually high number of upsets. France, Portugal and Argentina were eliminated from the group stages, and Italy and Spain were eliminated by South Korea. The quarter finals would have a very unlikely lineup: England, Brazil, Germany, United States, Spain, South Korea, Senegal and Turkey. It made me think of East Asia as some kind of topsy turvy place where the rules of the rest of the world didn't apply. 

East Asia may be the most post-colonial part of the world, where the western-led world order is about to be upended. It's not just about the rise of China, and back then, China was not a superpower but a country that seemed destined to joined the ranks of the developed world. So it came to be that South Korea and Japan were some kind of flat world where the white superiority that the Europeans came to enjoy failed to materialise, where countries like Senegal, Turkey and South Korea could have the place in the sun. But there are exceptions to this rule: Argentina is not part of the West, but it was a favourite that was eliminated. The USA and Germany had good World Cups and they went much further into this tournament that anybody else expected them to. But maybe this is in line with 2002 being the tournament of the underdog. The German side which reached the final was not considered to be better than most of the other sides that were prematurely knocked out. 

Perhaps this was the first unusual time zone world cup? Or maybe it was the tropical heat? Maybe after the first few upsets, everybody got nervous. Italy and Spain getting eliminated by the host South Korea definitely looks dodgy, and even though I am Asian I will admit that. But I will also point out that that was the best ever South Korean team in a World Cup, and in order for refereeing to have any impact on the outcome of a match, both sides have to be almost equal to each other. 

In the end, the favourites did win. It was the last great Brazil side, and it was also Brazil setting a record for the most number of World Cups won. But it would also be the beginning of a run where the next 4 champions would be European, albeit Germany and France would have quite a few members of the Turkish and African diaspora to help them. Plus Germany would be the first country to win a World Cup on the American continent. 

But in my mind, there is a connection between an East Asian World Cup having plenty of upsets, and East Asia being a post white supremacy place. It's probably one place on earth where the western spheres of influence either don't reach or are weakening. It's a place where democracy hasn't been proven to be superior to autocracy.