CORNER KICKS
Five things happening around the world:
1. Five-time world champion Brazil on Tuesday was selected to stage the World Cup in 2014, and Germany, which has won the World Cup three times and the Women’s World Cup twice, was selected to play host to the Women’s World Cup in 2011.
The decisions were announced at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, where Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, headed a delegation of more than 160 people, including 1994 World Cup winners Romario and Dunga, the current coach of Brazil’s national team.
Calling the organization of a World Cup “a huge task,” Lula said, “we have far more responsibility weighing on our shoulders than when we arrived here.”
Brazil, which according to a FIFA report has no stadiums that meet World Cup standards and whose infrastructure and financial stability are also in question, last staged the quadrennial tournament in 1950. It was not opposed in its bid for the 2014 event, which would be the first time South America has staged the World Cup since Argentina in 1978.
Germany, which last month won its second consecutive Women’s World Cup, was awarded the 2011 event at the expense of Canada. Earlier, Australia and Peru had withdrawn their candidacies.
Germany’s campaign slogan of “Welcome Back” resonated with FIFA executive committee members after Germany staged a highly successful World Cup last year. Many of the same venues will be used in 2011.
It “will be a great party, just like the summer of 2006,” said Joachim Loew, the coach of the German men’s national team.
2. An announced crowd of only 14,165 showed up for the New York Red Bulls-New England Revolution playoff game, prompting New York Coach Bruce Arena to take a swipe at his team’s decrepit home ground.
“I don’t think [winning] an MLS Cup is going to fill up Giants Stadium,” Arena told the New York Daily News. “If Yankee Stadium was a dump, nobody would be going there.”
3. Thomas Rongen’s contract as coach of the U.S. under-20 national team has been extended through the 2009 FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Egypt.
Rongen, 51 today, came to the U.S. from the Netherlands in 1979 to play for the Los Angeles Aztecs. He coached the U.S. team to fifth place at the 2003 Under-20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates and to the quarterfinals of this year’s tournament in Canada, defeating Brazil along the way.
This week, Rongen has the U.S. under-18 national team -- or what will be the under-20 team by 2009 -- playing at an international tournament in Limoges, France.
The squad includes defender Omar Elmasri of Arcadia and forward Mario Ledezma of Sylmar.
4. Ramiro Coralles, a 30-year-old defender from Salinas who played 191 games in nine seasons in MLS and won two championships with the San Jose Earthquakes, this year joined Brann of the Norwegian league and, as the starting left back, this week helped it clinch its first title in 44 years.
5. England is in danger of failing to qualify for next summer’s European Championship because its players are too quiet. So says former German great Franz Beckenbauer. So says former England coach Graham Taylor.
“It was like a school team, they were not talking and not supporting,” Beckenbauer said of the England team that lost to Germany in a summer friendly. “There is no life in this team.”
Said Taylor: “There’s not a Tony Adams, a Stuart Pearce or a Paul Gascoigne in there. They didn’t just play with their feet, they also played with their mouths.”
