A Few Thoughts Before a Nap
It is the day after the World Cup final in Yokohama and it is so quiet, you can hear a security guard nod off at the entrance to the international media center.
He is standing up and sleeping at the same time, kind of like a German soccer fan, wobbling a bit as I pass through the door but maintaining his balance all the time. An impressive feat, if a little unorthodox, but after five weeks of this, plus injury time, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
Inside, I see sportswriters keeled over their keyboards. I see sportswriters staring at the coffee machine, too mentally glazed to figure out which button means cream and which is the coin return. I see sportswriters flipping through their hotel room keys, ATM cards and subway passes, muttering to themselves because none of them seem to work in the pay phones at their desks.
Travel fatigue is common at the end of a World Cup or an Olympics, but this is the worst case I have ever seen. That is, when I’ve been able to keep my eyes open.
It’s really no secret why. We were sold a bill of goods when we were handed our press credentials and told we would be covering the one and only World Cup, the single biggest soccer tournament in existence.
Truth is, we were actually covering three World Cups.
The first involved 32 teams from 32 nations, playing 64 games to determine one champion.
The second involved Japan and South Korea, engaged in a very serious game of one-upmanship, each bidding to become the co-host with the most.
The third involved FIFA czar Joseph “Sepp” Blatter and his glad-handing, back-slapping band of cronies, comfortably sequestered in their own little world while fans waged a daily struggle to get hotel rooms, train schedules and game tickets that weren’t available, even though large blocks of seats went unused, game after game.
Final results:
* Brazil won the first World Cup, over Germany, 2-0, in the final.
* South Korea won the second World Cup, over Japan in a close one.
* FIFA thinks it won the third World Cup, in a shootout, but the real world is protesting.
Blatter (sounds like blather) kept saying that the tournament was progressing swimmingly--which, considering the dearth of available plane flights, was the only travel option left for some fans trying to get from Japan to Korea and back again so they could follow their teams.
He said, “Co-hosting has had only a positive influence on the game. We have had wonderful stadia, good hospitality and perfect logistics.”
This is clearly the view of a man who watches the World Cup from the back seat of his air-conditioned limousine and the penthouse suite of his five-star hotel.
Many of the stadiums were impressive, if gray concrete is your idea of an innovative color scheme. Japan and South Korea spent billions in a stadium-building frenzy, not because each country needed 10 new soccer stadiums, but because the other guy was building 10 new stadiums. It sounded like a Far Eastern riff on the “I will have two fillings” commercials that ran during the 1999 Women’s World Cup:
I will have 10 stadiums!
And I will have 10 stadiums!
Did the small city of Oita, nestled between two national parks on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, really need a new 42,000-seat soccer stadium with a retractable roof? With fans traveling to and from games via hovercraft?
“It’s like putting Texas Stadium in the middle of Lake Elsinore,” one U.S. writer quipped.
Because these facilities needed to be useful after their allotted three World Cup games were played, many used the same multi-purpose design--meaning a running track encircling the playing field, meaning fans pushed up and away from the action.
U.S. Coach Bruce Arena said that worked to his team’s benefit when the Americans played South Korea in Daegu, with the fan noise slightly muted by the distance between the stands and the field.
Good hospitality? There was plenty of that. Volunteers in both countries were friendly, courteous and helpful--although the Japanese penchant for punctuality, cleanliness and order caused media centers to be shut down too often before writers could finish their work. (Memo to JAWOC: Sportswriters, at least uncouth Western types, cannot comprehend “no eating” and “no drinking” signs when they are on deadline.)
I spent time in both countries and found South Korea to be more laid-back and go-with-the-flow flexible. Yes, I know, it was a tournament of upsets. Getting things done, such as changing money or buying plane tickets, was easier there, as opposed to Japan, where every small transaction seemed to require forms filled out in triplicate and committee consultation.
Japan gets the nod for food, however. The bento box lunches that sustained me on train trips were unfailingly delicious, even if I did not recognize half of what I was eating, and certainly were an upgrade over the dried squid, cold sausages and banana-flavored milk served in Korea.
Perfect logistics? This is FIFA ivory-tower syndrome at its worst. Playing games in two countries, separated by sea, made covering all the important games in person impossible. Fans of teams that advanced to the latter stages and crossed over from one country to the other were left to scramble for lodging, tickets and transportation--provided their already depleted savings could withstand the strain.
This was especially true when crossing over from economical Korea to expensive Japan. Fans and media alike watched in amazement as cab fare for a $5 ride in Seoul ballooned to $20 in Yokohama.
Ultimately, however, a World Cup is remembered for the quality of its soccer, and Korea/Japan 2002 got off to a rousing start. Senegal over France, the United States over Portugal, England over Argentina--there seemed to be a can-you-believe? moment every day during the first round.
There is one downside of upset fever, however: Too many of them too soon and the big boys start heading home in a hurry. With France, Argentina, Portugal, Italy and Cameroon all gone so quickly, the only knockout-phase matchup that bristled with pre-kickoff buzz was the Brazil-England quarterfinal--which lived up to its promise until England’s goalkeeper, David Seaman, fell asleep on Ronaldinho’s 30-yard free kick in the second half.
Maybe Seaman, like the rest of us, was suffering from travel fatigue.
The refereeing controversies that escorted South Korea past Portugal, Italy and Spain are impossible to ignore, even if Blatter tried his best.
After the semifinals and final had gone off without a major glitch, Blatter crowed, “These last few matches have helped enormously to restore full confidence in the ability of the world’s referees and assistants to rise to the occasion and to set the standard for match officials at all levels of the game.”
Which, of course, is nonsense. Are Spaniards and Italians feeling any better about their disallowed goals just because Pierluigi Collina refereed a nice game between Brazil and Germany on Sunday?
Even the improved officiating at the tournament’s end smacked of condescension on FIFA’s part. Turn the lesser-regarded referees loose in the early rounds, give the co-hosts and the longshots a few quick headlines and string their fans along for two or three weeks. Then, when the stakes rise high enough, let’s bring in the European referees and start to get serious, shall we?
Four days before the final, Blatter told reporters in Yokohama, “You will remember that I have said at the very beginning that this will be the World Cup in a new environment, it is a World Cup played in a new culture and there will be surprises--but I would be surprised if, at the end, we will have a miracle.”
Sure enough, we had South Korea, Senegal, Turkey and the United States knocking it around, making things unpredictable for a while, taking their moments in the sunshine.
And we wound up with Brazil and Germany in the rain in the final.
Blatter and FIFA prefer to keep things tidy. Holding the final in Japan, where cab drivers wear white gloves and water bottles are forbidden in the press box, they certainly came to the right place.
It was exhilarating, it was exhausting, it was wild and woolly and comfortably traditional and very, very, very clean.
It is now time to get some sleep.
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
*--* World Cup Attendance Yearly attendance for World Cup final tournaments with year, site, total games, attendance and average attendance per match: Year Site GP ATT AVG 2002 South Korea/Japan 64 2,705,197 42,269 1998 France 64 2,785,100 43,517 1994 United States 52 3,587,538 68,991 1990 Italy 52 2,517,348 48,411 1986 Mexico 52 2,407,431 42,297 1982 Spain 52 1,856,277 35,698 1978 Argentina 38 1,610,215 42,374 1974 West Germany 38 1,774,022 46,684 1970 Mexico 32 1,673,975 52,311 1966 England 32 1,614,677 50,458 1962 Chile 32 776,000 24,250 1958 Sweden 35 868,000 24,800 1954 Switzerland 26 943,000 36,270 1950 Brazil 22 1,337,000 60,772 1938 France 18 483,000 26,833 1934 Italy 17 395,000 23,235 1930 Uruguay 18 434,500 24,138
*--*
