Winning the World Cup might be the pinnacle for any football player or coach, but it is not what Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira considers his finest achievement.
"Qualifying for the World Cup with Kuwait was much better than winning it with Brazil," he said. "I worked there for eight years, we built everything from zero. It was fantastic."
Parriera is in an enviable position this time around, coaching a team that is on paper the most talented in the tournament. His biggest challenge will be to keep his star-studded roster happy.
With Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Kaká, Robinho and Adriano on his team, Parriera promises to keep at least a Quartet on the field, a move that I believe is going to make Brazil the highest scoring team in the field, but also susceptible to giving up goals of its own. All five of those players are talented in the attack, but they will be forced to defend as well which is something they rarely have to do for their club teams.
For this reason alone I don’t think Brazil is unstoppable. Sure they finally have a quality goalkeeper and their defense is not as bad as some, but it is a weakness and on any given day a good team can exploit another team’s weakness.
Brazil deserves to be the favorite and Parreira deserves credit for guiding the ship. But it is far too early to hand them the trophy and for a Kuwait-style celebration to begin.
You'll be hearing a lot of analysis from commentators in the coming month. Some might even try to break down what Croatia needs to do to stop Brazil in its first round match-up. While we at World Cup Blog will also provide this kind of analysis, we offer you, our wonderful reader, a whole lot more.
Nowhere else will you find what is really important. Namely, a breakdown of two recent weddings. The first occurred in Brazil where midfielder Kaka married his sweetheart Caroline. The second took place in Australia where Croatian keeper Joey Didulica tied the knot with his bride Kate Dzidzic.
While Kaka's wedding had all the flair of a Brazillian attack, Didulica's big night was more of a subdued, less flashy affair.
There you have it in a nutshell. Our analysis of both the weddings and the teams. Brazil is flashy and Croatia is solid. As for which player has the more beautiful bride, we'll let you decide.
Kaka and bride
Didulica and bride
Interesting profile in the Sunday Herald about Chris Birchall, the 21-year-old midfielder from England who is playing for his mother's native country Trinidad & Tobago. Among other things, Birchall is the first white player to suit up for the Soca Warriors in 60 years. One of his biggest challenges: learning T&T's national anthem. Lovely tune, really. Go ahead and sing along. Might help you make the team as well.
It has seemed like it has taken forever for 2006 to arrive but now that it is here it means only one thing: time to get serious about the freakin' World Cup!
In the coming weeks, WorldCupBlog will be getting a facelift and I have to tell you what you are going to see is going to be really, really cool.
We are looking for bloggers to help make this the place to come for insight, news and opinions about all 32 teams in the World Cup. If you are passionate about Paraguay, amped for Angola, excited about Ecuador, or just a football nut in general we'd like to hear from you.
Shoot an email to bob [at] worldcupblog.com and tell him why you would like to be involved.
Serious safety faults at World Cup stadiums
With a group of mostly domestic based players participating in the United States' training camp this month, the one player that is being talked about the most is 16-year-old Freddy Adu. Newspapers around the country have run stories about Adu's participation in the training camp and have almost eagerly proclaimed his chances of making the World Cup team.
The media in the US loves to hype superstars even when it has no clue about the sport in which they play. Adu is a bright talent and someday he might even measure up to the expectations that have been thrust upon him by the soccer powers in the US.
But he isn't going to make the team, nor should he.
Simply put, he is not talented enough at this point to deserve a spot on the roster. Says coach Bruce Arena in the NY Times:
''Our expectations for Freddy are not great. It's just good to get him in here and give him a feel of what this is about with the national team and see where he is and compare him with others.''
Translation: Freddy isn't good enough yet and we hope that by having his butt kicked every day in practice he will stop listening to the pundits who tell him how good he is and he will get to work to actually realize his potential.
A Canadian-born, England national team member who plays professionally in Germany . . . it is only natural that Owen Hargreaves would blog about, well, basketball.
It would be unfair to say that Ecuador is fluke. It has qualified for consecutive World Cups, finishing ahead of traditional powers like Colombia and Uruguay. Yet, I am unconvinced that Ecuador is going to put up much of a challenge this time around.
The reason I am skeptical is Ecuador’s qualifying record. The team finished with 28 points. But 23 of those points were secured at home. Home for Ecuador is Quito, which is situated a mere 2,800 meters above sea level. This is one of the greatest home field advantages in the world and I think it is the main reason Ecuador will be playing in Germany this summer.
How will Ecuador do in the low altitude of Germany? You can count on Ecuador being fit, but fitness is no substitute for talent. Ecuador is not without some talent. Ulises De La Cruz (Aston Villa), Antonio Valanecia (Villareal), and Austin Delgado (Barcelona De Guayaquil) are all skilled players. But they are not enough.
Placed into a group with Germany, Poland and Costa Rica, I believe that Ecuador will be lucky to come away with one point. Some day the World Cup might be played at altitude again, but until then Ecuador will be the model of mediocrity. A team good enough to qualify for the World Cup, but one not good enough to make much of a statement once it is there.
There’s controversy brewing in Mexico where national team coach Ricardo La Volpe is keen on having Argentine-born midfielder Walter Gaitan on his team this summer in Germany.
If Gaitan ends up on the roster for the Tricolores he will be the third naturalized player on the team, a fact that isn’t sitting too well with many in Mexico.
La Volpe likes the goal scoring potential of Gaitan, but I really question whether he should make this move. Not because I think it is wrong for teams to utilize naturalized players (although it is a bit sketchy), but rather because he already has a solid midfielder in Cuauhtemoc Blanco.
While he is prone to picking up cards and has never been a personal favorite of mine, Blanco does have talent. I don’t see how Gaitan, a player who wouldn’t come close to making Argentina’s team, could add more value. If anything, his presence will be a distraction and could create an unnecessary riff on the team.
More depressing news for people hoping to secure tickets for the World Cup. More than 100,000 ticket requests are being submitted each day. With only 250,000 tickets up for grabs, even those who never passed Algebra will know that the odds of securing one of those tickets are pretty slim.
As for purchasing tickets from those who are lucky to land some, the process is even more complicated than that Algebra class you never passed.
It is still unknown whether striker Jan Koller will recover from his knee injury in time to play for the Czech Republic at the World Cup. Koller, the Czechs leading international scorer, injured his knee back in September. He won’t know for sure whether doctors will clear him to play until a May physical, but at this point he believes there is a 50 percent chance he’ll be ready to go.
If Koller is unable to go, the Czechs will have a huge hole to fill in their lineup and it will put further pressure on midfielder Pavel Nedved to spearhead the team’s attack
It is not often that a team's World Cup journey begins with a loss against Chad. But that is exactly how things started for Angola, perhaps the most surprising team to qualify for Germany 2006.
After dropping its opening qualifier 3-1, Angola lost on only one other occasion, a 2-nil defeat against Zimbabwe. Along the way Angola defeated and drew against traditional power Nigeria and cemented its place in the World Cup with a win against Rwanda.
What does this mean to the country?
Captain Akwa says, "We have proved that Angola is not just about oil, war and poverty."
To me, Angola is the most intriguing team in the tournament. It already has one player Yamba Asha, who might be lost after testing positive for a doping test. And then there is the wooing of Leeds United defender Rui Marques who has for years declined to play for his national team but is currently training with the team. And there is their opening round game against former colonialist Portugal. And then there are allegations that they are receiving tactical help from Brazil and that oil money is helping to buy victories.
But for me it all comes back to Chad. How could a team that lost to Chad, the 159th ranked team in the world, make it to the World Cup? I'm looking forward to seeing how this summer.
The President of Argentina’s Football Association is now on record as being against those who are, shall we say, vertically challenged.
Commenting on the potential of having four diminutive players - Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez, Javier Saviola and Sergio Aguero - on his national side’s roster, Julio Grondona told the Ole newspaper:
"Those who would like to see these four play together can rent the film 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' rather than watch the World Cup."
At World Cup Blog we happen to own a copy of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and we can confidently tell you that none of those players actually appear in the film. We also can say that there is no truth to the rumor that Sneezy will be wearing Argentine blue and white any time soon.
Photo Caption: Coach Jose Pekerman with his team's forwards
Pity poor David Beckham and his English teammates who will reportedly be making less money to play for their national team in this year’s World Cup than they did in 2002.
In denying reports that players would receive a 300,000 pound bonus if they walk away champions, Beckham said:
"I'm the England captain and I know for a fact every single player in that team would play for their country for nothing. The bonuses are, well, a bonus for us."
This is a lovely sentiment from Becks and one that has almost become firmly established in the lexicon of the sporting world. But just once I would like to see a football federation offer its players this option. Methinks the players might not be so keen on the idea.
Even better, how about the English players donate their World Cup salaries to people in need, like Trinidad’s national team which is trying to scrape together $9 million so that it can adequately prepare for its first World Cup appearance?
A team of scientists in the United States has determined that soccer has been the most exciting sport over the past 100 years with baseball second and watching paint dry a distant third.
The scientists, who decided to study something really important instead of, say cancer, determined a sport’s level of excitement based on the frequency of upsets. Apparently soccer has become less exciting over the past ten years since there have been fewer upsets, while watching paint dry has been able to consistently maintain its level of excitement for over a century.