The tournament arrives at a time when South American football looks primed to strike back against European domination
There are World Cups - and then there are Brazilian World Cups. Or at least that appears to be the general assumption ahead of Brazil 2014, one of the more giddily anticipated tournaments of the modern era, rivalled perhaps only by Italia 90 in its sense of a deliciously authentic retreat into the footballing heartlands.
It is, it must be said, an assumption based on hope as much as the prevailing habits of the last 80 years. Defending her country's beleaguered preparations, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff pointed out recently that not only are Brazil the only team to take part in every World Cup, but Brazilians have "always been very well received everywhere". And in a sense this is very much the Brazilian experience, an itinerant superpower with an identity forged around these four-yearly inter-continental encampments. A Brazilian World Cup on Brazilian soil: this is novel territory for everyone. Indeed South America as a whole has been made to wait for this. Since 1934 football's second continent has hosted the World Cup three times to Europe's seven and only once – Argentina 78 – in the last 40 years.
And so here it is at last. A World Cup awarded without the stain of dictatorial expediency, powered by the first-world financial might of the Brazilian boom, and arriving at a time when South American football itself is perhaps primed finally for a counter-strike against Europe's dominance of the last quarter century. This is already shaping up as a World Cup of grand and sweeping oppositions, with Friday's draw in Rio de Janeiro a garnish to the ongoing macro-tensions of old Brazil versus new Brazil, Coke versus Guarana, Pelé versus Messi, and of course the more minute struggle for continental supremacy on the pitch itself.
Obscured at times by more localised rivalries, Europe versus South America is still the dominant opposition that runs right through the story of the World Cup. If it is a struggle that has shifted decisively Europe's way, powered most recently by the lure of Uefa's twin-track club football riches, what seems certain is that this would be the perfect moment to redress the prevailing momentum. There are World Cups and then there are Brazilian World Cups. And South America really needs this one.
Europe's dominance has arrived steadily, and then in a rush. Of 16 finals since the war six have been all-Europe affairs, including the last two, while of 32 final places 22 have been filled by nine European nations, with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay divvying up the rest. The real shift has come in the last six tournaments, four of which have been won by Europe, with total Euro-domination staved off only by final victories against Italy and Germany for the Carlos Alberto Perreira and Luiz Felipe Scolari Brazil teams of 1994 and 2002.
This is of course more than simply a geographical opposition. There is a historic tension here - cultural, economic, irrational - that dates right back to the first World Cups. As long ago as 1938 Argentina boycotted the tournament altogether in a fit of pique over the way hosting duties were awarded (the decision sparked riots in Buenos Aires). Inter-continental difference was a feature of the tournament itself, from sendings off and broken bones in Brazil's group matches, to Leonidas attempting to play barefoot on a quagmire in Strasbourg only to be ordered to put his boots back on by the referee. Italy knocked Brazil out in another horribly bruising encounter, memorable for Giuseppe Meazza scoring the decisive penalty just as his shorts, ripped to shreds by a series of violent challenges, finally fell down.
Beyond the violence - 1966 would bring Rattin and all that, but also Helmut Haller spending an entire night passing blood after a defender grabbed his testicles during Uruguay's defeat by Germany at Hillsborough - Europe versus South America is also a story of broader tensions. The last time Brazil staged a World Cup the tournament was boycotted, for assorted reasons, by Scotland, France and Czechoslovakia. Twelve years later earthquake-ravaged Chile staged the tournament after FA president Carlos Dittborn demanded "we must have the world cup because we have nothing". There were constant complaints from Europeans at the state of the country, with a protest by Italian journalists laying the ground for the Battle of Santiago, a match between Italy and Chile that ended with two players sent off, one broken nose and a gloriously unhappy David Coleman. In 1966 South American teams threatened to withdraw en bloc in protest at an alleged refereeing conspiracy, while the 1970, 1978 and 1986 tournaments all involved some form of acrimony, whether the late-stage hiving off of two South American tournaments by Mexico or the basic horror of Argentina 78, which was hijacked by General Jorge Videla's genocidal junta both off and also, allegedly, on the pitch (Giovanni Trapattoni later claimed Argentina would have gone out in the first round anywhere else).
Beyond this there is of course a tactical polarity between the two continents, with all its attendant cultural and economic associations. The most common point of contrast is the notion – lazily groped-for even now - of austere European rigidity versus meandering South American flair. The reality is of course much more diffuse. The high point of this dynamic was the 1970 World Cup final when an extremely talented Brazil team destroyed an extremely well-organised Italian one, "a defeat for all that was wrong in football" according to the great Brian Glanville. But by the next World Cup in Germany the positions had switched completely and it was Europe, in the shape of West Germany, Holland and Poland keeping alive the flame of exuberant attacking football while Brazil were transformed into hard-running cloggers.
Similarly for all its wider beach-football branding Brazil has long been ahead of many European teams when it comes to sports science and preparation: in 1950 the entire Brazil team was cloistered away having massages and drinking vitamin potions while Walter Winterbottom was cooking dinner for his England players and the team was changing into its kit on the bus. Argentina's own reputation for free-flowing "magic football" died in 1958 after a decisive thrashing at the hands of Czechoslovakia that saw the team pelted with rubbish on its return to Buenos Aires. Since then Argentinean football has evolved toward a compelling blend of hard-running European-style organisation and individual flair.
Indeed there is an opposition within an opposition here. If the story of the World Cup has been South America versus Europe, then for the last 60 years this has dwindled to Brazil and Argentina versus Europe; and for the last 25 to Brazil against the rest. With this in mind the position seems even more stark right now. Brazil and Argentina may share one of the great bilateral rivalries in world football, stoked by a shared 800 mile border and a feverishly conjoined 104 match history. But in one sense at least they now form an uneasy united front against the wider enemy.
The last World Cup was a notable low for South American football. Brazil failed to make the last four for the second time in a row, while Argentina were embarrassed by Germany in the quarters (on the plus side an excellent Uruguay team were resilient semi-finalists). South America has mustered just one of the last eight semi-final teams, while only Brazil and Uruguay have made it to the last four since 1990. In these terms Europe, powered by its sheer weight of numbers, its club football riches, is winning this battle decisively.
And yet against this European football is also unusually stratified at the moment, so much so that realistically only four teams can win the World Cup next year: two from Europe (Germany and Spain) and two from South America (the usual two). There is within this the prospect of a genuine striking back. Uruguay, Colombia and Chile are all strong right now. With home continent advantage for the first time in 34 years there is genuine hope that South America could yet have two World Cup semi-finalists for the first time since 1970, perhaps even a first all South American final since the last time the Maracana played host. It would represent a gloriously timely re-calibration of the World Cup's grandest opposition. Brazil 2014: over to you. Reported by guardian.co.uk 15 hours ago.
There are World Cups - and then there are Brazilian World Cups. Or at least that appears to be the general assumption ahead of Brazil 2014, one of the more giddily anticipated tournaments of the modern era, rivalled perhaps only by Italia 90 in its sense of a deliciously authentic retreat into the footballing heartlands.
It is, it must be said, an assumption based on hope as much as the prevailing habits of the last 80 years. Defending her country's beleaguered preparations, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff pointed out recently that not only are Brazil the only team to take part in every World Cup, but Brazilians have "always been very well received everywhere". And in a sense this is very much the Brazilian experience, an itinerant superpower with an identity forged around these four-yearly inter-continental encampments. A Brazilian World Cup on Brazilian soil: this is novel territory for everyone. Indeed South America as a whole has been made to wait for this. Since 1934 football's second continent has hosted the World Cup three times to Europe's seven and only once – Argentina 78 – in the last 40 years.
And so here it is at last. A World Cup awarded without the stain of dictatorial expediency, powered by the first-world financial might of the Brazilian boom, and arriving at a time when South American football itself is perhaps primed finally for a counter-strike against Europe's dominance of the last quarter century. This is already shaping up as a World Cup of grand and sweeping oppositions, with Friday's draw in Rio de Janeiro a garnish to the ongoing macro-tensions of old Brazil versus new Brazil, Coke versus Guarana, Pelé versus Messi, and of course the more minute struggle for continental supremacy on the pitch itself.
Obscured at times by more localised rivalries, Europe versus South America is still the dominant opposition that runs right through the story of the World Cup. If it is a struggle that has shifted decisively Europe's way, powered most recently by the lure of Uefa's twin-track club football riches, what seems certain is that this would be the perfect moment to redress the prevailing momentum. There are World Cups and then there are Brazilian World Cups. And South America really needs this one.
Europe's dominance has arrived steadily, and then in a rush. Of 16 finals since the war six have been all-Europe affairs, including the last two, while of 32 final places 22 have been filled by nine European nations, with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay divvying up the rest. The real shift has come in the last six tournaments, four of which have been won by Europe, with total Euro-domination staved off only by final victories against Italy and Germany for the Carlos Alberto Perreira and Luiz Felipe Scolari Brazil teams of 1994 and 2002.
This is of course more than simply a geographical opposition. There is a historic tension here - cultural, economic, irrational - that dates right back to the first World Cups. As long ago as 1938 Argentina boycotted the tournament altogether in a fit of pique over the way hosting duties were awarded (the decision sparked riots in Buenos Aires). Inter-continental difference was a feature of the tournament itself, from sendings off and broken bones in Brazil's group matches, to Leonidas attempting to play barefoot on a quagmire in Strasbourg only to be ordered to put his boots back on by the referee. Italy knocked Brazil out in another horribly bruising encounter, memorable for Giuseppe Meazza scoring the decisive penalty just as his shorts, ripped to shreds by a series of violent challenges, finally fell down.
Beyond the violence - 1966 would bring Rattin and all that, but also Helmut Haller spending an entire night passing blood after a defender grabbed his testicles during Uruguay's defeat by Germany at Hillsborough - Europe versus South America is also a story of broader tensions. The last time Brazil staged a World Cup the tournament was boycotted, for assorted reasons, by Scotland, France and Czechoslovakia. Twelve years later earthquake-ravaged Chile staged the tournament after FA president Carlos Dittborn demanded "we must have the world cup because we have nothing". There were constant complaints from Europeans at the state of the country, with a protest by Italian journalists laying the ground for the Battle of Santiago, a match between Italy and Chile that ended with two players sent off, one broken nose and a gloriously unhappy David Coleman. In 1966 South American teams threatened to withdraw en bloc in protest at an alleged refereeing conspiracy, while the 1970, 1978 and 1986 tournaments all involved some form of acrimony, whether the late-stage hiving off of two South American tournaments by Mexico or the basic horror of Argentina 78, which was hijacked by General Jorge Videla's genocidal junta both off and also, allegedly, on the pitch (Giovanni Trapattoni later claimed Argentina would have gone out in the first round anywhere else).
Beyond this there is of course a tactical polarity between the two continents, with all its attendant cultural and economic associations. The most common point of contrast is the notion – lazily groped-for even now - of austere European rigidity versus meandering South American flair. The reality is of course much more diffuse. The high point of this dynamic was the 1970 World Cup final when an extremely talented Brazil team destroyed an extremely well-organised Italian one, "a defeat for all that was wrong in football" according to the great Brian Glanville. But by the next World Cup in Germany the positions had switched completely and it was Europe, in the shape of West Germany, Holland and Poland keeping alive the flame of exuberant attacking football while Brazil were transformed into hard-running cloggers.
Similarly for all its wider beach-football branding Brazil has long been ahead of many European teams when it comes to sports science and preparation: in 1950 the entire Brazil team was cloistered away having massages and drinking vitamin potions while Walter Winterbottom was cooking dinner for his England players and the team was changing into its kit on the bus. Argentina's own reputation for free-flowing "magic football" died in 1958 after a decisive thrashing at the hands of Czechoslovakia that saw the team pelted with rubbish on its return to Buenos Aires. Since then Argentinean football has evolved toward a compelling blend of hard-running European-style organisation and individual flair.
Indeed there is an opposition within an opposition here. If the story of the World Cup has been South America versus Europe, then for the last 60 years this has dwindled to Brazil and Argentina versus Europe; and for the last 25 to Brazil against the rest. With this in mind the position seems even more stark right now. Brazil and Argentina may share one of the great bilateral rivalries in world football, stoked by a shared 800 mile border and a feverishly conjoined 104 match history. But in one sense at least they now form an uneasy united front against the wider enemy.
The last World Cup was a notable low for South American football. Brazil failed to make the last four for the second time in a row, while Argentina were embarrassed by Germany in the quarters (on the plus side an excellent Uruguay team were resilient semi-finalists). South America has mustered just one of the last eight semi-final teams, while only Brazil and Uruguay have made it to the last four since 1990. In these terms Europe, powered by its sheer weight of numbers, its club football riches, is winning this battle decisively.
And yet against this European football is also unusually stratified at the moment, so much so that realistically only four teams can win the World Cup next year: two from Europe (Germany and Spain) and two from South America (the usual two). There is within this the prospect of a genuine striking back. Uruguay, Colombia and Chile are all strong right now. With home continent advantage for the first time in 34 years there is genuine hope that South America could yet have two World Cup semi-finalists for the first time since 1970, perhaps even a first all South American final since the last time the Maracana played host. It would represent a gloriously timely re-calibration of the World Cup's grandest opposition. Brazil 2014: over to you. Reported by guardian.co.uk 15 hours ago.