does it really matter?

[feles_dormiens]

so, as everyone knows by now, england lost and now i understand that what it means when Bill Shankly said (albeit slightly misquoted) 'Football isn't a matter of life or death, it's much more important than that

Comments

[zenhiao]

yes it does!
sport is just war without tears. (paraphrasing Peter Gabriel)

the england team may be a bunch of overpaid tossers but they are overpaid in their non-world-cup jobs not the world cup matches in themselves. they do do it for the fame and glory.

many of the african and south american players play professionally for european clubs (the algerian team are actually mostly french! but that as they say is another story) but come the world cup they all very gladly take the time off to fly their national flag.

as for population, slovakia has only 5.4 million and made it to the 2nd round.

why football isn't quite the same in singapore has a lot to do with tangible economic success always trumping intangible things like national pride but also some complicated answers involving the malaysia cup and also betting. in fact some of this world cup's results have been so consistently surprising that i am beginning to have some suspicions....

i was quite surprised to see all the houses and even cars decked out with england flags and buntings. it must be fun to have your country in the world cup!

[feles_dormiens]

have you read the goldman sach's report where the worked out the probability of who would win the World Cup? it's fascinating for the very reasons you pointed out. GS argues that economic wealth allows for a country to do better in the cup because it means that more money is invested in sports programmes thus allowing for more opportunities for football development. thus USA has a higher probability of winning than portugal even though anyone with a passing (heh) knowledge of football know that portugal is way better.

yeah, this whole flag thing is really sweet in a country which constantly likes to bash itself in the head, seriously, one of their favourite sporting events is the 'ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory'. :) i can honestly say though, putting up the flags etc feels a lot more heartfelt than when we put ours out for National Day. it's a sense of duty for us to be proud of our country, here they do it because they want to.

[zenhiao]

oh! hadn't seen or heard about the GS report actually.

after i posted i remembered one other interesting thing about England in the world cup. And that is that it is the only team that is NOT also a state. i.e. it is England and not the UK that is taking part. They are england/english supporters not british or UK supporters.

[feles_dormiens]

here you go: http://www2.goldmansachs.com/ideas/global-economic-outlook/the-world-cup-2010-doc.pdf

enjoy! there are a list of statistics and quotes at the end of the report that you would probably like.

as for england not being a state- you're right! it also explains why they don't have a football team in the Olympics because they compete as Great Britain then. :)