Continental shift in World Cup power has levelled the playing field

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jun/28/continental-shift-world-cup

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What has made this World Cup so compelling? With 136 goals before yesterday’s two matches, the football has been sublime. But for me the excitement lies in the way the tournament has challenged the established football hierarchy, and given us the strongest hint yet of a new world order.

This World Cup has presented us with a level playing field. Unlike in 2002 when Saudi Arabia were thrashed 8-0 by Germany, there have been no whipping boys in this tournament. And when pretty much any game is up for grabs, it makes for thrilling viewing. No wonder the nation seemed to shrug its shoulders when England recorded their worst performance in World Cup finals’ history, before switching back to the TV to catch the next instalment of the greatest show on Earth.

For, watching this World Cup, I can’t help but feel we are witnessing the beginning of a truly global game. Yes, everyone talks about football as the most popular game in the world, and Fifa statistics suggest that more than 265 million people play regularly. But for all its popularity, when it comes to performing on the global stage, the World Cup has only ever been dominated by two geographical regions: Europe and South America. Since 1962, the trophy has flip-flopped between the two continents. Since the first tournament in 1930, the spoils have been almost evenly divided between the powerhouses: Europe 10, South America 9.

But that neat pattern, one that we have become so familiar with to the point where we rarely even question it, may well be on the wane. For the second tournament in a row only six European countries have made it through to the knockout stages, almost half the number we have been accustomed to seeing at every World Cup in the modern era bar South Africa 2010. Meanwhile the strength and depth of Latin America (shorthand for every nation south of the United States) has been growing, with seven teams making it through to the round of 16 in Brazil this summer. While the region’s winners number just three – Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay (who last won in 1950) – increasingly it is becoming apparent that their neighbours are emerging as a presence in the finals, rising from just five Latin American nations in 1986 (and 14 European countries) to nine this time around (and 13 from Europe). So the oohs and aahs of appreciation for the likes of Costa Rica may well be the marker of something more significant going on.

In some ways the forces at play making this World Cup so diverse and entertaining mirror what is happening in England, as the Premier League grows ever stronger seemingly at the expense of our national team. The latter is a constant source of debate, but my view is simple: you can’t have the best league in the world and the best national side. That’s having your cake and eating it. Most of the year English football fans are content watching scintillating domestic football. This summer we are enjoying watching an incredible World Cup, even though we have witnessed Spain, Italy, Portugal and England all going home early.

It is worth noting, too, Fifa’s own involvement in the expansion and breadth of global talent at the tournament. There was the tinkering in regional confederations that allowed Australia to shift from Oceania to Asia in 2006, qualifying for back-to-back championships ever since. (Though, ironically, the Socceroos performed better in 2006 under the old format than they did in the past eight years).

For me Fifa’s concept of forging an even playing field for world football is admirable as an ideal – including bringing the tournament to new territories and moving away from the elitist club of established World Cup winners (if we can put aside the allegations around their methods of doing so). Changing the format of the competition in 1986 to introduce a round of 16, and again in 1998 when it expanded to 32 teams, has also been crucial to that development.

So, where next? This may be the best World Cup ever, but there is still room for improvement. Surely it is time for football to develop beyond a polarised competition between Europe and the Americas, with the rest of the world as a garnish.

Much has been made of African football’s potential to reach a World Cup final, but for all the talent there – which we so regularly see playing in European leagues these days – I don’t see the infrastructure to produce a World Cup win. Club football on the African continent lacks the financial pulling power of an Asian state, such as China, that is able to import costly foreign stars such as Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba to the Super League. Japan, China and South Korea have been making their presence felt on the international stage for some time now, but this year India will attempt to muscle in on the action as the nation with a population of 1.2bn launches the Indian Super League in September.

With change afoot, evolution may well dictate that Europe cannot hang on to its crown and privileged status forever; for once the world game is actually beginning to look like a world game. It may sound far fetched to be talking about this in 2014, but sceptics can look to the developments in the financial world where China rose to rival the biggest economic powers on the planet. Could the same happen in football? I wouldn’t rule it out.

David James has donated his fee for this column to charity