On air: Why has Europe lasted the World Cup course?

At the risk of accusations of blowing my own vuvusela, my suggested topic for WCHYS after Friday/Saturday’s games was ”Rumours of the death of European football have been greatly exaggerated.”
Not even the most fervent anti-European can deny that the European leagues are where real professional football happens. In these leagues managers have the chance to build a team and the guts to come down hard on selfish, prima donna behaviour, plus, if they fail to get results, they’re out on their ear. The “big” European teams that have failed, notably Italy and England – I don’t count France as the brief ’98 flowering of Zidane & Co does not history make – failed because, for one reason or another, their managers were unable to forge a team, motivate them to play as a team and to get notions of strategy into some not so bright heads.
The successful European national teams have capable managers who don’t lose their head, but go about the team-building job just as any Premier league, La Lega or Serie A manager would. Managers such as Capello and Lippi, seem to have forgotten what they did to get it right in Serie A and have thus failed.
From what I’ve seen of the African and S. American teams they each have a few stars, almost all of whom play in the big European leagues, not very ably supported by a bunch of also-rans. These stars are so arrogant that they think their presence alone will deliver results and the managers and other non-star players are too much in awe of them to remind them that footie is a team game.
The World Cup, despite the very dubious politics of Ayatollah Blatter (wow didn’t he look sour as Germany tore Argentina apart), is inevitably an extension of the professional game so, in order to succeed, managers, players and FAs have to learn that lesson, a lesson that seems to have sunk in most thoroughly in Europe, esp. in Germany and the Netherlands.
Let’s hope SA 2010 finally puts a stop to politically motivated and utterly wrong-headed demands for upsetting the current balance of places allotted to geographic areas.

i agree that the germans are playing the most attacking football..but being a die-hard spanish fan i hope the beautiful game they play takes them to the final..i just wonder why they aren't charging enough..and enough with torres already..its time to start with pedro and villa from the center..

It was sad to hear people like Vijay from India call this the worst World Cup since the 'stars' have dropped out. The World Cup is the BIGGEST stage for football. Even the lesser teams play with so much passion and determination, that there are no walk-over matches unlike in the leagues around Europe. Football is a team sport and no-one embodies that better than the Germans. The team is the star and the players don't have airs about them. I'm laughing my head off at the stupid Nike ad. People made snide remarks, such as: there are no Germans in the Nike ad. I'm happy. They've remained down to earth and have got on with the job. Young Thomas Müller wished his grandparents on tv instead of inflating his ego. That's the kind of player I want to see, a normal human being, not some super-star who is made to look like a god by the media.

So its OK to hand ball on the line Suarez style to save your team,according to the BBC panel they would do it! Great!
Well its not in the spirit of sportsman ship at all,to hand ball intentionally on the line is a disgrace,it should carry a meaningful ban of 10 games perhaps.

South american teams did not play on their strength.

BRAZIL-
Their greatest strenght has always been a combination of highly-creative players who turn the ball around and mesmerize defenders with their Samba dribbbles and passes. Dunga's new approach, i don't know what it was but i know it certainly wasn't samba. Without talismanic players like Ronaldinho, brazil becomes just an ordinary team. Their main advantage comes from the media which thinks all thing brazillian is magic. Once they found themselves trainling for the first time against Holland, they completely lost composure and anyone could see that the 2010 brazillian team was a team with no character.
ARGENTINA
Maradona did not succeed in harnessing the talent of the loud-sounding names at his disporsal to form a cohesive side. since ordinary football lovers think names alone can play the trick, they thought argentian were a great team. They had great players but not a gret team.
URUGUAY AND PARAGUAY
They're both ordinary teams which did they best they could and the latter will need much lack to sail through the semis.

CHILE
they were the best south american side in the tournament. fleet-footed players, cohesive play, enough self-confidence and an all-time attacking game. Their permanent attcking game was their own undoing. they shouldn't have attacked spain the way they did.

anyway, the line between so-called big teams and small teams is growing thin everyday. teams are getting to understand that the quality of play and stragety are the keys. big names nolonger count for too much in a gamme of football. Rooney, Messi, Kaka and Eto can tell u that

I'm the imposter on this topic, knowing diddly about this sport, but Linda and Christian seem to have done some shrewd analysis. They convinced me -- team sport, played by too many primadonnas.

Anyway, from this imposter, let me suggest that the biggest win is when the media hype is soundly disproved. The media have a habit of over-hyping some new gizmo, some new trend, into being THE NEXT BIG THING that replaces everything that went before. What could draw more attention than saying that Euro football was dying out. Not unlike what the media tried to extrapolate from the economic crunch which started in the US. Suddenly, the US was done as a superpower.

Not so fast, ye hypemeisters!

"Master Veron" on the bench was worst the "display -4x0"!

Why this Europe v S.America v Africa v Asia debate? Each national team is an individual unit with no reference to other teams on their continent. There is no S.American or European style of play, only the style of play of a particular team at a particular point in time aided or hindered by some awful refereeing at certain stages.

Uraguay beat Ghana by a "professional" foul followed by terrible Ghana PK then two great PK saves by Uraguay GK in shootout.
NL beat Brazil because Brazil decided not to turn up 2nd half and bad goalkeeping error that let NL in at 1-1. Brazil looked like champions 1st half.
Germany beat Argentina due to dubious "offside" second goal. Game may still have finished 1-0 but the "rout" was caused by Argentina having to chase the game at 2-0.
Spain beat Paraguay due to incorrect offside decision against perfectly good Paraguay first goal and later great penalty save by Spanish GK (although he almost certainly moved before the kick). Unfancied Paraguay played much vaunted Spain off the park.

Scoring goals in football is so difficult that whole games and even tournaments can turn on one moment of skill or a single mistake by players or officials.

The major European countries haven't lasted. Italy, England, France all went home early. Even Spain is failing to impress. So I think it's more a case of why did Brazil and Argentina fail?

Brazil never matched the attacking flowing expectations we had of them, the flair and speed and skill that makes them a joy to watch and a terror to defend against. They instead adopted a workman-like approach, with lethargic Europe-based players, risking little, gaining little.

Argentina were impressive, and played well. They had the players that could individually win a match, and a manager to entertain (!)but collectively fell apart and were undone tactically by a superior German disciplined team on form and fresh full of life and energy.

"9. At 11:55am on 05 Jul 2010, Ibrahim in UK wrote:
The major European countries haven't lasted. Italy, England, France all went home early. Even Spain is failing to impress. So I think it's more a case of why did Brazil and Argentina fail?"

There's nothing major about Italy, France and especially England: you don't win matches on reputation (especially since many teams have new, young players), btw, is it because this is a British forum or were the "experts" really so delusional to think England had a chance to win the cup? Anyone could see German, the Netherlands and Spain were in much better shape. Italy, France and England were just bad, Portugal was mediocre, Argentina, Spain and Brazil were good, but the Netherlands and Germany are better and will play the final.

The domestic leagues are pretty irrelevant: England has one of the strongest leagues but most players in it are foreigners, the Dutch have a weaker league but that's only because they're all playing abroad in the stronger leagues, all in all countries like the Netherlands and Germany have as many star players playing around the world as Brazil or Argentina, so it's reasonable to expect their national teams will be just as strong.

I believe there is one common thread with all semi finalists and that is a good proven attacking partnerships.

Spain has Torres and Villa, plus a field of great attacking midfielders
Germany has Podolski and Klose, as well as Mueller and Schweinsteiger
Holland has a diamond of Kuyt, Van Persie (or Huntelaar), Robben and Schneider.

While Uraguay has relied on the partnership of Forlan and Sanchez together with a lot of luck.

All have had a bit of luck, though they all have worked very hard, attacking quickly with reasonable defense. Given that they all work as a team so well it is certainly something all teams can learn.

However I do feel that Ghana, Argentina and Brasil have all played well and any of these could have been in the last 4. England could've been if they'd spent the last two years working on a midfield that would supply Spurs' formiddable pairing of Defoe and Crouch or trying the Rooney & Gerrard partnership so many wanted.