Belgium for the win
THE ONGOING World Cup in Russia is making a mockery of our local football analysts. Indeed, it is making football pundits all over the world look bad. Football analysts do not walk around with crystal balls, and the business of predicting games can make us all look like total fools from time to time. What I find hilarious, though, is the extreme confidence that some of these analysts have in making these predictions. It is one thing to say what ought to happen based on the form and quality of a team. All of us have expected a result in sport only to have the opposite happen, but at times you get the feeling when you listen to these analysts that the result is a foregone conclusion. It is one thing to say a team should win. It is another thing entirely to create the impression that a team cannot lose. When we put ourselves out on a limb like that and we get it right, we gloat and pat ourselves on the backs. When the results do not go the way we ordained, then we must ‘take our lick’.
THE GERMANS
I was watching TV one night and I heard one host saying that he just did not see how it was possible for Germany to lose. He said the team was just too good. Another of my colleagues in media said the German team was the most meticulously prepared team at the tournament. I need not point out that Germany have done arguably the worst they have ever done at a World Cup. Not only did they not make it out of the first round, but they also finished at the bottom of their group. So much for expert analysis!
I am merely taking the mickey out of my colleagues, and I hope they take it in the true spirit of bantering. I hope they learn a valuable lesson here, though. Some of my friends in media can comfortably reel off the names of every player at every club in every league. They believe that that gives them greater authority to discuss football than the rest of us. Admittedly, not all of us can do that because many of us are not really interested in doing that at all. Knowing every footballer on every team is fine, commendable even, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to understanding the nuances of the game more than anybody else.
UNPREDICTABLE
With the World Cup going the way it is, who can know for sure how it will go? Who can rule out Croatia and Belgium? And who is to say that one-time champions like England and France may not go all the way? Here the expert analysts have nothing on me. From here on, it is pretty much guess work for all of us.
With the analysts on radio and TV getting it so wrong so often, the truth is that nobody’s words carry any greater weight than anybody else’s. I have noticed less cockiness and less selfassuredness from many of the panelists on the different programmes. Nobody wants more eggs on their faces. So, with the experts looking so ordinary, I am now declaring myself an expert too! Why not? I’m in pretty noble company, am I not? What have I to lose?
I may be unable to state at a moment’s notice who is the left back for a mid-table team in Portugal or Spain, but we have now seen that having that as a prerequisite essentially means nothing.
So with my newly found, selfproclaimed ‘expertism’, I am going to tell you which team“I just do not see losing.” Which is that side? Belgium of course.
Since Germany dropped out, many more people have been waving the Belgian flag. Quite ironically, the flags look so much alike. Sure I will be labeled a waggonist. I couldn’t care less. Better to be a waggonist than to claim that a team is the “most meticulously prepared team at the World Cup” and then have that team give its worst ever performance!
I am firmly on the Belgian train. The World Cup is ripe for a new winner. 1958, Brazil won for the first time. 1998, France won for the first time. Maybe the years that end with ‘8’ are a good omen for new teams. 2018 may be Belgium. If this golden generation of Belgian players cannot get it done, then they may never win it. Maybe their time has come.