Europe’s strength reflects game
UEFA’s dominance clear at World Cup
MOSCOW – This unpredictable World Cup has at last thrown us a guarantee. When then trophy is lifted at Luzhniki Stadium on Sunday, the winner will be a European nation.
The elimination of Uruguay and Brazil in the quarterfinals meant six teams were left, all of them from Europe, sealing the continent’s dominance of the event and ensuring it will provide the champion for the fourth consecutive time.
But it’s not a major problem, at least not as much of one as has been claimed. Some of it stems from geography. Whether due to comfort, familiarity, weather or whatever, European teams always win World Cups held in Europe, the sole exception coming when a magnificent teenager named Pele sparked Brazil to glory 60 years ago in Sweden.
It works the other way, too. When Germany won it all on Brazilian soil four years ago, it was the first time a nonSouth American nation had won a World Cup staged there.
It doesn’t mean a catastrophic collapse in South America’s abilities, it means Brazil is in a dip (not helped by Neymar being better at diving than at scoring), Lionel Messi was out-of-sorts for Argentina and Colombia got unlucky in penalty kicks.
South American fans traveled to Russia in great numbers, but their journeys largely went unrewarded. Peru, Colombia and Argentina had huge support at each of their games. Peru was sunk early, out of contention before it even played its third game. Argentina’s stuttering campaign was ended by France and Colombia’s by England thanks to those evil penalties.
Only Brazil and Uruguay survived into the quarterfinals, then got immediately taken down, leaving the tournament entirely European.
African teams were poor in general, with the sole exception being unfortunate Senegal, bumped out of a Round of 16 place on a tiebreaker based on its disciplinary record.
Asia had highlights. Japan was gritty in the group and outstanding against Belgium in the Round of 16 before blowing a 2-0 lead. South Korea went home early but beat Germany to close out and got a heroic welcome on arrival. Morocco and Iran gave Portugal and Spain all they could handle on the final match day in group play, while even Saudi Arabia got a win.
CONCACAF’s only contribution of note, except for Panama being probably the most inept team in the tournament, was in Mexico’s dramatic run. Based on limited information, it is hard to gauge where the USA’s regional confederation sits compared to the rest of the world, but the eye test suggests the Americans and their rivals are a long, long way from the elite.
Europe, meanwhile, was in control pretty much everywhere you looked. It topped five of the eight groups, and only four of its 14 teams (Iceland, Poland, Serbia and, shockingly, Germany) failed to reach the knockout stage. The best clubs in world soccer are based in Europe, the big money follows the standard and the best talent follows the money.
Is it bad for the game? That depends how you see it. If you want the best teams in the tournament and into its lat- ter stages regardless of where they are from, then there is no doubt where the power base of the sport rests currently.
Don’t expect it to change either. Europe is already one of the most difficult regions to qualify from, evidenced by both Italy and Netherlands missing out. It receives 13 automatic spots out of 32, but while that is far higher than any other confederation, it still does not accurately represent how dominant Europe is in the rankings.
The dominance could get more pronounced when the World Cup expands to 48 teams in 2026.
By then, the UEFA allocation will be up to 16 teams and it is virtually certain that one of them will be placed in each of the 16 groups of three.
With two teams set to qualify from each of those, expect most, if not all of the Euro nations to stick around for the knockout portion.
The good news for the others. There’s not much but just this: At least the next two World Cups won’t be held in Europe.