BY DESMOND EKWUEME
Football pendulum seems to have permanently swung to Europe. Since 2006, the World Cup diadem has been domiciled in the continent and may not leave there soon. It was Italy in 2006 in Germany, Spain in 2014 in South Africa, Germany shocked the world in faraway Brazil in 2014. And now, the last four countries standing, in Russia after 23 days of intense football at the highest level and biggest stage, are European countries-Belgium, France, England and Croatia.
The five countries representing South America, namely Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Colombia and Uruguay were all sent home just like Africa’s quintet of Nigeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Senegal. The Asian train with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Korea Republic and Japan also returned early. Concacaf which had Mexico, Panama and Costa Rica also kissed the dust.
Indeed, Europe is the home of the sport with facilities, stadia, media buzz and huge money pumped into the sport to develop the leagues in the continent and at the grassroots through the various academies.
The eight top leagues in the world are in Europe, talking about La Liga in Spain, Serie A in Italy, EPL in England, Bundesliga of Germany, Eredevise of Holland, Jupiter Liga of Belgium, Super Liga of Portugal and Ligue 1 of France.
These Leagues have continued to dominate and attract the biggest players across the world who leave their continents to play and earn good money in Europe thereby helping to develop the sport there. Leagues in South America are not bad but they do not get big financial backup like in Europe to help keep or retain their superstars whose presence in these leagues will help solidify their national teams.
If top players of a particular country stay and play in the same league, there is surely going to be huge cohesion and understanding among the players. Truth is, most countries in Africa, Asia and South America now adopt the formations, patterns and style of European football and it’s coaches. Brazil has dumped her jogo bonito style which emphasises immense skills, tip tap, ball possession and ball juggling abilities of the players. Since they abandoned their strength to adopt European style, given that most of their best players play in Europe, it is very difficult to go back to the natural Brazilian kind of football and approach.
The European coaches, having been working with Brazilian players at club level, know their strengths and weaknesses. So, when it comes to national team assignments, they know how to neutralise the strength, forces and style of the South Americans. For instance, about 95 per cent of Brazilian squad members in Russia ply their football trade in Europe.
The same factor affects African teams who have jettisoned their power play, speed, wing play and skills to outdo their European counterparts in those areas. But the exodus of African players abroad to seek greener pastures has made it easy for the European coaches to study them and come up with approaches on how to neutralise them during tournaments like the World Cup.
Except Africa and South America adopt the style of pumping money through the private sector into the sport with the goal of developing their local leagues and keep their top players, they may continue to play second fiddle to Europe as far as the World Cup is concerned.
From 2006 in Germany to 2010 in South Africa to 2014 in Brazil and now 2018 in Russia, it is a European affair…
