It’s a small World (Cup) II: The geopolitics of football

The World Cup is now up and running with four of its 104 matches already played by the time this newspaper reaches the breakfast table, including all three hosts. Not that we are likely to have already seen the future champion – no host nation has won in this century, even after including the tournament’s top heavyweights (Brazil and Germany), while there were no less than six home triumphs in the 16 tournaments of the previous century. Will a new champion emerge from the record 48 competitors? Such upsets in the warm-ups as Japan beating England (with an experimental side) or Algeria defeating the Netherlands (deploying their top team), both 1-0, might presage this World Cup being a turning-point or they might have no more significance than the opening defeats of Spain in 2010 or Argentina last time out before going on to clinch the trophy.

Yet the main thrust of this column is not speculation about a possibly transformational future but a documentation of the past, aiming to back with figures last week’s thesis that the so-called World Cup is a Euro-American monopoly. Last week’s column gave only overall figures but today we will proceed continent by continent, dividing the tournament’s 80 participants among Europe (33, not counting Israel despite its inclusion in UEFA qualifying groups), the Americas (20, separating the nine South American republics from the others), Africa (13), Asia (12) and Oceania (two), listing them in order of merit.

Normally Europe would take pride of place here since it has all the biggest numbers with so many countries qualifying but Argentina’s subcontinent manages to sneak ahead on the basis of a single criterion – goal difference (over the years South American teams have scored around four goals for every three against while the European differential is more like eight to seven).

This column has no real answer beyond its number-crunching to the question of why South Americans are so good at this sport. You could say there is magic realism in their football as well as in their literature, a passion, even a religion – a more prosaic explanation might be providing a path of upward socio-economic mobility in an unequal continent lagging behind most others in these aspects. Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay have laid claim to 10 of the 22 World Cups, winning more often than not at the highest level (there are only eight silver or bronze medals otherwise, adding Chile at home in 1962). Only Venezuela has failed to qualify and only Bolivia is winless among the nine although only Colombia has a positive goal difference apart from the three champions. The totals since 1930 give South America 380 matches in 89 World Cup appearances with 185 wins, 75 draws and 120 defeats, scoring 616 goals while conceding 469.

European supremacy is more reflected in other indicators than World Cups won with only two more gold medals than South America but almost three-quarters of all medals (47 of the 66) and around two-thirds of all the quarter-finalists (116 of the 176 since 1930). They have also scored an overwhelming majority of the World Cup goals (1,680 out of a total 2,720) even if they have also received over half (1,387). There are several reasons for this European supremacy. Firstly, football goes back a long way – 13 of last season’s 20 Premier League teams were founded in the 19th century. Secondly, there is huge financial muscle (by no means all of it European) funding hyper-competitive domestic leagues carrying football to another level. And thirdly, European football has being a path of upward mobility in common with South American in a far more prosperous continent but with a changing face over the years – in the past century the ticket for local working-class youth but just when embourgeoisement and a plunging birth rate started drying up that source, the waves of immigration in this century more than filled the gaps. The European totals since 1930 are 1,080 matches in 258 appearances with 468 wins, 246 draws and 366 defeats along with the aforementioned 1,680-1,387 goal tally.

All other continents have negative goal differences with Africa ahead of the rest (approximately three goals scored for every five received). That old joke about Argentina and Brazil (lands of the future, always have been, always will be) could be applied to African football but one day that will presumably change – already this World Cup? Football is above all a team sport with the immense talent and impressive physique of many African players neutralised by the continent’s financial and structural weaknesses. African football is highly regional with little beyond the Maghreb and West Africa even though East Africa has the world’s fastest runners. Until Qatar 2022, no African team even reached the World Cup semi-final while Morocco was preceded by just three quarter-finalists, all West African – Cameroon (1990), Senegal (2002) and Ghana (2010). The total African figures since 1930 are 162 matches in 49 appearances with 37 victories, 41 draws and 84 defeats, scoring 157 goals and conceding 253.

Once the nine South American republics are subtracted, the rest of the Americas scored less than half the goals they suffered. A wonder that football has attracted the United States enough to stage two World Cups since their sports fans would surely consider a goalless match pointless in every sense compared to basketball, their football, baseball, ice hockey or anything else. Mexico’s 17 World Cup appearances place it 13th in the alltime rankings but with almost twice as many defeats as wins. No medals since the US bronze in the first World Cup in 1930. A total of 154 matches in 46 appearances with 34 wins, 33 draws and 87 defeats with only 142 goals as against 304 received.

Like Africa, Asian football is highly regional with little beyond the Koreas, Japan and the Middle East. Only the Koreas (North Korea in England in 1966, semi-finalists South Korea at home in 2002) have ever reached the quarter-finals. One extremely crude explanation for the failures of Asian football would be that they are all geeks and nerds who attach an otherwise laudable priority to educational studies. Their totals since 1930 are 126 matches in 39 appearances with 22 victories, 26 draws and 78 defeats with approximately five goals suffered for every two scored (104-253).

Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) do not merit more than their overall figures – 26 matches in eight appearances with four wins, seven draws and 15 defeats along with a 21-51 goal tally.

Next week’s column will compare and contrast Donald Trump with previous tournament hosts, ranging from Uruguayan President Juan Campisteguy in 1930 to The Donald (the latter rather better-known than the former).

Is AI overrated?

Any reader will quite naturally assume that the many figures in this column were all plucked out of Internet but while there was indeed a whole lot of googling, some of the above numbers had to be painstakingly added from the raw data because the supposedly omniscient Artificial Intelligence fell short. Asked for the number of European goals since 1930, its imprecise answer is “approximately 1,630” when adding the 33 subtotals gives you 1,680. AI also insists that 14 African countries have played in the World Cup but can only list the 13 who have actually played, asking readers for help in identifying the 14th – presumably previous participants are being confused with the past and present (including newcomer Cape Verde). Lack of space bars further examples. If AI can slip up in this tiny sliver of information, should it be given the benefit of the doubt where we are ignorant?