R.W. Johnson

Now that we're down to the quarter finals it's perhaps worth noting the Ladbrokes odds: Brazil 9-4, Spain 3-1, Argentina 7-2, Germany 6-1, Holland 7-1, Uruguay 14-1, Ghana 33-1 and Paraguay 40-1. The long odds on Ghana are not something to mention here in South Africa where the fact that this was supposed to be Africa's World Cup is still a sore point. Marcel Desailly, one of the French cup-winning team of 1998, says that the reason African teams haven't done better is that it's still too early for Africa. ‘Local players in the African leagues, no matter where, battle to cope with the level at a global tournament, the pressure exerted at this level and the intensity of the game,’ he says. Dismissing this, the Times columnist S'Thembiso Msomi angrily writes that South Africa, with by far the most resources and best technology, should easily have had the continent's top football team following the advent of democracy in 1994 but that the early promise of 1996 (winning the African Cup of Nations) has been squandered by endless factionalism within South Africa's FA. Much the same, he argues, has happened to South African's political leadership in Africa, for much the same reasons

After last night's World Cup games, Brazil, Argentina, the Netherlands and Germany are through to the last eight. One has the strong feeling that it's unnecessary to play the other games, that the eventual winner is already in the above four. What is very striking, after the boring slugging matches of the group games, is how easily and massively these four have imposed themselves, scoring lots of goals against opponents who were, after all, in the top 16. Perhaps it is a mistake to have a group stage at all; the whole tournament would be so much better as a sudden death event like the FA Cup – though of course the point of the groups is to guarantee every team at least three games on the big stage.

England's ignominious exit from the World Cup has launched the usual storm, including here on this blog. Perhaps the most surprising suggestion so far is that Maradona is a good manager and that England could do with the likes of him. The Sun, inevitably, demands that the next manager be English. Given England's pivotal position in the game, it's worth pondering. One statistic unearthed by the debacle is that fewer than 3000 Englishmen have qualified for the top UEFA coaching certificate, a fraction of the number in most rival countries, and already an indicator that the FA may need to look abroad.

After Germany’s complete demolition of England yesterday there will be many post-mortems, starting with demands for the head of Fabio Capello. But the English players never once looked fresh, energetic and as if they were enjoying themselves. They came into the World Cup tired and stale after a season in which most of them had played some 60 games: not only far too many but far more than any other national football schedule requires. The English game is also weighed down with foreign imports. The results were all too obvious yesterday, with a thirty-something English team run off the park by a German team which is the youngest in the tournament and bounding with energy. English football lacks an upcoming generation like that because their place it would occupy is already taken by foreign professionals. If England wants to do better than this, it should cut the Premier League to 17 clubs (providing a 32-game season), restrict each club to two foreign players and abolish the League Cup.

Now that we're down to the last 16 things begin to get interesting because – at last – defensive play is no longer enough. Yesterday was especially interesting because Uruguay are beginning to look like serious inheritors of their heady tradition. It is often forgotten that Uruguay has a tradition in the World Cup surpassed by only Brazil and Italy. In the other match the professional money was all on the USA but Ghana triumphed nonetheless – and South Africa was thrilled, for the public has to an astonishing degree accepted the government's injunction that this is Africa's World Cup and that we must therefore all support the Black Stars, the sole remaining African team in the tournament.