Thursday, August 16, 2018

Bummed out

I am not football hungover as I was in 2014. I am simply bummed out. Tired of football. I have had too much disillusion over the last few years, losing my idols, one by one; losing all hope that any team I support will win anything, but worse of all seeing the game becoming more corrupt and full of hate.
People say football is like religion: nowadays, it is much worse than religion or any ideology. Just like religion it has brought good things with it, but nowadays the hateful passion of fans, commercialism, greed and petty nationalism just overshadow all the nice things about the game (of which I acknowledge, there are still many, but I must admit that I cannot see the sun for all the shadows everywhere).
I already closed my Twitter account, and now considering whether I should continue with this blog. It would be a bit nostalgic to close it down, as it has been a steady part of my life for so many years. At the same time, I feel I have nothing more to say about the "former" beautiful game. I have often used the tag "no life" in my more reflective posts. I truly have no life without football.

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

#MeTwo

The situation of Mezut Ozil has pissed me off so much that whatever little support or any big respect I had for German football hangs on a thin thread. I can totally understand that he has left the national team of ungrateful and hateful fans, who indeed treated him well when things go well, and badly when things go badly, as they did for Germany in the last World Cup.
Now this is a symptom of the much wider problems of nationalism, where too many people think that you cannot love or identify with more than one nation. Nations are mental constructs! They only exist in people's mind. And from that mind comes a lot of symbols in the form of paper, cloth, songs, stories, etc., that basically just exist to constantly reconfirm this mental construct.
Football also contributes to recreate this mental construct. That is basically the only reason for having the World Cup at a time when football is a global sport: I can sit in Liberia watching an English League match where a Frenchman of Malian descent plays alongside a Spaniard of Catalonian heritage to score a goal against a Belgian (Waloon) goalkeeper for a club owned by a Russian. In this global mixture a player or a fan may love multiple teams, may love multiple countries and may count his heritage from many parts of the world.
I admire Mr. Ozil because he, like so many of us in the world with mixed heritage says what we all know: that you can belong and feel proud of having a multiple cross-national background, so incredibly rich in its diversity, and so incredibly open to the wonders of this world that I often pity the people whose narrow minds limits them to a particular mental construct.
Quoting the fantastic writer Mr. Amin Maalouf:
"I am at the edge of two worlds, of two or three languages, of many cultural traditions. It is precisely that which defines me… I do not have many identities, I have one, made up of all these elements…. "but deep inside, what do you feel you are?": this reoccurring question made me smile for a long time. Today, I do not smile at it anymore. It seems to me that it shows a dangerous way of seeing the world that is very wide-spread nowadays. It supposes that there is, within each of us, only one belonging which matters, an essence which is determined once and for all at birth and which will never change; as if the rest – your journey through life as a free person, your convictions, your preferences, your sensibilities, your affinities, in short your life – counted for nothing. And we push others to strengthen their identity as we so often do nowadays, it is as if we were telling them to find, deep within themselves, this theoretical original belonging, which is most often ethnic, national, religious or racial, and throw it in the face of others."

Monday, August 13, 2018

World Cup all-time table after Russia 2018

So this is the all-time World Cup table following the 2018 World Cup. Brazil maintains its first position, and there are no changes in the top four (although neither Germany, Italy or Argentina had a good World Cup), while France, with its second title, moves into the fifth best all-time nation, while Spain moves from fifth to seventh place. The Netherlands is still the best country never to have won a World Cup. Croatia moves up 5 places to 22nd, while Russia moves up 14 places from 50th to 36th (note that I do not include Russia together with the USSR).
 Otherwise the table is as follows:


Country Games Won Tied Lost GF GA Goal difference points (3-system)
1 Brazil (-) 109 73 18 18 232 113 119 237
2 Germany* (-) 109 66 21 22 225 126 99 219
3 Italy (-) 83 45 21 17 127 76 51 156
4 Argentina (-) 81 43 15 23 137 93 44 144
5 France (+2) 66 34 13 19 120 76 44 115
6 England (-) 69 29 21 19 91 64 27 108
7 Spain (-2) 63 30 15 18 99 72 27 105
8 Netherlands (-) 50 27 12 11 86 48 38 93
9 Uruguay (-) 56 24 12 20 87 74 13 84
10 Sweden (-) 51 19 13 19 80 73 7 70
11 Belgium (+2) 48 20 9 19 67 72 -5 69
12 Mexico (-1) 57 16 14 27 60 98 -38 62
13 Yugoslavia (-1) 37 16 8 13 60 46 14 56
14 Poland (+1) 34 16 6 12 47 45 2 54
15 USSR (-1) 31 15 6 10 53 34 19 51
16 Portugal (+1) 30 14 6 10 49 35 14 48
17 Hungary (-1) 32 15 3 14 87 57 30 48
18 Switzerland (+3) 37 12 8 17 50 64 -14 44
19 Czech Republic** (-1) 33 12 5 16 47 49 -2 41
20 Chile (-1) 33 11 7 15 40 49 -9 40
21 Austria (-1) 29 12 4 13 43 47 -4 40
22 Croatia (+5) 23 11 4 8 35 26 9 37
23 Denmark (-+2) 20 9 5 6 30 26 4 32
24 Paraguay (-2) 27 7 10 10 30 38 -8 31
25 USA (-2) 33 8 6 19 37 62 -25 30
26 Colombia (+2) 22 9 3 10 32 30 2 30
27 Romania (-3) 21 8 5 8 30 32 -2 29
28 South Corea (-1) 34 6 9 19 34 70 -36 27
29 Nigeria (+3) 21 6 3 12 23 30 -7 21
30 Costa Rica (+1) 18 5 5 8 19 28 -9 20
31 Japan (+3) 21 5 5 11 20 29 -9 20
32 Scotland (-3) 23 4 7 12 27 41 -14 19
33 Cameroon (-3) 23 4 7 12 18 43 -25 19
34 Peru (+2) 18 5 3 10 21 33 -12 18
35 Bulgaria (-2) 26 3 8 15 22 53 -31 17
36 Russia (+14) 14 4 4 6 24 20 4 16
37 Turkey (-2) 10 5 1 4 20 16 4 16
38 Ghana (-1) 12 4 3 5 13 16 -3 15
39 Ireland (-1) 13 2 8 3 10 10 0 14
40 North. Ireland (-1) 13 3 5 5 13 23 -10 14
41 Ecuador (-1) 10 4 1 5 10 11 -1 13
42 Algeria (-1) 13 3 3 7 13 19 -6 12
43 Senegal (+4) 8 3 3 2 11 10 1 12
44 Morocco (-1) 16 2 5 9 14 22 -8 11
45 Saudi Arabia (+4) 16 3 2 11 11 39 -28 11
46 South Africa (-3) 9 2 4 3 11 16 -5 10
47 Australia (-1) 16 2 4 10 13 31 -18 10
48 Tunisia (+4) 15 2 4 9 13 25 -12 10
49 Iran (+6) 15 2 4 9 9 24 -15 10
50 Ivory Coast (-6) 9 3 1 5 13 14 -1 10
51 Norway (-6) 8 2 3 3 7 8 -1 9
52 East Germany (-4) 6 2 2 2 5 5 0 8
53 Greece (-2) 10 2 2 6 5 20 -15 8
54 Ukraine (-1) 5 2 1 2 5 7 -2 7
55 Wales (-1) 5 1 3 1 4 4 0 6
56 Serbia (+6) 6 2 0 4 4 7 -3 6
57 Slovakia (-1) 4 1 1 2 5 7 -2 4
58 Slovenia (-1) 6 1 1 4 5 10 -5 4
59 Cuba (-1) 3 1 1 1 5 12 -7 4
60 North Corea (-1) 7 1 1 5 6 21 -15 4
61 Honduras (-1) 9 0 3 6 3 14 -11 3
62 New Zealand (-1) 6 0 3 3 4 14 -10 3
63 Jamaica (-) 3 1 0 2 3 7 -4 3
64 Bosnia-Hercegovina (-2) 3 1 0 2 4 4 0 3
65 Angola (-1) 3 0 2 1 1 2 -1 2
66 Israel (-1) 3 0 2 1 1 3 -2 2
67 Egypt (-1) 7 0 2 5 5 12 -7 2
68 Kuwait (-1) 3 0 1 2 2 6 -4 1
69 Trinidad-Tobago (-1) 3 0 1 2 0 4 -4 1
70 Bolivia (-1) 6 0 1 5 1 19 -18 1
71 Iceland 3 0 1 2 2 5 -3 1
72 Iraq (-1) 3 0 0 3 1 4 -3 0
73 Togo (-1) 3 0 0 3 1 6 -5 0
74 Canada (-1) 3 0 0 3 0 5 -5 0
75 Dutch West Indies (-1) 1 0 0 1 0 6 -6 0
76 Serbia-Montenegro (-1) 3 0 0 3 2 10 -8 0
77 Panama 3 0 0 3 2 11 -9 0
78 United Arab Emirates (-2) 3 0 0 3 2 11 -9 0
79 China (-2) 3 0 0 3 0 9 -9 0
80 Haiti (-2) 3 0 0 3 2 14 -12 0
81 Zaire (-2) 3 0 0 3 0 14 -14 0
82 El Salvador (-1) 6 0 0 6 1 22 -21 0


1800
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2551
2551
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900