Other World Cup News: Same old, same old: Europe wins World Cup

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Same old, same old. The World Cup champions will be European. Either Dutch, Spanish or German, to be precise.

Hang on a second, the old continent hogging the summit of world football, haven’t we seen that before?

Well, yes. Four years ago, in fact. Remember Italy winning and the head-butt that rocked the world by French captain Zinedine Zidane?

The truth is, we shouldn’t be surprised. Four weeks and 61 matches into the first World Cup in Africa — there’s just one semifinal, Sunday’s final and the third-place game still to play — have reaffirmed a cold, hard fact: The sport’s center of gravity is still, and perhaps more than ever, in Europe.

Africa proved at this World Cup that it is more than capable of hosting the biggest single event in sport, but that it also is nowhere close to winning it. Ghana was the only country to make a real impression and even it got no further than the quarterfinals. Africa has fine players, competing across Europe in some of the biggest clubs. It also has passion, as evidenced by the way the continent swung behind the Ghanaians after the other five African sides failed to get out of the group stage. But Africa doesn’t have the decades of experience, the coaching expertise, and the wealth that make Europe’s giants so strong.

For a while at this World Cup of relatively few goals but also genuine upsets, South America strung us along with the illusion that it would be the dominant force. But that, too, wasn’t to be. Four of the eight quarterfinalists were South American. None will be in the final. Thank you, Brazil for letting someone else win for a change. The five-time champions were nowhere near their dancing, awesome best in South Africa. The Brazilians are organizing the next World Cup and must regroup, perhaps unearth a new Pele, if they want to win it and add a sixth gold star to their bright yellow jerseys.

Thanks, too, to Argentina for a bundle of goals and for lighting up the World Cup with the passion and quirkiness of Diego Maradona, Argentina’s greatest player, who discovered that coaching wasn’t so easy. His philosophy of swashbuckling attacking football was the necessary antidote to the dull defensive fare served by teams so unambitious that we’ve already forgotten them.

And gracias Uruguay, for giving the World Cup its pantomime villain, Luis Suarez. At the very end of an absorbing quarterfinal, he illegally used his hands to block what would have been a match-winning goal for Ghana. But that cheat also proved to be a Pyhrric victory for Uruguay. As punishment, football governing body FIFA made him sit out Tuesday’s semifinal against the Netherlands at Cape Town’s ghostly white and brand new Green Point Stadium. Deprived of Suarez’s goal-scoring talents, Uruguay never looked likely to win. There was a measure of poetic justice for Ghana and Africa in the scoreline — Netherlands 3, Uruguay 2.

The Dutch captain, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, lit up the match with a moment of beauty. His goal after 18 minutes of constricted and flat football — neither side wanted to make a mistake — whooshed into the top corner of Uruguay’s net. He thwacked the ball from 36 meters (yards) out, top speed: 109 kilometers (67 miles) per hour.

So often at this World Cup similar shots have zoomed frustratingly over the crossbar. Players have blamed their lack of control on the Jabulani ball, said by some to be too fast and too light, and the high altitude of some of the stadiums, where shots cut quicker through the thin air. Maybe Cape Town’s muggy, denser sea air was a factor in van Bronckhorst finding the back of the net so sweetly against Uruguay. Of all the goals at this World Cup, only the very first of the tournament was better. Siphiwe Tshabalala’s shot on the run for South Africa was both athletic and the perfect start.

The Netherlands will play either Spain or the most impressive side of the tournament, Germany, in Sunday’s final at the cooking pot-shaped Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg.

Germany’s young side has played with such verve and teamwork that it is the favorite. But Spain is the European champion and, unlike three-time champion Germany, has never won a World Cup. Its talented team of players, many from Spanish champion Barcelona, has not been as impressive as was expected, but could make amends now when it counts.

The Dutch have reached the final playing not the prettiest football, but perhaps the most pragmatic. Defend well. Score goals. They have won all six of their matches in South Africa. Like the Spanish, they have yet to win a World Cup.

And while no European side has ever won the cup outside of Europe, that will change Sunday.

So in the end, it won’t be same old, same old, after all.

John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester(at)ap.org

Soccer City site is historic anti-apartheid venue

JOHANNESBURG — Built on the edge of Soweto, Soccer City stadium will be the grand stage for Sunday’s World Cup final. For many South Africans, though, the site has been hallowed ground for two decades — not because of sports, but as a historic venue in the anti-apartheid struggle.

In October 1989, with apartheid still in force, Soccer City’s precursor stadium hosted an electrifying rally at which more than 70,000 blacks greeted newly freed leaders of the still-outlawed African National Congress. The group included most of the ANC’s long-imprisoned hierarchy except Nelson Mandela.

It was the largest anti-government rally in South African history — but the record was short-lived.

Less than four months later, an even bigger, more euphoric crowd overflowed FNB Stadium to welcome home Mandela himself, the paramount ANC leader, at last freed unconditionally by the white-minority government after 27 years in prison. Some young men scaled the light towers high above the stadium to see their hero.

Together, the rallies — witnessed by scores of foreign journalists and diplomats — were graphic proof of the ANC’s massive popular support, sending an unmistakable message that its leaders would play central roles as South Africa moved forward on a bumpy path away from apartheid.

“The rallies were very important symbolic statements,” said Murphy Morobe, a leading activist who helped organize the events. “It was so important for people to hear our leaders not compromising, even after spending so much time in prison.”

The first rally was remarkable because almost every aspect — including repeated praise for the ANC’s guerrilla campaign — violated the stringent security laws of nation in a declared state of emergency. Police kept their distance, and the closest thing to a security unit in the stadium was an honor guard of young ANC supporters in khaki uniforms.

“Today, the ANC has captured center stage in South Africa,” said 77-year-old Walter Sisulu, the ANC’s former general secretary who’d been freed two weeks earlier, along with six colleagues.

The government had given permission for the rally, although a magistrate warned that speakers should avoid promoting ANC aims. The warning went unheeded.

The second rally, on Feb. 13, drew an even bigger crowd — well over 100,000 — to greet Mandela, two days after his release from prison in Cape Town and 11 days after the ANC was unbanned. Youths perched precariously on walls, others scaled the 120-foot light towers, and a few dozen people were injured as crowds jostled to glimpse the podium.

“We are going forward,” Mandela, then 71, told the roaring throng. “The march toward freedom and justice is irreversible.”

At the rally’s end, two helicopters took Mandela and his entourage to a smaller stadium in nearby Soweto, a black township where riots against apartheid had gained worldwide attention in 1976. From there he rode in a motorcade — escorted by Soweto police with ANC flags on their motorcycles — to the modest, four-room house he lived in before his arrest.

Morobe, now CEO of an investment company, was chief spokesman for the largest anti-apartheid coalition in that era and at one point was detained more than 14 months before escaping to take refuge in the U.S. consulate. He became a key member of the “reception committee” that prepared for the ANC leaders’ release from prison and organized the welcome-home rallies.

Challenges were numerous, Morobe recalled in an interview — including finding the right venue and minimizing crowd-control problems. FNB Stadium was chosen because it was the biggest venue, and because its management included black soccer officials sympathetic to the ANC’s goals.

At no point, Morobe said, was there any liaison with the police.

“We refused to be involved in anything that could be viewed as a compromise,” he said. “We just organized and went ahead. Because of the high profile of these leaders, our feeling was they would hold back.”

The police did stay away, but Morobe said the huge crowd at the first rally made him nervous.

“The anxiety levels were so high — you start feeling your tummy just going crazy,” he said.

Different worries arose at the second rally.

“With Mandela, it was more the realization that we have in our hands the most important figure in our struggle,” Morobe said. “We knew we had the responsibility of taking care of him.”

Mandela returned to FNB Stadium three years later for another momentous political occasion — the April 1993 funeral for Chris Hani, head of the South African Communist Party and a top ANC official who’d been assassinated by a white gunman.

Again, the stadium was filled to overflowing — and this time there was violence nearby: clashes between police and enraged black youths that claimed more than two dozen lives in the region’s townships.

Inside the stadium, Mandela conveyed urgency.

“Speed is of the essence,” he said. “We want an end to white minority rule now. We want an election date now. We want to know when we will have a government of our choice.”

Barely a year later, on April 27, 1994, he was elected president.

Mandela’s release from prison seemed near-impossible when ground was broken for the original stadium in 1986. The project was the brainchild of soccer officials and got financial backing from First National Bank, which secured the naming rights.

Amid anti-apartheid unrest and the state of emergency, the goal of building South Africa’s first world-class soccer stadium seemed audacious, but it opened in 1989 — only weeks before the Sisulu rally.

It was constructed in a virtual no man’s land near mine dumps on Johannesburg’s southwestern outskirts.

Now the site is officially part of Johannesburg, and the city owns the stadium, which was overhauled and expanded for the World Cup.

Its future is somewhat murky — there’s even a dispute brewing about whether its post-World Cup name will be National Stadium or revert to FNB Stadium.

Its management promises all-out efforts to prevent it from becoming a white elephant. In addition to major soccer matches, rugby, concerts and corporate events are expected.

First National Bank is well aware that the stadium named after it is now enshrined in the anti-apartheid legacy.

“It was great to see the stadium used for those historic events,” said FNB marketing official Vicki Trehaeven. “It’s very much a South African landmark.”

-- David Curry

’Outraged’ Blanc prepares to rebuild France team

PARIS — New France coach Laurent Blanc was “outraged” by the behavior of certain players during the World Cup debacle and plans to rebuild the national team with only players he can trust.

Blanc inherited a team devoid of confidence, as Raymond Domenech’s troubled six-year reign ended with rifts and infighting after the team went on strike at a training session shortly before its World Cup ended in the group stage.

“What bothers me is that, after the World Cup, a new coach should be able to lean on a hard core,” Blanc said on Tuesday at his first press conference. “This hard core is not even a melon’s pip. ... My task is to find a hard core within this team.”

Blanc plans to meet with players shortly so he can sort out who forms a part of his future plans.

“I can’t act like nothing happened in South Africa, it wouldn’t go down well. I followed the events, as you all did, with a lot of sadness,” Blanc said. “I was outraged by certain behavior ... it’s a delicate situation, there are certainly meetings to be had.”

The 44-year-old Blanc’s first game is an away friendly against Norway on Aug. 11, followed by a Euro 2012 home qualifier against Belarus on Sept. 3.

Blanc is fully aware that the climate is so bad that he is immediately under huge pressure.

“Everyone wishes me luck. I get the impression I’m heading toward suicide, or the guillotine,” Blanc said. “I hope this climate will change with results.”

Blanc has some key decisions to make, and little time.

Federation official and former international Lilian Thuram — Blanc’s teammate at the 1998 World Cup and at Euro 2000 — has already said defender Patrice Evra should never play again for France because he was the captain who led the strike.

Evra was stripped of the captaincy by Domenech and dropped for the final game against South Africa, which France lost 2-1.

Blanc intends to speak with Evra, and others like Franck Ribery, Thierry Henry, William Gallas and Eric Abidal — reportedly the five main instigators in the mutiny — before deciding whether he picks them again.

“There are very few people who can tell you what really happened. I think I know a few of them,” he said. “And knowing them well, I think if I have a meeting with them, they will tell me what really happened.”

Blanc insists only those “with the right mentality and team spirit” will be chosen as he rebuilds the team and designates its new leader.

“It’s possible that the captain changes in every match in the games to come,” he added.

Domenech’s team completely fell apart in the space of a few days at the World Cup.

The problems started when sports newspaper L’Equipe published details of Nicolas Anelka’s expletive-filled rant at Domenech the day after France lost 2-0 to Mexico in their second group match.

Anelka was sent home, and the next day the entire squad sat on the team bus, refusing to train in protest at Anelka’s dismissal. The bizarre images, including one French official storming off and screaming he was “ashamed,” were shown live.

“What shocked me the most, what disappointed me the most, was the behavior of the squad during the public training session, 48 hours before a match,” Blanc said. The decision to strike “was thought through and badly thought through.”

Evra also had a lively altercation with the team’s fitness coach, and Domenech — shunned by his own players — had to read out a letter on behalf of his players explaining their strike.

France went out for the second consecutive tournament without winning a game, after its humiliating first-round exit from Euro 2008.

Given the players’ fall from grace, Blanc demanded a new attitude.

“People will have to show a certain amount of humility,” he said. “At a certain point in time our national team could say ‘We’re going to the European Championship to win it’ ... I don’t think we’ll even be in the top 10 FIFA rankings now. We will need to be a bit humble, given that we’re in a total rebuilding phase.”

In a thinly veiled swipe at Domenech, Blanc insisted France must stop isolating itself. Domenech’s training camps were held far away from the public eye, with no interaction with fans.

Blanc replied with a firm and blunt “no” when asked if he had spoken to the unpopular Domenech since taking over.

“I don’t envisage a team living behind closed doors, cut off from the world,” Blanc said. “I think football has to open itself up. In other sports it happens, and the results are good. We should be able to do it. We have an effort to make.”

-- Jerome Pugmire

Lawmaker proposes Maradona monument

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — An Argentine legislator has proposed building a monument to honor Diego Maradona, whose future as coach of the national soccer team has been uncertain since it was eliminated in the World Cup quarterfinals by Germany.

Juan Cabandie, a member of the lower house of the Argentine congress, sponsored a bill Tuesday to honor Maradona “as an icon of popular Argentine culture.”

One of Maradona’s assistant coaches has publicly urged him to stay in the job after the team was routed 4-0 by Germany on Saturday. A senior member of the Argentine Football Association has said the decision rests with Maradona, who has yet to make his plans clear.

Maradona has also received encouragement from Argentina President Cristina Fernandez, and on Tuesday two of his players — starting midfielder Angel Di Maria and substitute goalkeeper Mariano Andujar — offered their public support.

“The Argentine people have shown that, when it comes to Maradona, the results are not important,” Cabandie said. “Having been eliminated in the quarterfinals of the World Cup in South Africa, in a lopsided loss, thousands of people came to the streets to meet him and his 23 players.”

Maradona’s unpredictable nature leads few to say for certain he will step away — and the South American continental championship, the Copa America, will be hosted in Argentina just a year from now.

Building a monument would officially place Maradona in the pantheon of national icons, joining former President Juan Peron, his second wife Eva, and Carlos Gardel, the most important figure in the history of tango.

Maradona led Argentina to its last World Cup title in 1986, the centerpiece of a career in which he was perhaps the greatest player of his generation. The career also had many lows, including the 1994 World Cup where he was banned after testing positive for a cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs.

Maradona was appointed national team coach in October 2008 by AFA president Julio Grondona. The tenure has also been a roller coaster.

Argentina struggled to qualify for the World Cup, absorbing embarrassing losses against Bolivia (6-1) and Brazil (3-1). But the team seemed on course in South Africa for a third World Cup title after group-stage wins against Nigeria, South Korea and Greece.

It defeated Mexico 3-1 in the round of 16, leading Maradona to boast about the team’s scoring prowess. Then came the humiliating loss on Saturday to Germany, which again led many to question Maradona’s coaching ability.

-- Debora Ray

SAfrica’s Zuma: World Cup an economic success

JOHANNESBURG — Africa’s first World Cup tournament has been an economic success for South Africa, President Jacob Zuma told an investment conference Tuesday.

The country got a good return on the 33 billion rand ($4.26 billion) it invested on transport infrastructure, telecommunications and stadiums, Zuma said.

Some 66,000 people got new construction jobs as a result of stadium construction and rehabbing, while money spent on security means there are 40,000 additional police officers, Zuma said, according to a transcript of his speech.

On top of that, the image the country has projected to the world has been positive, Zuma said.

“The world has seen this country in a different light,” Zuma said. “They have seen the precision when it comes to planning and logistical arrangements. They have seen the efficiency of our security infrastructure and infrastructure. Basically, our planning over many years is paying off and we are happy.”

Christopher Hart, the chief economist for Investment Solutions, said he doesn’t believe the event itself has been financially profitable, but that the positive coverage the country received as a result of the tournament is priceless.

“This was an important, image-changing event for South Africa,” he said. “It has been successful, against expectation ... People saw it and experienced it as a success.”

The country is likely to attract more foreign investment in the future as a result, Hart said, but added that the government has to ensure that it keeps up the standards set during the tournament, especially when it comes to security.

Zuma used the conference to urge fund managers present to invest in the country.

“South Africa is a center between the emerging markets of Central and South America and the newly industrialized nations of South and Far East Asia,” Zuma said.

He also said the country plays a pivotal role for the entire continent.

“Many South African companies have major investments in the continent,” Zuma said. “They are proving that Africa is indeed a continent of opportunity rather than one of despair.”

-- Fisnik Abrashi

Ghana team to be honored by government

ACCRA, Ghana — Ghana’s World Cup players will be given national honors and $20,000 each after reaching the quarterfinals in South Africa.

“You deserved to be honored because you have made Ghana and indeed Africa proud by your performance,” Mills said Tuesday in announcing the accolades at a lunch for the team. The Black Stars were greeted by cheering fans when they returned to Accra on Monday night.

Ghana was adopted as Africa’s team during its run to the final eight of the tournament. The squad came close to being the first team from the continent to make the semifinals; they were knocked out in a penalty shootout by Uruguay in the quarters. The other five African teams all failed to qualify for the second round.

“You did not win the World Cup but, through your performance, you carried high the flags of not only Ghana but Africa,” Mills said.

As well as the cash bonus for the players, a government official said members of the coaching team would receive a reward of $10,000 each.

Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, who is from Ghana, wrote in a letter to the team that he was one of millions left “heartbroken” after the Uruguay loss.

Ghana was denied victory when a blatant hand ball prevented a goal in the final seconds of extra time. Asamoah Gyan missed the resulting penalty kick, forcing the shootout.

“You won because you brought us all together,” Annan’s letter said. “The lasting trophy to take away from the tournament is this incredible moment of unity.”

-- Francis Kokutse

FIFA to keep monitoring Nigeria soccer

JOHANNESBURG — FIFA will continue monitoring Nigerian soccer for possible political interference, even though the government backed down from threats to suspend the national team for two years.

FIFA was poised to impose even broader penalties on Nigerian soccer if the government went through with its plan, but the threat was dropped Monday. FIFA rules prohibit government interference in the operation of national soccer federations.

FIFA spokesman Nicolas Maingot says it will continue to monitor the situation in Nigeria “closely.”

The dispute began when Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said he would ban the national team after the Super Eagles’ early World Cup exit.