This World Has 32 Nations

PARIS: And so it was that last Wednesday, at 22h51 local time in Montevideo (UTC-2) and with a toot-toot-TOOOOOOT from the whistle of Swiss referee Massimo Busacca, Uruguay became the thirty-second and final country to qualify for the World Cup Finals, to be held June 11 to July 11, 2010.

In all, 204 nations participated in the continental qualifying tournaments that began way back in August of 2007. Now, after 848 matches and 2337 goals, we find the thirty-one strongest and most deserving footballing nations of the world left standing. And France, of course.

So with 200 days remaining before the opening kick-off of South Africa 2010 — the first-ever edition of the tournament to be staged in Africa — a quick rundown of the Thrilling Thirty-Two:

Main de Dieu

Yes, of course it was a handball that put France through in extra time of their second-leg knockout match against poor, star-crossed Ireland. We all agree on this. Without drawing the whole thing out any further than it already has been, I have three quick things to say about Thierry Henry’s handball, the most famous unpunished handball since Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” against England in 1986.

1. He didn’t mean to do it. Of course he didn’t. This wasn’t some calculated, devious attempt by Henry to secretly handle the ball twice in the penalty area and hope to get away with it. In slow motion it sure looks deliberate, but at game speed it was a purely instinctual flailing of the arms on a bouncing ball. And it wasn’t cheating, either — handballs occur all the time in football. It’s written into the rules that when you touch the ball with your hand, the whistle blows and the other side gets a free kick. So if anything, this is a failure of officiating. Leave Henry alone.

2. It’s not Thierry Henry’s job to confess to the referee that he handled the ball. Just like it wasn’t Shay Given’s job to walk up to the referee six minutes earlier, when he took down Nicolas Anelka in the box with a clear hand to the boot, and to say, “You know, Mr. Referee, you didn’t whistle it, but I’m certain that my hand hit Anelka’s boot and brought him down, and in all fairness, you should have whistled a penalty against me.” Again, this was a failure of refereeing. Just like this crucial penalty call, for a phantom handball in the box that came after a missed offside call: Ireland vs. Georgia, World Cup qualifying, February 11, 2009. Robbie Keane shouldn’t be celebrating like that. Should he?

3. To judge by the Anglophone media’s reaction to the game, you’d think that the French are rejoicing in this treachery. They’re not. We’re not (note: while I’m living in France, and until Canada qualifies for a World Cup, I’m for Les Bleus). Nobody wanted this match to end this way. Don’t you think that the French know that they’ll be reminded of their “tainted” qualification before every match in South Africa? Do you think it’s a smart move to qualify shadily at the expense of one Anglophone nation when you’re going to play in another Anglophone nation? France instantly becomes the top villain of 2010, thanks to a failure of refereeing. Let the party begin. Ugh.

First Winners, Last Inners

Uruguay, winners of the first World Cup in 1930, were the last team to qualify for this tournament, to be held eighty years after their glorious victory over Argentina in Montevideo. First winners, and last team qualified? A nice round eighty years? That is too coincidental to be an accident. I smell the next Dan Brown blockbuster — someone get that greasy-haired Tom Hanks detective guy on the phone! He’s a detective, right?

The Chilled Envelope Conspiracy

Speaking of those French footballing villains, how excited are we about the inevitable drawing of the United States and North Korea into the same group-stage round on December 4 in Cape Town, when the ping-pong balls are plucked from that funny air-drum by some cute, overdressed young woman?

A couple more geopolitically awkward or just-plain-weird matchups that are too juicy for FIFA to resist rigging the draw:

• Australia vs. New Zealand (yes, I’m pretty sure this is possible, since they now play in different confederations, Asia and Oceania)
• South Africa vs. the Netherlands or England (the “choose your own colonialist” matchup)
• France vs. Algeria or Côte d’Ivoire or Cameroon (you know this one’s happening)
• Mexico vs. Spain (the “whose Spanish pronunciation is more correct?” matchup)
• Slovakia vs. Slovenia (the “-AK- versus -EN- mix-up match” to end all mix-up matches — even their flags are so similar that Wikipedia makes sure you’re searching for the right one!)

M.I.A.

A quick round of taps for several traditionally participating countries who should have been invited, but accidentally dumped their Save-the-Dates in the trash, thinking it was a bill or something: Ireland (cough, cough!), Croatia, Colombia, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Saudi Arabia (first missed Finals since 1990), Ukraine.

Pre-Match Anthem I’m Most Excited To Hear

This category has been officially supressed for WC2010 after Russia also failed to qualify for the finals. It’s just not a best-anthem tournament without Russia.

First Timers

No first timers in this year’s Finals! Technically, Slovakia are making their first appearance under that banner, but they’re considered to have participated as Czechoslovakia on nine separate occasions. So let’s put our hands together for Korea DPR (that’s the North, to you), absent from the Big Dance since their first and only other appearance, in 1966, when Kim Jong-Il was just a fresh-faced, mischievous young lad of twenty-five. My how the years fly by!

Le Petit Poucet

This is a nickname used in France’s domestic football cup competitions, given to the smallest village or town still active at each stage of the tournament. Plucky Slovenia (pop. 2,049,440) nipped Uruguay (3,361,000) and New Zealand (4,315,800) for the title, although tiny Bahrein (pop. 791,000) almost swiped this prize in a playoff with the Kiwis.

Africa’s Glass Slipper?

A non-European, non-South American team has still never reached the World Cup final. But “home field” advantage has helped several host nations make Cinderella runs to the semi-finals: Sweden in 1958; Chile in 1962; and South Korea in 2002. (England and France’s sole championships were also both won as hosts.)

Is this the year for Africa? Most South Africans concede that their own side, which benefited from an automatic bid but still participated in the qualification tournament and looked terrible in doing so, has no shot of playing the role of the charmed princess.

Will South African fans thus rally behind the five other African teams? The four teams considered the crème of the continental crème all survived qualifying: Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. And judging by the car horns still blaring up and down the Champs Elysées, six days after qualification, I hear Algeria’s in as well.

With no Canadian side to support, and with being a supporter of Les Bleus completely stigmatized (not to mention my Karim Benzema jersey being completely obsolete while an astrology-obsessed moron like Raymond Domenech somehow still manages to hold on to a job he should have been fired from long ago – blame French labour laws, I suppose), my biggest rooting interest in the tournament has passed to seeing an African team reach the quarterfinals. Any one of the Big Four a legitimate shot, albeit a long one. At this point, my money’s on Didier Drogba and his mates from Côte d’Ivoire, who look the continent’s most complete side. But I’ll take what I can get.

Zürich-based FIFA is already trying to make sure that the African teams don’t sneak up on the traditional favourites by forcing organizers to replace the traditional African turf, an indigenous grass called kikuyu, with more “television friendly” European ryegrass. (I continue to be completely outraged by this move.) But all is not lost. After all, they won’t have thunderstix to simultaneously energize them and deafen opponents, like the South Koreans had in 2002. But they will have these: the vuvuzela, which sounds like “a duck on speed or the wailing of a terribly ill child.”

Let the honking begin! Unless FIFA decides to ban them, too ...

Illustration by Keith Lyons

Tags: football, soccer, World Cup
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