FIFA World Cup 2014 – can a small European country win?

Half way through the 2014 FIFA World Cup the tournament can be only described as “spectacular”. There was everything. There were goals – lots of them. So far, the average number of goals scored is the highest since 1970 – that’s 44 years! And some goals these were.

There was drama – like that last minute penalty sending Greece through at the expense of Ivory Coast. There were spectacular matches like the Netherlands vs Australia roller coaster. There was the good – Costa Rica’s success is a huge surprise, there was the bad – who would have thought Spain AND Portugal will be gone by the end of the group stage and there was the ugly – none else but Luis Suárez aka The Uruguayan Dracula.

Sure, there were downsides as well. There were horrible refereeing mistakes (or were these “mistakes”, like in the opening match when Croatia was robbed?). Some matches were outright boring, like the useless 0-0 played by Iran and Nigeria. The Asian and African teams proved once again that they only come to serve as decoration until the real tournament begins. While a record 2 African teams advanced into the Top 16, the chances of Algeria or Nigeria eliminating Germany or France respectively are not high to say the least. By the time the next round is over, it will be, again, a tournament of European and American teams. And the champion will, as always, come from Europe or South America.

To me, though, the biggest result so far is the success of teams from small European countries. Of the 7 that entered, 4 advanced to the Top 16, compared to only 2 out of 6 big European countries that participated. But can a small European country  win the biggest tournament in the world? In the past, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Netherlands and Sweden all were as close as it gets – they all stood in the final and all lost. Between them, these small European countries lost 8 World Cup finals.

Why does this happen? Can’t a small country win a big tournament? Well, yes, they can! Tiny Uruguay won the World Cup twice! The same Czechoslovakia and Netherlands, as well as Greece and Denmark won the European Championship before. And its not like winning the European Championship is much easier than winning the World Cup – 10 out of 19 World Cups were won by European teams, so the competition in Europe is on pair with everything you can meet at the World Cup. If it would happen once or twice, it would be a coincidence. But 8 out of 8 is a pattern.

Patterns are made to be broken though. For example, for 50 years the World Cup was won by a European and then a South American country – until Spain succeeded Italy as champion of the world in 2010. The same Spain broke the “rule” that a European championship is not won twice in a row – until Spain’s victory in 2012 no one succesfullt defended the European title.

In this year’s World Cup, all 4 teams from small European countries are on the same “side” of the knockout stage, so there is a good chance one of them will reach the final. Making predictions about anything in the future is difficult, making predictions about football is especially difficult and making predictions about this tournament is absolutely useless in light of the spectacularly surprising results so far.

But I think there is one thing that the teams of Netherlands, Belgium, Greece and Switzerland have in common this year – they have all shown resilience and determination. They came back from trailing behind, even playing against champions of the world. They fought back even in hopeless situations, like Switzerland exposing the weakness and arrogance of France by scoring twice after trailing 5-0. They gave all they had until the last second, like Greece in their last group match. They played to win, even when there was nothing at stake, like Belgium against South Korea. This is the stuff champions are made of. And this time, maybe, just maybe, a small European country can become champion of the world.

How football bankrupted Ukraine

Ukraine has been out of the headlines in the last week, toppled by Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. But after this weekend, Ukraine will be back on top of the news, following the Crimean referendum. Its not going to be pretty for Ukraine and the question everyone will be asking is – how did it get this far? Well, I say football is to blame. This is my version of what happened.

Suppose you have a house. Its a nice house, a big one, that you have inherited from your parents. But it’s an old house, with plenty of problems – the roof is leaking, insulation is non-existent, some windows are broken and the piping is rotten. Your house needs a total overhaul to be restored to its former glory. The problem is – you have just lost your job, your wife is sick and the children need money for new school books, so you’re not exactly swimming in cash.

What would you do? You do have an asset – your house. So a reasonable option would be to take a loan with the property as guarantee, to last you through the tough times and make the repairs before the roof caves in on you. This way, you will have a solid home, your children will benefit from good education, your wife will go to a good doctor and if all goes well, with the new job you will repay the small loan you took and get your family back on your feet.

There is, of course, another option. Mortgage your whole house and spend all the money you get on a huge one-time party, making only cosmetic repairs, so that the roof doesn’t leak into the champagne and caviar you serve your guests. Invite everyone – the boss who fired you, the contractor who “fixed” the leaking roof the last time, hell, invite all your old girlfriends, too – show them how successful you’ve become in life. Who cares that the party will be over and leave you with a huge hangover, a ruined house and a loan you can’t repay? Sell your grandma’s jewelry, too, while you’re at it – no expenses can be spared for a good party!

Unfortunately, the last option is what Ukraine has done when hosting the Euro 2012. Various reports say that the tournament has cost Ukraine 10 to 14 bn USD – four to six times the original estimate! What’s even worse, half the money wasn’t event spent on unnecessary infrastructure like lavish football stadiums – it was just stolen. Who remembers now that Ukrainian media seriously claimed that Ukraine’s road to the EU will start at Euro 2012?

Football alone was not the cause of the downfall of Ukraine. The financial crisis and widespread corruption have hit Ukrainian economy hard, eventually leading to the ousting of the government of Viktor Yanukovych (and a Russian invasion). But hosting the Euro 2012 tournament has undoubtedly made the problems worse.

Ukraine’s woes must be a warning sign to other “emerging” countries that waste their assets on prestige projects. I’m talking to you, Russia and Brazil – chopping the fruit garden around your house and selling your winter coal stock to finance an even bigger party won’t make it better.

The conclusion is obvious – hosting huge events like FIFA World Cups and Olympic Games is possible only when you already have the money, the infrastructure and the judicial system that can cope with such huge money flows. Otherwise, you will be left with a herd of white elephants and a huge debt millstone hanging around your neck, like Ukraine, or Greece. And the last word about the burden of Beijing 2008 Olympics on China’s economy has not been said yet, I’m afraid.

Redefining “small”

While I have defined “Europe” and “country” in terms of football, I have failed to do the same for “small”. I will now rectify this misalignment. Since there are so many different ways of “measuring” the size of a country, the definition will remain subjective. Let me start by saying that any country that is not large must be small, so defining a “large” country will do the job just as well. Population or territory don’t define a large country sufficiently well, we need some external measure of relative importance.

In order to get in line with my other definitions, I have come up with a football-related criterion of “largeness”. Its the largest football event – the FIFA World Cup. In the past 50 years the World Cup has been hosted by a select group of nations, that have been judged capable to hold such a big venue. Within Europe the club is even more select, with only 6 members. Strictly speaking 5, but Russia will hold the 2018 World Cup and by no means can be called a small country anyway, so it counts. This selection criterion gets nicely rid of Poland and Ukraine which I have been struggling with anyway. Dwarfed by much larger neighbours – Germany and Russia –  these guys need each other just to organise the Euro 2012. Obviously they are not mighty enough to be called “large”. However, this leads to a new issue – Turkey. It has never hosted a World Cup and has no plans to host one for the coming years. Well, in my view it says more about Turkey than the selection criterion – just having the numbers (population of 80 million) doesn’t make you big.

As a check, we can look at the hosting of the Summer Olympic Games. In the post-war period, the Games have been hosted 8 times by a European country. The Helsinki Games have been postponed due to the war and don’t really count. The only other small country to have hosted the Games was Greece. While the pursuit of the Olympic dream can hardly be blamed for Greece’s current problems, it was not helpful to say the least. The event has proven that a small country just can’t handle it on its own. Scrapping Finland and Greece, obviously small countries, the list is almost the same as the list of the European countries that have hosted the World Cup. France is the big absent,  but its not due to lack of trying. Poor Paris has put up a bid three times in the past 25 years, only to lose time and again (the French? Losing? Who would have thought…).

So where does this all put us? Ukraine, Poland and Turkey join the list of small European countries. Congratulations! And the big guys are:

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